My title this morning, friends, is Assurance and
Conduct, the third study in our series on
the Puritan view of sanctification.
James Denney, whom we know as the author
of one of the great books on the
New Testament, Witness to the Atonement, once said
this, that the test, the acid test of
any version of Christianity is its attitude to
assurance, some regard it as presumption, some regard
it as a duty.
The New Testament, says Denney, proclaims it as
a fact.
In fact, at the time of the Reformation
also, assurance was being proclaimed as a fact.
And the connection between faith, saving faith, and
assurance, and Christian joy, was being emphasized by
Luther and Calvin and their successors.
In the Puritan period, assurance was proclaimed as
a duty, because the Puritan pastors recognized that
many Christians weren't entering into the experience of
their Reformation forebears.
What does this mean?
Not, I think, and let me say straight
away, that the conception of Christianity had radically
changed between Calvin and the Puritans.
Some scholars have argued this, I think it's
demonstrably untrue.
But it meant, rather, that the Puritans coveted
for their congregations the same experience of the
Holy Spirit in their own hearts and lives,
as they knew that some of the pioneers
of the Reformation movement had had.
So that their preaching of assurance as a
duty, and at the same time as a
gift from God, was simply a way of
exhorting their congregations to seek God regarding assurance,
and deal with God, and let God deal
with them regarding assurance.
And this thought is our lead in.
The Puritans were supremely concerned that Christian men
should know the blessing of assurance.
Right from the start of the Puritan movement
in England, in the later years of Elizabeth's
reign, this was a central concern for the
Puritan preachers and pastors, because they found themselves,
right from the start, overwhelmed with a certain
type of pastoral problem that recurred again and
again.
They referred to it as the problem of
the afflicted conscience, or of the people who
were troubled by melancholy.
Those actually are two distinct or related things,
we shouldn't quite equate them.
Melancholy is a state of depression, spiritual depression,
which, as the Puritans understood it, had at
any rate some physical root.
When they spoke on the other hand of
the afflicted conscience, they were thinking of a
state of spiritual trouble and depression which didn't
have roots in the physical constitution, but was
created wholly by trouble about the truth of
God and its application to the life of
the individual.
But yet, many people who had afflicted consciences
had their condition complicated by melancholy.
So the two things, the two classes of
troubles in fact merged into one as the
Puritans viewed it.
And constantly, at the end of the 16th
century and on from that time, the Puritan
pastors were, one might almost say, besieged.
This is the right word, besieged, by many,
many people who were troubled in this way,
who knew that these Puritan ministers could cope
with such trouble, and they came literally from
miles and they queued up at the pastor's
houses to try and get help and relief
for their troubled conscience.
And the Puritans, faced with this cluster problem,
sought to lead those with whom they dealt
not simply into the reality of saving faith
and repentance, but also the reality of assurance.
And they often preached about assurance and they
often wrote about assurance and some of the
great Puritan treatises have to do directly with
this subject of assurance.
That little book which John Owen commended, I
think a little extravagantly, but this was Owen's
honest judgement, he commended it as having more
divinity in it than in all the folios
that he'd written.
That's a little book by Thomas Guthrie entitled
The Christian's Great Interest, that is a work
about assurance.
And one of the books recommended by the
tireless Mr. Riesinger at this conference, Thomas Brooks,
Heaven on Earth, is subtitled A Scriptural Discourse
Touching a Well-Grounded Assurance.
Note, by the way, that word well-grounded.
As anxious as the Puritans were to lead
men and women into the reality of Christianity,
they were terribly, terribly anxious not to lead
them into the disastrous bypass meadow of what
they used to call assurance, which was not,
as they would have said, soundly bottomed, not
firmly grounded, not therefore an assurance that will
stand when the great day of testing comes.
False assurance, the Puritans believed, was a real
danger.
This was one of the ways in which
the deceitfulness of sin and the deceitfulness of
the fallen human heart expressed itself, men are
prone to false peace.
Men are prone to indulge themselves in groundless
assurance.
Or putting it in the theological way in
which the Puritans put it, men are prone
to speak peace to themselves when God does
not speak peace to them.
Why is this?
Well the Puritans analysed it in great detail.
It's due to the temper and the propensities
which indwelling sin has imparted to the human
heart, the human mind, in the realm of
spiritual things.
Arrogance, conceit about one's own spiritual condition leads
to false assurance.
Obstinacy in believing that because you've been in
the church all these years it's just not
possible that you shouldn't be a Christian.
Unwillingness to rethink the matter, unwillingness to change
one's mind, unwillingness to admit that there might
be a reason for doubting one's security, this
too leads men into false peace and anchors
them there.
So does ignorance, said the Puritans.
If men don't understand the gospel, if they
don't know what faith and repentance and new
birth are, well they're in great danger of
supposing that they're right with God when they're
not right with God.
Equally, sloth and sleepiness, as habits of the
fallen human mind, betray men into false peace.
They will not seriously apply to themselves the
things that they may hear preached very well
and very fully and very clearly concerning what
faith and repentance and new birth and the
set of a regenerate heart really are.
They hear these things but they won't apply
them and they never realise therefore that these
things, if applied, would expose them but for
want of that realisation, they go on in
their false peace.
