II.
(Continued from p. 245).
IN the former article on the above subject stress was laid on the danger of introducing into theology an experience of the individual which at times and in many cases may be abnormal. It would be entirely wrong to insist that every believer must necessarily have an experience such as Lydia, or Paul, or the Philippian gaoler. Some who have passed through a very trying and unforgettable experience are in danger at times of insisting that others must pass through a similar experience if they are to enter the Kingdom. While we are to guard against laying down as the standard what, after all, may be an abnormal experience there are certain things that hold true of all that are effectually called with the exception of “elect infants dying in infancy” (Confession, chap. x. sec. iii.) and “elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word” (chap. x. sec. iii) and these are as stated by the Westminster Divines that the saved are called “by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good; effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace” (Confession, chap. x. sec. i.). This well balanced statement sets forth the normal experience of all those whom God has predestinated unto life and whom He has effectually called. In thus stating the case the Westminster Divines guard against a lifeless doctrine that never touches the heart and a sentimental emotionalism that often passes for Christian experience but which at best is only the vagrant impulses of a wayward heart.
There have been times in the history of the Church when Spirit-taught men, who were endowed for the special work assigned them, have introduced their experience, which, on certain points, was abnormal into their doctrine. This was notably so with the Reformers, that noble band of men raised up by God to witness for His truth amidst the throes of a mighty conflict which shook error to its very foundations. Most of these men enjoyed in their own experience an assurance of their salvation that enabled them to stand their ground in the face of tremendous opposition. Added to this there was the opposition from the Romish theologians who asserted that it was impossible to have the certainty of one’s personal salvation. Dr. Cunningham has stated the point at issue in his usual clear and masterly way in the following statement: “The leading topic of discussion was this: Whether, without any special revelation, believers could and should (possent et deberent) be assured of their justification and salvation? This was practically the question that was controverted. It is one of great practical importance, and orthodox divines, in general, have continued ever since to concur with the Reformers in answering it in the affirmative. But though this was practically the real point controverted, though the papists were most anxious to persuade men that they could attain to no certainty upon this point, except either by a special revelation or by the testimony of the church, yet this was not just the precise form which the question assumed in the controversy; and the reason of this was one we have already hinted at, viz., that the more reasonable Romanists shrank from meeting the question, as thus put, with a direct negative, and fell back upon the topic of the kind or degree of the assurance or certainty that was ordinarily attainable by believers. Into this discussion of the nature and grounds of the certainty that might attach to this matter, the Reformers were unfortunately tempted to follow their opponents. In the heat of the controversy many of them were led to lay down the untenable position, that the certainty or assurance ordinarily attainable by believers was of the highest and most perfect description, that it was the certainty of faith, or, as they sometimes expressed it, the certainty of divine faith, the same certainty with which men believe in the plainly revealed doctrines of God’s Word. And then, again, it was as an argument or proof in support of this extreme and untenable position as to the kind or degree of certainty, that they were led on to assert, that this personal assurance was necessarily involved in justifying faith, nay, was its distinguishing characteristic, and belonged, of course, to its essence” (The Reformers and Theology of the Reformation, pp. 123, 124). These views were taught by many of the Reformers in their polemical and practical treatises. We find them set forth in the Lutheran symbolical books of the Confession of Augsburg, and its Apology, and in the Saxon and Wirttemberg Confessions. They find no place, however, in the symbolical books of the Reformed or Calvinistic Churches.* Luther held this view as to personal assurance though there are passages in his works in which a more correct view of saving faith is given. Calvin taught in his Institutes and also in his Catechism of Geneva that saving faith necessarily implies personal assurance. It must be pointed out, however, that while Luther’s and Calvin’s views were held by many of the Reformers yet there were some eminent Reformers such as Peter Martyr, Musculus, and Zanchius who did not hold these views.
*No doubt in some of these Confessions there are expressions which indicate that the views of Luther and Calvin were held by their framers.—Editor.
†They were so called because they advocated many of the doctrines contained in a book called the Marrow of Modern Divinity. This gave rise to what was known as the Marrow Controversy. The Marrowmen were condemned, wrongly we believe, by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.—Editor.
We come now to discuss the view held by the Marrowmen†—Thomas Boston, Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, etc. While they were one with the Reformers in maintaining that saving faith is not merely an assensus (assent) but includes fiducia (trust) they differed with those Reformers who held that this trust included the believer’s assurance that he was a saved person, and that this assurance was of the essence of faith. The Marrowmen while in full sympathy with the Confessional doctrine made use of a phrase, assurance of faith, to which they gave a new meaning. They drew a distinction between “assurance of faith” and “assurance of sense.” The former is the direct act of faith (actio fidei directa) and the latter the reflex act of faith (actio fidei reflexa). What they termed the assurance of sense or the reflex act of faith is “the infallible assurance” of the Confession, the assurance that a believer may have of his salvation. By the “assurance of faith,” or the direct act of faith, they meant the assurance that is exercised in believing. In the act of believing the believer is exercising assurance. This is the kind of assurance that the Apostle credits the Thessalonians with having when he says: “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance” (I. Thess. i. 5). The gospel message was received by them without any doubt as the very message of heaven.
The Marrowmen’s distinction between “the assurance of faith” and “the assurance of sense,” though the terms are open to objection because of the confusion caused by their use, must be kept clearly before us if justice is to be done to the theological position of these worthy men. In their eagerness to have the Reformers on their side they did not exercise the care in quoting from their writings that perhaps they ought to have exercised, for some of the Reformers, as we have seen, used assurance in a different sense from that in which they used it. Not only was the Marrow doctrine misunderstood in the early 18th century, but in quarters where one would expect better their position has been mis-stated. Even so distinguished and careful a theologian as Dr. Cunningham allows himself to write thus: “While the generality of the Reformers and some modern divines, especially those known in Scotland as Marrowmen, have regarded it as comprehending this last element also and have thus come to maintain that personal assurance is necessarily and directly included in the exercise of saving faith or belongs to its essence” (The Reformers and Theology of the Reformation, p. 123).
This is not the true position of the Marrowmen as may be seen from some of their authoritative books and statements. For instance in the Marrow of Modern Divinity Evangelista, after pointing out that believers are no longer under the law as a covenant of works, turns to Neophytus and addresses him thus:
Wherefore, as Paul and Silas said to the jailer, so say I unto you: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,’ that is be verily persuaded in your heart that Jesus Christ is yours and that you shall have life and salvation by Him; that whatsoever Christ did for the redemption of mankind He did it for you” (Chap. ii. sec. iii.). The Representers, in their Representation in answer to Query viii. put to them, define what they mean by this assurance: “There is a full persuasion,” they say, “by reflection, spiritual argumentation or inward sensation, which we are far from holding to be of the essence of faith; but this last being mediate and collected by inference as we gather the cause from such signs and effects as give evidence of it; it is very different from that confidence or persuasion by divines called the assurance of faith . . . . Further as to the difference between these two kinds of assurances, the assurance of faith has its object and foundation without the man, but that of sense has them within him.” If this assurance of faith is essential to saving faith what explanation then do the Marrowmen give as to the doubts of believers? They answer: “While these doubts are in the believer they are not in this faith, which from its very nature and exercise is as opposite to them as light to darkness or the flesh to the Spirit, which, though they be in the same person, are contrary the one to the other (Gal. v. 17). And therefore faith wrestles against them, though with varied success, it being so far overcome sometimes and brought under by main force and superior strength of prevailing unbelief that the true faith cannot be more discerned than the fire when it is covered with ashes or the sun when wrapped up in thick clouds” (The Representers’ Answers to Query viii).
(To be continued.)