by Thomas Goodwin, D.D.
Justifying Faith is not an Assurance of our personal Interest in Christ though it be an Assurance of the Truth of the Promise.
The first conclusion we will begin with and premise as a foundation to what follows is, that that act of faith which justifies a sinner, is distinct from knowing he hath eternal life, and may therefore be without it, because it doth not necessarily contain prevailing assurance of it. By prevailing assurance, I mean such assurance as overpowereth doubts and sense to the contrary, so as in the believer’s knowledge, he is able to say, Christ is mine, and my sins are forgiven; such an assurance whereby a man is a conqueror, as Paul speaks, Rom. 8, 37; when he expresses such strong assurance. And this I first lay down, not only for more clear and orderly proceeding on this point, but also thereby to allay the cavils and exceptions which men have against the doctrine of assurance. When it is affirmed that none are in a state of grace, and true believers, but only those who are, or have been, undoubtedly assured by an overwhelming light of the Spirit in their own sense, that Christ is theirs and that their sins are forgiven them; when it is asserted, that then, and not till then, they did begin to believe, by such an assertion the generation of many just ones is condemned, whose faith, either through weakness, never came to such a growth of persuasion, or through temptations and prevalence of fears and doubts are interrupted in it, who yet cleave to Christ with full purpose of heart, and walk obediently towards Him in all their ways. And, indeed, if that were the meaning when assurance is spoken for, that it were made the essential act of faith, whereby a believer is justified, there were just cause for many and great exceptions. And yet my scope further herein is, not to encourage any to rest in such a faith, without such assurance, and content themselves with it, as many do, making bad use of such a doctrine, and so neglect seeking for a further work of assurance to be superadded. No, the next conclusions shall manifest the contrary; but the intent of this present conclusion is, to help such as have their hearts drawn to Christ, and upheld to believe, though without such prevailing assurance, from such discouraging thoughts, as therefore to think their estates accursed, and that they cannot be in the estate of grace, because they want such a work; for if faith be without it, then such souls that do entertain such thoughts do entertain an untruth, and that against their own souls, and the work of God in them and make Him a liar. And also my end is to keep off those that have assurance superadded to faith, from censuring the present condition of many of their brethren, as if they were without grace because they want such assurance.
First — I will therefore first prove, that true faith may be without such assurance.
- Because justification and blessedness hath been pronounced to such a condition as hath wanted this assurance, and this by Christ Himself, who is to judge at the last day who are in an estate of grace and who are not. Thus, Matt. 5: 3, in the first sermon, whereof we have the notes, of blessed persons recorded, He pronounceth a blessedness to the poor in spirit, to the meek, to those that mourn, to those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, all which estates want assurance. Now Christ’s scope was not to draw those in which such dispositions were, to begin now to believe, for that were to base faith upon condition; but His scope is to show that such have true faith begun. Poverty of spirit is when they apprehend themselves poor and empty, it is not being spiritually poor, for then they could not be pronounced blessed, but an apprehension of their condition as such (opposite to the apprehension of the church of Laodicea had of themselves, who thought themselves rich, and that they had need of nothing), and so implies want of assurance. So mourning under their sense of sin and misery implies wanting comfort, as the promise that they shall be comforted implies, which comfort assurance always brings with it, and is indeed the thing promised to these, afterwards to be given them. So hungering after righteousness implies emptiness, and the thing promised is fullness, so as all these want assurance, and all these Christ pronounceth blessed, and none are, or can be called blessed, but such whose sins are at the present forgiven; as Paul after Him defines the blessedness the Scripture speaks of to consist in this: Rom. 4: 6, 7, “David describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness”, he gives a description, a definition of it, that it lies in this, “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered”. If blessedness then lies herein, then surely the estate of those persons was such as their sins were forgiven, and yet they wanted assurance, and yet not faith, for a man is justified only thereby: Rom. 4: 5, “To him that believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness”. Therefore, those that were poor in spirit, that mourned, that hungered and thirsted after righteousness, had faith, as is necessarily to be supposed; for a man never comes to be truly poor in spirit, till he sees the riches that are in Christ are in free grace; for it is Christ’s fulness, and the sight of it, that empties a man, more than all the legal sight of his insufficiency and misery, and yet the believer in the sight of all this fulness still thinks himself therefore deeply poor (wanting assurance), for though he admires that there should be such riches, yet he hath no share in them in his sense yet, and no power to lay hold on them. Faith in its first act discovers at once with one eye a man to be poor and ungodly, and with the other looks up to Christ’s riches, and to Him that justifies the ungodly. So hungering and thirsting after Christ’s riches, and to Him that justifies the ungodly. So hungering and thirsting after Christ’s righteousness doth imply faith as the bottom of it, for none can so hunger truly, but he that sees the true worth and preciousness of Christ. Unto them that believe only Christ is precious, and Christ is precious not out of self-love only, but out of an apprehension of the suitableness and fitness of all that is in Him for them, for true hunger implies that. What makes the stomach hunger after things but suitableness? Thus the soul hath an instinct to Christ as its meat and nourishment, and that supposeth faith also, though assurance be the eating of Him with comfort and filling contentment; and as hunger goes before eating so faith goes before assurance. Now if such souls pronounced blessed here, surely if they should die in this condition, at the last day, He would not go back to His word, but He would say, “Come, ye blessed, also”. Neither is their blessedness pronounced to a future condition to come, which these dispositions made way for, for, besides what is before said, Christ in the very words tells us, He speaks it of their present condition, ‘theirs is the kingdom of God’, . . . As a further confirmation, I will add to this an instance or two.