Similarly, fallen man is prone to legalism.
He's prone to suppose that if he's got
a form of the practice of godliness, of
whatever sort, he's all right.
And many people in the churches of the
Puritans, and it's surely as true today as
it was then, they've got the form all
right.
They do all the correct things.
They go through all the right notions.
And so they're quite sure that they're right
with God as truly Christians as anyone else
and they've got assurance.
They're quite sure they're all right with God.
As they beam, the smile is on their
faces, they rejoice at it.
But it's false peace, the Puritans would say.
And if people who come in that category
are ever to be saved, then somehow or
other, that false peace has got to be
taken away from them.
And they've got to learn to rest their
life on a better foundation than yet they
found.
And the Puritans highlighted in their preaching the
danger of false peace.
Man is prone to it, and when man
falls into it, they said, it's utterly disastrous
and ruinous for his soul.
They knew men are prone to pharisaism.
They knew men and women are prone to
what we might call Ananias and Sapphiraism.
They knew that men and women are still
prone to fall into the mistake into which
Eve was entrapped.
They say, if you look at a man's
thoughts and if you look at his life
and if he's willing to expose himself to
you so that you can see what manner
of person he is, well then it will
become obvious that he's not converted from the
way that his mind's working, from the way
that he's living and you'll be able to
show him.
But the tragedy is that so many people
will not expose themselves to you.
You ask them questions, you probe, and they
simply get offended and won't reply.
And so you can't effectively expose to them
the groundlessness of their hope and the falseness
of their peace.
Well this is how the Puritans saw the
problem of false assurance.
Self-deception and the fallen human heart at
this particular point.
And so you see the Puritans had a
double problem here.
On the one hand, they were desperately anxious
that men and women coming into faith should
also be led into the fullness of assurance.
On the other hand, they were desperately anxious
that no one should be allowed to remain
in a state of false peace or encouraged
to slump into a state of false peace.
A double problem then.
A sower and a charybdis of error both
to be avoided.
And the Puritans sought to lead their congregation
between these two extremes of error into true
faith and true assurance.
And they stressed the high privilege of assurance.
And they stressed the assurance of the transforming
blessing.
And they stressed the assurance that its fullness
might often come quite late on in a
Christian's life.
And that it was a blessing which he
would need to seek for specifically from the
Lord very often before it came to him.
And they sought to explain this and to
encourage men to seek the fullness of true
assurance.
They were in fact a little distrustful if
the transports of rapture that accompanied a man's
first profession of faith were too late.
When they saw a young convert or a
professed convert just buddling over they didn't immediately
write him off but it did occur to
them to wonder whether he'd really become acquainted
with the depths of sin in his own
heart.
They looked to see the roots of humility
self-abhorrence going with that overflow of joy
and they were a little hesitant and a
little anxious when they couldn't clearly see it.
They never forgot you see that it was
the stony ground hearers in the Lord's parable
who received the word with such notable and
exuberant joy and they didn't last.
True, sound, thorough converts said the Puritans may
start like that but not always, not even
usually.
Full assurance they said is a rare blessing
even amongst adults.
It's a great and precious privilege which God
doesn't bestow indiscriminately.
I quote from Brooks from their treatise which
I've already referred to Assurance is a mercy
too good for most men's hearts.
Right Brooks?
God will only give it to his best
and dearest friends.
And he writes again Assurance is the beauty
and top of a Christian's glory in this
life.
It's usually attended with the strongest joy with
the sweetest comfort and with the greatest peace
but it's the crown that few wear.
Or again he says Assurance is meat for
strong men.
Few babes if any are able to bear
it and digest it.
And the Puritans went on to say Full
assurance in the sense in which they're speaking
of it isn't usually enjoyed except by those
who first sought it from God and served
God faithfully and patiently for a time without
it.
