“But ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”
Rom. 8:15,16
“The Lord has not revealed the names of the elect saved, but He has revealed the name of the elect Savior.”
John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan
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Order of Contents
Historical 2
Means of Assurance; Regularly Given in Using Means 2
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Articles
Anthology of the Post-Reformation
Heppe, Heinrich – ch. 23, ‘The Fixity of the Covenant of Grace, or the Perseverance of the Saints’ in Reformed Dogmatics ed. Ernst Bizer, tr. G.T. Thomson Pre Buy (1861; Wipf & Stock, 2007), pp. 581-90
Heppe (1820–1879) was a German reformed theologian.
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1600’s
Davenant, John – Question 3, ‘True Believers can be Sure of their Own Salvation’ in The Determinations, or Resolutions of Certain Theological Questions, Publicly Discussed in the University of Cambridge trans. Josiah Allport (1634; 1846), pp. 226-34 bound at the end of John Davenant, A Treatise on Justification, or the Disputatio de Justitia... trans. Josiah Allport (1631; London, 1846), vol. 2
Rutherford, Samuel – Rutherford’s Examination of Arminianism: the Tables of Contents with Excerpts from Every Chapter tr. Charles Johnson & Travis Fentiman (1638-1642; 1668; RBO, 2019), ch. 14
section 3, ‘Whether the Arminians rightly deny there to be any certainty of our salvation? We deny against the same.’, pp. 115-16
section 4, ‘Whether or not a greater certainty is required by us than that which the nature of a free act itself bears? We affirm against the Remonstrants.’, pp. 117-18
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1700’s
à Brakel, Wilhelmus – ch. 94, ‘Unbelief Concerning One’s [Regenerate] Spiritual State’ in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 4 ed. Joel Beeke, tr. Bartel Elshout Buy (1700; RHB, 1992/1999), pp. 207-35
a Brakel (1635-1711) was a contemporary of Voet and Witsius and a major representative of the Dutch Further Reformation.
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Books
1500’s
Perkins, William – A Case of Conscience, the Greatest that ever was, how a Man may Know Whether he be the Son of God or No… Whereunto is added a Brief Discourse taken out of Jerome Zanchius [on the same subject] (Edinburgh, 1592) 75 pp. Also in RHB, 8.595-638
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1900’s
Berkhof, Louis – The Assurance of Faith: the Firm Foundation of the Christian Hope Buy 86 pp.
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Quotes
Samuel Rutherford
A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience… (1649), ch. 1, p. 14
“For Dr. [Tobias] Crisp and the Libertines [Antinomians] of New England, whose doctrine subverts the faith, say, there can be no marks of saving grace from whence we can draw either comfort or peace, ‘be it universal obedience, sincerity, love to the Brethren, but it may be in hypocrites, in a Jew following the righteousness of the law, Rom. 10:1, and renouncing Christ.’
Surely if works of saving grace speak no other thing than hypocrites and devils may have, then:
First, holy walking is no ground of comfort and a good conscience has no more to yield David, Job, Hezekiah, Paul, the apostles and martyrs when they suffer for Christ and his truth, and are in heavy afflictions and chains than it can yield to the vilest of men.
2. A man, a Christian shall never find any grounds of certainty of his adoption in anything, save in the hidden decrees of election and reprobation, and if some immediate testimony of a Spirit, which may be [a] great doubt to many who walk as many Antinomians do, according to the flesh.
3. All their rejoicing in simplicity and godly sincerity, 2 Cor. 1:12, is empty fancies and delusions, for they rejoice in that in which hypocrites and reprobates may have as deep a share as they. But that there is also some immediate testimony of the Spirit, though never separated from the fruits of the Spirit, I hope to prove elsewhere.”
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An old Scottish pastor, John Brown of Haddington (†1787), speaking to a dear, older Christian lady on her death bed.
Robert Mackenzie, John Brown of Haddington (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918), pp. 101-2
‘Janet,’ he asked, ‘what would you say if, after all He has done for you, God should let you drop into hell?’ ‘Even as He likes,’ came the answer, ‘if He does, He’ll lose more than I’ll do.’
