(1) .S'^. Peter's teaching is given in Acts and in the Epistles that bear his name. St. Peter s speeches, on the day of Pentecost and afterwards, set forth the grounds of the assurance of the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus which possessed the apostles and their believing hearers. These grounds are («) the prophetic words of Scripture finding their fulHl- ment not in David or any other, but in Jesus ; (b) the personal testimony of the apostles to the things which they had seen and heard ; (c) the manifesta- tion of the risen Lord's presence and power in the miracles wrought in His name ; (rf) the inner wit- ness of the Spirit — ' we are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him ' (Ac 5''*'^) — ' the historical wit- ness borne to the facts and the internal witness of the Holy Ghost bringing home to men's hearts the meaning of the facts' (Knowling, acl Ivc. ; cf. 2'^'^'* 42off. ) j^ ig ^^jjjg assurance which the Apostle holds forth to the sojourners of the Disjjersion in his First Epistle (1 P P"^), whom the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ had begotten again to a living hope through the I'esurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ; ' who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.' Whether 2 Peter be the produc- tion of St. Peter or of some disciple writing in his spirit at a later time, it is the voice of full assurance we hear when the author says : 'We did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty ' (2 P V^). Thus conviiuangly does the external and the internal witness blend in St. Peter's doctrine of assurance.
(2) St. John's teaching in his Ejjistles lays the chief stress ujjon the etliical tests, and has less to say of the inner witness. Not tliat the latter is overlooked. ' The anointing Avhich ye received of him,' he says, referring to the Holy Spirit or a function of the Spirit, ' abideth in you, and ye have no need that any one teach yoii ' (1 Jn 2-^). But St. John's doctrine of assuranc^e embraces great Christian certainties. ' We know and have believed the love which God hath in us ' (1 Jn 4'"). ' We kiiotn that we havepasseil outof<l(';i.th into life, because we love the brethren' (IV"*). ' Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him' (3'"). 'We /i:»o?t' [being the children of (Jod and iccipionts of redeeming love] that, if be shall be manifested, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him even as he is' (3-). ' We know that we have come to a knowledge of him, if we keep hia
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commandments ' (2^). ' Hereby we know that we are in him ; he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked ' (2^'').
Law aptly characterizes St. John's doctrine of personal assur- ance when he savs : ' With St. John the grounds of assurance are ethical, not emotional ; objective, not subjective ; plain and tangible, not microscopic and elusive. They are three, or, rather, they are a trinity : Belief, Righteousness, Love. By his belief in Christ, his keeping God's commandments, and his love to the brethren, a Christian man is recognised, and recognises himself as begotten of God' (Tests of Life, Edinburgh, 1909, p. 297).
St. John applies his doctrine of assurance to prayer. ' Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, Ave have boldness toward God ; and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his command- ments ' (3^^^-). ' And this is the boldness which we have towards him, that, if we ask anything accord- ing to his will, he heareth us ' (5"). And while this assurance gives boldness and confidence in praj'er, it al.so gives boldness in the Day of Judgment : ' Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love : l)ut perfect love casteth out fear ' (4^"^- ).
(3) St. Pauls teaching lays the stress upon the inner witness which we desiderated in St. John. And yet in his enumeration of graces under the designation of ' frtiit of the Spirit' we have sure evidences of the Spirit's indwelling whereby to 'assure our hearts' before Him. St. Paul's assur- ance rests also upon a broad basis of fact in the Person and work of Christ : ' I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day' (2 Ti 1'-). When, however, he uses the expression ' we know,' uttering his assur- ance of personal immortality, he attrilmtes it to God who gave him the earnest of the Spirit (2 Co 5'^-). In two great passages, Rom S^"**^- and Gal 4"'-, St. Paul sets forth the witness of the Spirit to the sonship of the believer, which is the ground of his full assurance, by the childlike confidence which it works and the perfect liberty which it brings. And so he can exclaim : ' We know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. . . . For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord ' (Ko 8-8- 3»'-).