Yes this was their doctrine I quote Brooks
in this time Assurance comes in as a
reward of faith writes Goodwin A man's faith
must fight first and have a conquest and
then assurance is the crown and the triumph
of faith and what tries faith more than
temptations and fears and doubts and reasonings against
a man's own estate and that triumphing assurance
or Romans 38 Romans 8 37 and following
comes after a trial as none are crowned
till they have striven so the Puritans believed
it generally was assurance in its fullness would
come after faith and you'd need to seek
it from God as a special blessing and
it might well be that you'd have to
travel some distance and some distance over before
God brought you to the point where triumphing
assurance in its fullness Assurance in its fullness
you see as the Puritans understood it is
not Brooks says it's a faith beneath it
it's well being rather than it being it
is an aspect of faith if you like
a development of faith which normally appears only
when faith has been tested when faith has
been tried when faith has grown that was
their point of view now before we go
any further let's just contrast that with the
point of view regarding assurance which I suppose
is shared by most of us certainly which
is shared by the majority of 20 we
too believe that assurance is a privilege a
duty a gift of God something which a
Christian ought to have but we approach the
whole subject don't we in quite a different
way from that in which the Puritans approached
it we are used I suppose most of
us to the counselling room routine of holding
forth the word of scripture like John 1
12 as many as received him for them
gave and we say to the man who
a moment ago was signing a decision card
well now you see the promise do you
believe it and the chap says yes and
we say well now have you believed on
his name the chap said yes that's what
I was signing the decision card for and
then we say well don't you see this
means that you've become a child of God
there's your assurance now you can get the
job of giving assurance finished in five minutes
if you do it that way but you
see how different it is from the Puritan
approach for the moment all I ask you
to do is to observe just how different
it is we can make the evaluation later
just at the moment here is assurance giving
given on the basis of a bare profession
of faith perhaps only a few minutes old
certainly a profession of faith that hasn't been
tested by life here again is assurance being
given on the basis of a bare inference
you hold up a text of scripture major
premise of the syllogism you remind the man
that he has believed that he has made
a profession of faith minor premise of the
syllogism and then you draw the inference if
it's true that everyone who receives Jesus Christ
and believes on his name becomes a child
of God and if it's true that you
have professed to receive Jesus Christ and believe
on his name then conclusion you have become
a child of God and this is assurance
given on the basis of a bare inference
not necessarily confirmed by the Holy Spirit and
at this point the differences I want to
underline are that the Puritans required both the
things that we don't require they require that
of and they were slow to give those
with whom they dealt assurance about their assurance
and similarly the Puritans were concerned that assurance
should be directly a gift of the Holy
Spirit directly a matter of spiritual experience and
not just something of which the pastor or
the counselor assures you by carrying through this
kind of reasoning from scripture now as I
say we can draw the inferences and make
the evaluations later for the moment all I
want to say is that quite evidently the
Puritans required more before they gave assurance before
they gave assurance about assurance than we do
and the question is well which really is
the more scriptural the more wise the more
fruitful line of pastoral procedure we don't of
course have to assume at this stage that
the Puritans were right in everything they did
that differed from what we do and that
we're necessarily wrong in everything we do that
they didn't we can't take that for granted
we have to reason it through well that
perhaps we'll be able to do for the
moment though all I'm asking you to do
is to know and to consider with me
the questions which are inevitably raised in us
how great this difference is now questions of
this sort must be answered is to think
it through from scripture with Puritan references and
illustrations rather than to think it through historically
and that's how I'm going to lay this
exposition out and I invite you therefore first
to consider with me from the scriptures the
nature of assurance and then we'll think about
the value of assurance and then about the
work of the Holy Spirit in assurance and
then about pastoral problems concerning assurance think with
me first then about the nature of assurance
to answer this question I take you again
as I did on Monday night to the
8th chapter of the epistle to the Romans
which Charles Hodge and many other commentators regard
as the classic New Testament statement of Christian
assurance a rhapsody on assurance is Hodge's way
of describing it here Paul lays out in
its fullest sum and substance by just going
through in sequence all the things of which
the Christian is assured we are asking what
is the nature of assurance from Romans 8
I suggest two things in answer to this
question first, assurance is a conviction a conviction
for which reasons can be given as distinct
from just a feeling of joy and all
rightness for which no reason can be given
the Puritans distrusted emotions which came upon one
and yet couldn't be justified by reason or
irrational or non-rational states of feeling William
Ames once said that Arminian universal grace that
the conviction of Arminian universal grace could simply
be the result of a good dinner and
the Puritans were well aware that moods and
states of feeling and states of you so
they were insistent that assurance as Romans 8
presents it is a conviction for which reasons
can be given and not a feeling for
which no reason can be given I am
persuaded says Paul in Romans 8 38 I
am persuaded by reasons I can give reasons
for my conviction it is a rational conviction
and this conviction appears in the 8th chapter
of Romans as an aspect and a quality
of self-conscious instructed faith here is Paul
in this chapter confessing his faith it starts
as a confession of faith very personal the
law of the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death verse 2 and then
he extends and speaks in terms of us
himself and other true believers with him but
what he is doing you see throughout the
whole chapter the mere layout of it shows
is confessing going through sequentially the various things
that are true of us who have been
set free from the law of sin and
death us who have been brought out of
the state of sin and the state of