[Meaning: She would lose her eternal soul, but He would lose his faithfulness and veracity]
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John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan
“Assurance is a grace, and like every other grace is sovereign.”
“Assurance is attainable. God does not call to what is in its own nature impossible.”
“We need a more forward-moving Christianity, with more of the plerophoria [fullness of faith] in it; which is not ‘in full assurance of faith’, but ‘in the full sail of faith’ — bearing right on with the wind; all canvas up.”
“Without holiness no man shall see the Lord — that principle you have to do with for evidence of your saintship, but the evidences will not do for the battle, you must go to the foundation [which is Christ].”
“Ah! confound not faith with assurance: confound not turning to God with what comes upon return to God, and comes more and more upon return to and close walking with God.”
“When the doctrine of assurance being necessarily contained in faith, so as to be essential to it, gets into a church, in the second generation it gets habituated to the use of the highest appropriating language by dead, carnal men.”
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Historical
Article
Cunningham, William – ‘The Reformers & the Doctrine of Assurance’ (1862), p. 111, 47 pp. from his Reformers & the Theology of the Reformation
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Book
Beeke, Joel –
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There are means to attain assurance & assurance is regularly given, in various strengths of degree, in the use of the means, this general promise being in principle to all believers, as such, though the varied fulfillment & distribution of the blessings be qulaified by God’s Sovereignty, & a full, certain & infallible assurance, for whatever length of time(s), may only be given to some
Bible Verses
2 Pet. 1:4-11 “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises… giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge… temperance, patience… godliness, brotherly kindness… charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ… give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Jn. 14:21 “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
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Quotes
Francis Turretin
Institutes, ed. James Dennison, Jr. (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1994), vol. 2, 15th Topic, question 17, ‘Whether the believer can and ought to be certain of his faith and justification by a divine and not merely conjectural certainty. We affirm…’
sections 7-8, pp. 618-19
“VII… a divine and infallible certainty which exists or can ordinarily exist in every believer… from the grace of the Spirit by the energy (energeian) of faith, which, resting upon the external promises of the Word and the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, exerts itself in all more or less, but as much as suffices for true consolation.
(2) The question is not whether that certainty can be in the believer without the use of means (i.e., the desire for holiness and the exercise of repentance and the actual purpose of living piously… Fir we hold that these are not to be wrested apart from each other and that persuasion cannot proceed into act without the desire of holiness. For He gave his promises to those walking in that way alone, and there are the indubitable effects and signs (gnorismata) of true faith and justification.
VIII… For since it does not exist in us… without the use of means, it is certain that when these means are not used or when the contrary are used, the act itself cannot be put forth… But this does not prevent the foundation from always being in the believer and the principle from which (if he rightly considers his own state and the divine promise) he can deduce this actual full confidence (plerophorian).”
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section 18, p. 624
“…although the testimony of the Spirit cannot be granted in us without the use of means (i.e., the desire of holiness), it does not follow that it is doubtful and uncertain because even these means are promised to us by God and procured for us by the Spirit.”
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section 34, p. 630
“XXXIV. Since the certainty which we urge ought to be always ought to be always connected with the use of means, we search for it in vain in the impenitent sinner… He ought not to be ignorant that perseverence in sin is inconsistent (asystaton) with that certainty.”
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sections 36-37, pp. 630-31
“XXXVI. As the certainty of perseverance is the consolation of the laboring, not the mother of security… since it can be granted only to those walking in the path of holiness… This is properly the fruit of the soul confirmed in the Lord and of the exercised senses. Therefore those who are not as yet confirmed must press forward by degrees and perceptibly in the ways of the Lord…
XXXVII… Such is the holy security of the pious, which not only does not exclude watchfulness and the desire for piety, but necessarily supposes them as the certain means of their own preservation.”
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“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises… and beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ… Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:”
2 Pet. 1:4-10
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