(2.) "A comforting and abiding persuasion of pres- ent acceptance by God, through Chnst, we may therefore affirm, must in various degrees follow true faith. In support of this view the following remarks may be offered : If the Bible teaches that man is by nature
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prone to evil, and that in practice he violates God's law, and is thereby exposed to punishment; that an ' act of grace and pardon is promised on condition of repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ; that repentance implies consideration of our ways, a sense of the displeasure of Almighty God, con- trition of heart, and consequently trouble and grief of mind, mixed, however, with a hope inspired by the promise of forgiveness, and which leads to earnest sup- plication for the actual pardon of sin so promised ; it will follow from these premises either, l.that forgive- ness is not to be expected till after the termination of our course of probation, that is, in another life ; and that, therefore, this trouble and apprehension of mind can only be assuaged by the hope we may have of a favorable final decision on our case; or, 2. that sin is, in the present life, forgiven as often as it is thus re- pented of, and as often as we exercise the required and specific acts of trust in the merits of our Saviour; but that this forgiveness of our sins is not in any way made known unto us ; so that we are left, as to our feelings, in precisely the same state as if sin were not forgiven till after death, namely, in grief and trouble of mind, relieved only by hope ; or, 3. that (and this is the script- ural view) when sin is forgiven by the mercy of God through Christ, we are by some means assured of it, and peace and satisfaction of mind take the place of anxiety and fear. The first of these conclusions is sufficiently disproved by the authority of Scripture, which exhib- its justification as a blessing attainable in this life, and represents it as actually experienced by true believers. 'Therefore being justified by faith.' 'There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.' 'Whosoever believeth is justified from all things,' etc. The quotations might be multiplied, but these are de- cisive. The notion that, though an act of forgiveness may take place, we are unable to ascertain a fact so important to us, is also irreconcilable with many pas- sages, in which the writers of the New Testament speak of an experience not confined personally to themselves, or to those Christians who were endowed with spiritu- al gifts, but common to all Christians. ' Being justi- fied b)r faith, we have peace with God.' ' We joy in God, by whom we have received the reconciliation.' ' Being reconciled unto God by the death of his Son.' 'We have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but the spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father.' To these may be added innumerable passages which express the comfort, the confidence, and the joy of Christians ; their ' friendship' with God ; their 'access' to him ; their entire union and delight- ful intercourse with him ; and their absolute confidence in the success of their prayers. All such passages are perfectly consistent with deep humility and self-diffi- dence, but they are irreconcilable with a state of hos- tility between the parties, and with an unascertained and only hoped-for restoration of friendship and favor. An assurance, therefore, that the sins which are felt to ' be a burden intolerable' are forgiven, and that the ground of that apprehension of future punishment which caHses the penitent to ' bewail his manifold sins, ' is taken away by restoration to the favor of the offend- ed God, must be allowed, or nothing would be more incongruous and impossible than the comfort, the peace, the rejoicing of spirit, which in the Scriptures are attributed to believers.
"Few Christians of evangelical views have, there- fore, denied the possibility of our becoming assured of the favor of God in a sufficient degree to give sub- stantial comfort to the mind. Their differences have rather respected the means by which the contrite be- come assured of that change in their relation to Al- mighty God, whom they have offended, which in Scripture is expressed by the term justification. The question has been (where the notion of an assurance of eternal salvation has not been under discussion), by what means the assurance of the divine favor is con- 1
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veyed to the mind. Some have concluded that we obtain it by inference, others by the direct testimony of I the Holy Spirit to the mind" (Watson, s. v.).
(3.) With regard to the history of the doctrine, Wes- ley remarks : ''1 apprehend that the whole Christian 1 Church in the first centuries enjoyed it. For, though we have few points of doctrine explicitly taught in the 1 small remains of the ante-Nicene fathers, yet I think , none that carefully read Clemens Komanus, Ignatius, Polycarp, Origen, or any other of them, can doubt whether either the writer himself possessed it, or all whom he mentions as real Christians. And I really i conceive, both from the Harmonia Confessionum and 1 whatever else I have occasionally read, that all reform- ed churches in Europe did once believe, ' Every true Christian has the divine evidence of his being in favor with God.' " " I know likewise that Luther, Melanc- thon, and many other (if not all) of the reformers fre- quently and strongly assert that every believer is con- scious of his own acceptance with God, and that by a supernatural evidence" (see below).