spiritual darkness despair by the grace of Jesus
Christ and he rises to this final expression
of conviction I am persuaded that nothing in
heaven or earth is able to separate us
from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord it's then a conviction
which is an aspect of self-conscious and
it is in fact a double conviction and
this is how the certain gospel facts as
being truths as being facts and not fictions
and secondly it's a conviction of our own
personal interest to use the Puritan word in
those facts that all these facts apply to
me what are the facts well there's a
whole series of godly blessings reviewed in the
8th chapter of the Romans promises of the
covenant of God elements in the salvation of
Christ no condemnation the blessing of justification verses
1 and following the gift of the Holy
Spirit to indwell verses 9 and following the
gift of adoption whereby one becomes the son
and heir of God verse 15 and following
the knowledge that all circumstances work together for
one's good verse 28 and the knowledge that
God will see that they do so that
if one's afraid circumstances will overwhelm one one
has immediately the answer to that fear God
will never let it happen God is in
charge of circumstances and he'll see that nothing
is given you that's too hard for you
but that everything that is given for you
is for your good because it will have
the effect of strengthening your faith and leading
you on step by step closer to Christ
and closer to glory similarly in the last
paragraph of the chapter as we were considering
Paul elaborates and develops the whole thought no
blessing can be withheld from us Christ's love
is upon us and nothing in time or
eternity can ever alter that it starts with
no condemnation it ends with no separation nothing
able to separate us from the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord
now these are the gospel facts which are
true of everyone who is Christ there is
such a reality of justification there is such
a gift of the indwelling spirit there is
such a thing as adoption into God's family
there is such a thing as particular providence
there is such a thing as the special
help of God and the personal love of
Christ these things are not fictions they're facts
they're reality and the basis of the conviction
which we call assurance is the certainty that
these things are facts they are realities heaven
and earth may pass away but these things
abide they are God's facts nothing can ever
change them the Puritans knew the reality of
temptations to atheism to Sicilianism to unbelief of
the Christian facts you mustn't suppose that because
it was a day a day of Christian
culture when you didn't have organized forces of
sect and in ordinary social life in the
way that you have today you mustn't suppose
that on that account everybody was quite clear
and quite persuaded that Christianity was true and
that there was no problem of doubt and
the temptation to unbelief and the denial of
the faith just because sin is sin and
Satan is Satan men are always tempered in
every age to deny the gospel and to
deny the reality of God and the Puritans
had to cope with this and they wrote
a good deal about it and they preached
a good deal with a view to relieving
men and helping them to strengthen their faith
by argument so that their doubts about the
truth of the Christian text might be resolved
things are nothing like as different in this
20th century as compared with the 17th our
problems were their problems and at point after
point they've gone through the mill and they
in my judgment have found the answer here
then is the first element in the conviction
that constitutes assurance conviction that the gospel facts
are true and then the second element the
conviction of one's own interest in those facts
the conviction that one is included in the
us and the we of Romans 8 the
conviction that all these good things which Paul
and those for whom he spoke enjoyed are
mine by the gift of God I'm included
in this blessed circle I'm one of these
blessed people this salvation has come to me
that's assurance the gospel is true and I'm
in it these are God's facts and they're
my blessings that's the first thing that Romans
8 shows us then about assurance it is
a conviction and this is the content of
it the second thing Romans 8 shows us
about assurance is that assurance is the gift
and work of the Holy Spirit that's quite
clear in verse 16 the Spirit himself bears
witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God that's the explanation of I
am persuaded in verse 38 the fact that
in verse 16 the Spirit bears witness with
our spirit it's the spirit given assurance that
Paul is confessing in that last sentence of
the chapter and this was a Puritan point
too inferential assurance bare inferential assurance is not
really what the New Testament means by assurance
said the Puritan assurance is more than that
assurance is a God given conviction of one
standing in grace stamped on the mind and
heart by the Holy Spirit supernaturally in just
the same sense in which the truth of
the gospel says was stamped on the mind
supernaturally in the days when faith was born
and assurance spirit given assurance of the Puritan
carries with it the same immediate certainty as
does this initial conviction this inescapable conviction which
comes to all those who are brought to
living faith that the gospel facts really are
true and they're inescapable and I must face
them and I must respond to them and
the Christ of the gospel is real and
I must have dealings with him for he
is speaking to me so Brooks writes assurance
is the reflex act of a gracious soul
whereby he clearly and evidently sees himself in
a gracious blessed and happy state it is
a sensible feeling and an experimental discerning of
a man's being in a state of grace
operative words here are sensible and experimental what
Brooks means is that this is assurance an
assurance that is conscious an assurance that is
accompanied by feeling because it's an assurance stamped
on the heart by the Holy Spirit it
won't exist until it pleases God to give
it the young convert's position as the Puritans
understood it is this as he believes and
obeys in the light of his spirit given
conviction that the facts of the gospel are
true he will certainly know a measure of
peace and joy because real believing will at
once bring an element of real comfort as
Goodwin says in his quaint way no man
looks upon Christ but cometh off more cheerly
or as Sibbes put it there's a voice
of God's spirit speaking peace to his people
upon their believing there is then a measure
of assurance right from the start and the
young Christian may think and hope and with
some warrants that he is a child of
God but he can't this is the Puritan
point that he cannot say in the unqualified
sense of John's first epistle in the unqualified
sense of Romans 8-16 that he knows
his sonship until the spirit has set this
certainty home on his heart and this normally
will be after believing perhaps some time after
rather than at the moment not necessarily so
but commonly so this is a distinct work
of the spirit and after all Paul dealt
with the entry into saving faith as long
ago as Romans 3 until the spirit has
set assurance home well he hasn't yet he
hasn't yet entered into the fullness of it
as Romans 8 describes it still he says
or sometimes he says as he reads Romans
8 oh I wish I were there and
it's something which normally comes after conversion well
there's the nature of assurance according to Romans
8 and according to the Puritans a conviction
of one's interest in the gospel faith given
by the witness of the Holy Spirit in
a man's heart we may find it difficult
to get the full point of this I
wonder if we do I think some of
us have an assurance as I called it
that we've just never thought of assurance as
being the positive radiant exuberant thing which Romans
8 declares it to be and which the
Puritans knew it to be are we perhaps
defining the word assurance as something less wonderful
than the New Testament shows it to be
are our stripes high enough let's ask ourselves
that question as we go along we'll come
back to it a second to some of
course in Christian history assurance has always appeared
the Puritans meant assurance in the full Romans
8 sense including assurance in the love of
Christ and Arminians for instance have always said
that this is bad because no man here
and now can guarantee that he will persevere
to the end in the love of Christ
it depends on him but Rome of
course had always carried this line of reasoning
one stage further and said that assurance and
confidence is positively sin and to be discouraged
where you find it but you only have
to read through Romans 8 once to see
that this is not in fact the apostolic
one you only have to read through Romans
8 once to see that assurance is in
truth the main spring of peace and hope
in their positive Christian sense the sense in
which indeed our sermon last night was pointing
us to it you know where you stand
with God the grace of Christ has come
to you you see what it means you
see it means that you're safe you're secure
you're with God in his love an air
of his glory and nothing can ever change
that and it so thrills you and your
whole life now really is bubbling over and
bubbling over for good reason somebody asked a
question yesterday weren't the Puritans too preoccupied with
sin I answered as I'd been told to
answer in a sentence no they weren't it
was suggested to me afterwards that the Puritans
had their sights trained and most of them
lived in the joy of assurance and what
if we were to use this word preoccupied
them with not sin though they certainly knew
that one would be very unwise not to
face the reality and the pervasiveness of sin
the glory of God's grace they lived their
life in the joy and the delight of
knowing that this grace was theirs I think
perhaps when we read their sermons you know
we miss this partly because we don't recognize
it when we see it this kind of
assurance is such a strange thing these days
shining through Brooks shining through Thomas Watson shining
through Richard Sibbes I mention those three particularly
shining through Bunyan as well shining through Owen
too but not perhaps quite so brightly as
in those writers and we rise from our
reading and say weren't they preoccupied with sin
we just can't see what's there Amen The
peace, the hope, the joy that assurance brings
to the heart is just unspeakable it's not
they said an incentive to slackness any more
than Paul's assurance as set out in Romans
8 was an incentive to slackness in his
life the very thought with him is absurd
and so is the absurd and so Christian
said the Puritan knowledge of how much God
has loved you doesn't make you slack in
serving him what it does is to make
you love him more and make you more
responsive in spending and being spent in doing
his will just as in holy matrimony to
keep saying to each other I love you
doesn't make the other partner indifferent but has
the opposite effect said the Puritans God's grace
and assurance whereby repeatedly he says to the
soul I love you doesn't make us indifferent
and presumptuous and careless but rather it thrills
us the more and makes us the more
responsive and so the Puritans wrote that when
supernatural assurance in its fullness dawns it transforms
a man's whole Christian life it's a new
conversion says Goodwin it will make a man
differ from himself in what he was before
in that manner also almost as conversion just
before he was converted there's a new addition
of all a man's graces it sounds startling
but Goodwin means what he says and he
goes on to develop the thought assurance he
says increases faith faith in its phrase receives
a new degree and this invigoration of faith
which said the Puritans is the mother grace
from which all other this invigoration of faith
results in a new release of spiritual energy
at every point in a man's Christian life
in the first place it deepens his communion
with the triune God in meditating on what
Goodwin calls the plot the plan of redeeming
love and so Goodwin writes in assurance a
man's communion and converse is sometimes with the
Father then with the Son then with the
Holy Ghost in which the heart is drawn
out to consider the Father's love in choosing
and then the love of Christ in redeeming
and so the love of the Holy Ghost
that searches for these things of God and
reveals them to us and takeeth all the
pains with us and says Goodwin we should
never be satisfied until we've attained this until
all three persons as it were as we
sit in the midst of them while they
all manifest their love to us this is
John's communion 1 John 1 4 our communion
is with the Father and this is the
highest it is last sermon John 14 when
you remember he says that the Father and
He would come to the soul of the
man who loved Him and kept His commandments
and the Father and the Son through the
Spirit and with the Spirit would manifest themselves
to Him this is a favourite passage with
Goodwin who often develops this thought so incidentally
does John Owen read his treatise of communion
with the Father Son and Holy Ghost in
volume 2 of his connected works only 48
dollars a set only 3 dollars a volume
and that isn't all says Goodwin the coming
of assurance also quickens the spiritual understanding by
its quote the eye of the soul is
strengthened to see further into God's truth and
all God's truths are more clearly known by
this also assurance makes a man bold and
powerful in prayer about what he was before
and it makes him holier quote Goodwin again
all assurance that is true assurance makes a
man holy and Brooks writes nothing makes the
heart more in the love, study, practice and
growth of holiness than the glorious testimony of
the Holy Spirit furthermore assurance makes a man
tireless in Christian service writes Goodwin when once
the love of God is shed abroad in
a man's heart it makes a man work
for God ten times more than before the
Puritans are sometimes accused of having not been
strong enough somebody said this to me in
this conference surely the Puritans weren't strong enough
on the duty of individual witness and soul
winning well here's Brooks assuring a man upon
the winning of others a soul under assurance
is unwilling to go to heaven without company
and finally assurance brings with it the joy
unspeakable and full of glory of 1 Peter
1.8 which is one of Goodwin's favorite
texts in this connection so you see the
kind of assurance that Paul talks of in
Romans 8 and that the Puritans speak of
as full assurance it doesn't encourage presumption and
laziness it is in fact the strongest possible
incentive against sin because its possessor knows that
if he sins he'll jeopardize his assurance by
prompting God to withdraw it and there's nothing
that he's more anxious to avoid than that
herein are the fruits of assurance from this
we see the value of assurance in assurance
let's put this on a broad base and
go right to it from the start the
work of the spirit in general said the
Puritans is to witness to spiritual realities so
that we become persuaded that they are indeed
realities thus the Holy Ghost's business is to
bring conviction and he does at different levels
first illumination as the theologians call it Calvin's
inner witness of the Holy Spirit to the
scripture as the word of God and to
scripture teaching as the truth of God this
is the reference when in 1st John 2
the spirit is spoken of as an unction
that teaches this is the reference when in
Matthew 11 Christ praises the Father for revealing
these things the things that is concerning himself
and his saviourhood to babes hiding them from
the wise and foolish revealing them unto babes
this is the reference to when in 1st
Corinthians 2 4 Paul speaks of preaching the
word in demonstration of the spirit and power
all these passages have reference to the work
of the spirit witnessing to the objective reality
of spiritual things convincing men that they are
so evangelistic preaching effective whenever a person comes
out of unbelief in the faith and then
secondly following on from this the Holy Spirit's
second work is his work of effectual calling
which is illumination plus it's illumination plus that
work of renewal in the heart that prompts
a man to close with the gospel promises
to respond to the gospel invitations as we
say to come to Christ as the Puritans
said too to come to Christ and to
close with Christ that was one of their
phrases and to commit himself wholeheartedly to the
mercy of Christ in the gospel and we've
already seen the Puritans acknowledge that when the
spirit of God brings a person to conscious
trust in those facts he's now convinced then
there is inevitably a measure of confidence a
measure of assurance the man knows what he's
doing and as he's persuaded that these things
are true and that God is true and
keeps his promises so he cannot put his
trust in Christ and the promises without some
measure of conscious confidence even though there may
be all kinds of problems with his spirit
visiting him from time to time at this
stage and for a time he may not
know where he is like John Wesley the
day after he feels his heart strangely warmed
he may find doubt flooding in again and
it may take him a time after his
conversion to settle his equilibrium but this isn't
the whole story says the Puritans full assurance
of which we are speaking is something more
than this and the spirit of God leads
on before Jesus and proves their love by
keeping his commandments as he requires John 14
you remember the spirit leads such on to
full assurance in the Romans 8 sense and
this is a third stage in the work
of the spirit giving assurance the inner witness
to the Christian that he is in truth
a child of God in truth an heir
of glory and this is witnesses with our
spirit that we are the children of God
it is a distinct work says the Puritans
how did they expand it well in detail
they differed among themselves but when you stand
back and assess their differences you realize that
the differences don't in fact amount to very
much because in one way or another they
were all of them saying that in this
work of the spirit that we are the
children of God there are two elements they
differed as to how exactly the two elements
were related we needn't go into that because
they were agreed that the two elements must
go together and in full assurance they must
both be there and here they are element
number one the spirit confirming to our consciousness
to our conscious awareness that God really has
wrought savingly in us bringing us to real
faith bringing us to real repentance really changing
our nature really renewing our hearts really taking
us out of the old path of sinful
living and bringing us into the new evangelical
path of obedient righteous living the spirit as
the Puritans put it enables us to see
our graces and of course they are not
ours this is simply seeing and recognizing and
not being able any longer to doubt that
God has wrought in one a real change
that one's profession of faith that one's profession
of repentance isn't empty that one isn't self
deceived but that God has changed one's heart
God has brought one into a new way
altogether and so Goodwin writes the spirit writes
first of all graces in us by renewing
our nature and then teaches our consciences to
read without the spirit's aid a man doesn't
recognize the spirit's handiwork in himself writes Goodwin
again if he do not give in his
testimony wisdom your graces are no witness at
all this is a special work of the
spirit enabling you to see that really God
has transformed you and made you a new
creature that's one element and in the phrase
the spirit bears witness with our spirit some
of the Puritans insisted that our spirit there
is our conscience our reason consciously judging ourselves
with regard to morals and that the phrase
refers first and foremost to this work of
the spirit making us aware as we review
our life examine ourselves see how we're living
that God has indeed transformed us and we're
not what we were he's set our feet
on the rock he's made it our nature
and our desire supremely to walk in his
ways this is his mercy this is his
saving grace we are new creatures in Christ
and if so now this is the reality
of God's work in us and to draw
the inference you see, in that manner but
then there's a second element over and above
that which others lay particular emphasis on underlining
the phrase the spirit himself bears witness this
is a direct and immediate sense of God's
fatherly love given as a kind of immediate
communication like God saying I love you to
my son like a father saying I love
you to his child as a good father
sometimes does so with God and his children
the spirit who comes in as the spirit
of adoption mediates to us these high moments
this thrilling realization that God is as it
were saying to my son I am thy
salvation I am your father I love you
this is the other aspect of the spirit's
work and so one finds that people like
Sid say this besides witnessing with our graces
the spirit has a distinct witness by way
of enlarging the soul which is joy in
the apprehension of God's fatherly love the spirit
does not always witness by force of argument
and comfort without help of discourse there's a
twofold and similarly Goodwin says there's a twofold
assurance of salvation two elements that come in
to make up the reality of assurance the
one way is discursive a man gathering that
God loves him from the effects that is
the marks of regeneration just as we gathered
up their fire but then the other is
intuitive it's the kind of knowledge perhaps the
thought that it's self-evidencing and immediate and
indubitable when it comes there is light that
cometh says Goodwin light that cometh and overpowers
a man's soul and assures him that he
is God and God is his and that
God loves him for everlasting and so the
theorists go on to analyse this the second
element in the work of the Holy Spirit
of conscience assurance some of the Puritans expounded
this from a text which I think all
modern expositors and some of their own number
would say doesn't teach it and Sibbes popularised
this exegesis where Paul speaks of Christians who
after that they believed were sealed by the
Holy Spirit of promise who is the earnest
of our inheritance Sibbes popularised the exegesis which
understands this sealing of the work specifically of
giving full assurance and expands the phrase by
the spirit of promise and instrumentally that is
expanded as meaning that this sealing is a
work wrought by the spirit the spirit is
the agent who does it ye were sealed
by the Holy Spirit of promise the Holy
Spirit wrought in you to give assurance well
John Owen knew and made the point clearly
that this in fact does violence to the
Greek and as an exegesis it won't stand
writes Owen and surely correctly that I quote
Owen it is not said that is grammatically
by strict exegesis it is not said that
the Holy Spirit seals us but that we
are sealed with him he is God's sealed
rock and so it expands the text as
modern commentators do as meaning that the gift
of the Holy Spirit to perform all the
fullness of his promised ministry that in its
totality is the seal which God sets on
us it is by giving us the spirit
that God seals us for himself and so
in Ephesians 4.30 2nd Corinthians 1.21
where this same phrase is used well it
seems to me that Owen is entirely right
in dissenting from this exposition which would relate
the phrase specifically to the bestowal of assurance
um but that's not to say and Owen
didn't mean to say that this particular work
of the spirit in giving immediate and direct
and full assurance in this double manner is
not after all a reality Owen insists as
strongly as any of them that it's very
much a reality and he writes about it
like this he's speaking of the supernatural joy
which the awakening and the soul of the
light of the knowledge of God's love creates
and he says of this joy there is
no account to be given but that the
spirit worketh it when and how he will
he secretly infuses and distills it into the
soul prevailing against all fears and sorrows filling
it with gladness exaltations and sometimes with unspeakable
raptures of mind that's direct assurance that he's
talking about it may not be taught in
this text but it's taught in others and
Owen was insistent on any as any as
to the reality of it another mistake which
the Puritans sometimes gave countenance to by the
way that they talked the analytical way that
they talked about assurance but which a mere
re-reading of Roman date 16 will suffice
to correct and which indeed the Puritans themselves
in their own teaching often in effect corrected
is this the supposition that this work of
the spirit is a single isolated experience that
particular exposition of the seal texts from which
John Owen John Owen dissented does rather encourage
the notion that assurance is an isolated experience
something that happens once for all at a
particular time the Puritans in fact knew that
it wasn't the spirit beareth witness Greek present
tense continued activity this is something which is
prolonged something which goes on and is something
also we may say we must say which
admits a degree the Psalms show that sometimes
the Christian who enjoys it has more of
it and sometimes by comparison the Christian who
enjoys it has less of it and if
he gets slack in his Christian life well
he'll have less of it and if he's
giving himself wholeheartedly to God ordinarily and let
other factors enter in he'll have more of
it and when we expound the reality of
assurance this connection I think must be clearly
stated it's a quality of faith as raised
by the spirit to its highest degree that
is the degree of self-conscious assurance and
the more there is in the way of
response to that which we've already known of
the love of God the stronger our continued
assurance of his mercy and his favour will
be so the Puritans in many passages expounded
the matter they didn't in fact mean us
to understand even though occasional phrases of theirs
would give countenance to it to understand this
witness as being a single isolated experience it's
the same thing which the Christian ought to
live in the joy of all his days
you see that Dr. Gray proved a true
prophet here I've nearly had my hour only
one two minutes left to go very briefly
section four pastoral problems regarding assurance I simply
throw these out in the form of questions
isn't it true that there are three classes
of pastoral problems isn't it true to start
with as the Puritans would have said that
some people have a and isn't it true
that what we've got to do with such
people is to lead them as the Puritans
led them to measure their lives by the
tests the tests laid out for us very
conveniently in 1 John the ethical tests and
the spiritual tests which enable you to distinguish
the unbeliever that is the man whose profession
is false from the man whose profession is
true equally the tests which I myself must
constantly measure my own life by are the
tests if I would assure myself that this
that I'm not deluded about my assurance that
indeed this sense of God's favour and love
is true and I have a right to
receive it as from God at any point
said the Puritans you can be self deceived
even the heights and raptures of full assurance
be careful it's only when your life passes
the tests of 1 John that you can
be confident that those joys and raptures are
from the spirit of God and what are
the tests of 1 John spiritual tests he
that is begotten of God believeth that Jesus
is the Christ Romans 1 John 5 verse
1 and he that believes that Jesus is
the Christ is begotten of God this is
a sign of it well to believe on
believe in that Jesus is the Christ in
the thought of 1 John includes a lot
understanding of the gospel acquiescence in the gospel
approving it as God's way of life not
quarrelling with it's doctrine not objecting to it
as being unreasonable unreasonable or unkind on God's
part and then hope in Christ willingness to
be saved God's way concern only to follow
in the path that God marks out when
he leads men into obedience and universal holiness
love for spiritual things love for Christ love
for the gospel love for the scriptures in
which the gospel set forth all this the
Puritans said in their exposition is implied in
this compendious phrase believing that Jesus is the
Christ in it's context in 1 John where
all these particular issues you see have come
up this is the fourth world of 1
John and it's all focused in the first
and these are the spiritual tests whereby a
regenerate man knows his own regeneration and whereby
a pastor is able to detect the regenerateness
or unregenerateness of those with whom he has
to do then there are ethical tests strictly
ethical tests as well he that is begotten
of God does not commit sin habitual doesn't
make a practice of sin anymore doesn't continue
in sin he can't do it it's not
in his nature that's what regeneration has done
for him he that is begotten of God
doeth righteousness this is 1 John 3.9
1 John 2.29 is there are works
of righteousness there and righteousness remember under the
gospel means not simply doing the right thing
but doing it from the right motive not
to earn salvation but to please and glorify
God and to show love to the one
who has loved you and saved you so
the puritans would put in the probe to
see whether the people with whom they dealt
were showing the ethical fruits of regeneration and
when they found people confident and even joyful
that they were God saying cheerfully I am
his and he is mine forever and yet
not showing these fruits not understanding the gospel
not clear as to the meaning of faith
and repentance not doing the right thing from
the right motive they would labor to disabuse
such people and say look you're confident you've
no right to confidence I don't care whether
or not you went into an inquiry room
and signed a decision form and then were
argued into assurance out of what got a
right to that assurance that you profess to
have now weren't they right to deal with
people that way don't we have to do
it too well that's question number one second
question isn't it true that some people lack
assurance who ought to have it that we
often find ourselves dealing with troubled souls in
whom we can see true repentance and true
faith and yet our perplexity with them is
that they can't see it how do we
help them one great way to help them
the Puritans would have said did say is
tell them to wait on God in the
preaching of the word and then let the
minister in his preaching of the word dwell
on the great things the great object effects
the glorious effects of Roman dates gospel truths
and display these things and hold these things
up and dwell on the wonder and the
glory of them and often by ways perhaps
which the person the troubled soul himself won't
understand as he sits under that kind of
preaching which dwells on the glory of gospel
facts so he'll find more things are changing
for him and he's coming to believe even
despite himself that these glories are true of
him this is one of the ways in
which the Puritans expounded that thought which some
of you queried when I introduced it two
days ago downgrading private meditation on the scriptures
I was upgrading preaching upgrading it to the
level at which the Puritans put it and
this is what they would have said as
the first bit of advice to be given
to these troubled souls do them a little
private exposition of Roman dates but tell them
in addition to wait on God in the
preaching of the gospel this is his way
and this is under the preaching of the
gospel so the Puritans believed the preaching of
I mean of gospel facts as well as
to the sinners that Christians would be led
into ever increasing degrees of assurance and then
finally third question you might like to consider
this isn't it true that some people have
assurance who misrepresent the thing they have I
will put it to you may this not
be the truth about some of these people
who talk of a second blessing and say
they've received the baptism of the Holy Spirit
and certainly they can point to something that
happened to them in quite a different way
and they were in some ways different after
it they will often tell you that it's
an experience of sanctification well I can't get
that from the New Testament they may say
it's the promised gift of tongues I can't
get that from the New Testament but something's
happened and there are men in the Methodist
tradition in the Pentecostal movement in the Higher
Life movement the Ketik movement to whom something
did happen at some time what happened to
them may it not have been that what
really happened to them was that God in
His mercy and goodness quite suddenly perhaps gave
them a strong experience of Romans 8.16
assurance the spirit bearing witness with their spirit
that they were the children of God certainly
if one reads the records of these experiences
one finds that often without realising what they're
saying those who record them do put in
as part of the testimony my sense of
the love of God and my sense of
the love of it was an experience of
assurance that's what happened to them unhappily they
then misunderstood it then misrepresented it and produced
out of this types of teaching which to
me at any rate seem to be the
very reverse of edifying and the very reverse
of scriptural but this I suggest is what
happened in these cases and this is how
we should understand if so if not this
seeking Christians who will tell you that they
got a blessing through some of these out
in the past years were greener and more
nourishing out into ways of faith and life
which are more scriptural and more deeply edifying
we're not asking them to deny their experience
we're asking them to understand it and to
acknowledge the mercy of God in giving them
what he has given them and just to
go on along what proves now to be
the really scriptural road of assurance and sanctification
and service forgive me over running again but
I wanted to say those things before I
finish shall we pray our
hearts overflow with joy as we contemplate the
riches of thy grace we thank thee for
what we have tasted of assurance that these
things include us that we have an interest
in thy saving mercy that we are children
of God oh increase this blessed witness of
the spirit in us more and so make
us holier and more fruitful in our own
lives and make us better pastors and better
spiritual guides to those hungry souls and we
thank thee that in these days there are
some hungry souls whom we seek through the
word to lead on in the ways of
God so bless these meditations to us we
beseech thee in Jesus name Amen