(1). Let us look on the poor publican, and let us consider his estate, which Christ there approves, and we shall find it to have faith in it, and yet not assurance, Luke xviii. The Pharisee had an assurance that his estate was good, built upon himself; for, ver. 9, Christ’s scope was to discover their presumption that trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and to this end tells them of a poor publican that indeed comes into God’s presence, but it is at a distance; ‘he stood afar off’. Had he assurance, it would have encouraged him to have drawn near with boldness; but on the contrary he was so much cast down with shame, that he could not lift up his eyes to heaven, and yet he lifts up an eye of faith: “Lord be merciful to me a sinner”. He flies out of himself, and hath recourse to God’s mercy, which by all his carriage, and the opposition made, he had no assurance of. The presumptuous Pharisee could do nothing but give thanks, his assurance was so great. This man in a humble prayer begs the mercy that he yet wanted in his own sense, and yet Christ pronounceth the state of this man justified, and therefore out of his example He makes this promise to such as are truly in his condition, that ‘they shall be exalted’, in the same verse.
(2). That also of the woman of Canaan, to whom Christ would give no outward word of encouragement, who yet had true faith, which Christ extraordinarily commends, Matt. 15: 22-26.
Besides these instances, I will give you demonstrations of it, and then the reasons and grounds of it.
(1). The first demonstration is drawn from the state of desertion wherein a true believer may want assurance, when yet he continues to believe; “for the just shall live by faith” (Heb. 1: 4). Therefore as when the heart ceaseth beating the man dies for it, so when faith ceaseth exercising itself the believer would die. And again, that which is a true act of faith to continue our union with Christ, may be a true act to begin this union. Now, it is not assurance that continues our union and being in a state of grace, therefore it doth not necessarily begin it. And now then if in the course of a Christian’s life he be brought to live by faith without assurance, then much more may he begin to live by it, for at the beginning it may be supposed weakest, as a man that hath had experience he hath lived may be brought into a swoon, when he doth not perceive himself to live, or into a frenzy, so as he doth think himself dead, and to live among spirits, as some have done, so much more may a child that is of the womb live and not know it. Thus Heman likewise, as to his spiritual state thought himself (through a frenzy) a man dead, and to be ‘free among the dead’, and to be one whom God had cut off, and remembered no more, Ps. 88: 5, and from whom God did not only hide His face in regard of the light of His countenance (which some have said is the only desertion that can befall a Christian, in which he retains his assurance, and doubts not but that God still is his God though He hides His face), but had cast him off, verse 14, he says he was one “cut off by His hand”. And yet when Heman had such desperate thoughts prevailing over assurance, he had faith, and expresseth it in verse 1: “O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried night and day before thee”. Mark it, and you will find that it is just the voice of faith wanting assurance: he cannot call Him his God; he says not, “My God, my God” as Christ could, when He wanted the light of God’s countenance — assurance of faith remaining in Him when the comfort of faith was wanting — but yet Heman doth look up to God as the God of His salvation; that is, as that God who must save him, and in whom his salvation, if ever he be saved, lies; from whom He looks for salvation, and to whom he hath recourse for it, though he could not say, God is my salvation. Yea, and thus it had been with him from his youth, v. 15, either he had once assurance, and now had lost it, or from his youth and first beginning had ever wanted it. And if it was either of the two, the argument holds good to prove faith not to be assurance, for still he had recourse to God by faith in prayer, and so had faith in his heart, when yet he was under terrors and apprehensions of God’s casting him off. Why should I instance in Job, David, Jonah, and many more? I will only give that direction in Isaiah 50:10. The prophet having in the verses immediately before expressed that triumphing assurance, “It is God that justifies me, who shall condemn?” now, saith he, if a soul that fears God wants such a light as comfortably enableth his soul to say so, yet “let him trust in the name of the Lord”. You see then that he might exercise faith in that condition, and to say the case of this man the prophet speaks of was not a state of justification, is a gross absurdity, for the prophet calls God his God; though the dejected soul could not say so, yet the prophet says so for him.
As for those that will say, that faith is a triumphing and prevailing assurance, I would refer them but to ten or twenty years’ experience, which may (if they be not the more wary) lamentably confute them; for they may fall into darkness as well as Job did, and then if they do so, what is the faith they live by? It is that of Heman’s, a casting themselves upon the God of their salvation, a cleaving to Him; it is that of the church in the like distress: Lam. 3: 24, “The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in Him”. God did not aloud say to her soul that He was her God, but He enabled her soul to say that He was her portion; that is to pitch on Him, and choose Him, and betake herself to Him, as all the good and portion she ever looked for, which act of recumbency afforded hope as the consequence of it. Faith notes out a betaking a man’s self to God, a choice of Him as a man’s portion, as the One all the good I look for lies in; and therefore I will hope in Him, for help is to be had only in Him, and from Him, and I will do anything that there may be hope for me. Now, if sometimes those who have assurance are brought to this faith, then surely it is good faith; and if it be good faith after assurance, then it may be so before; and yet to this, one that hath had assurance may be brought.
(2) That there may be true faith without assurance is evident from this that if doubting be a corruption, as you will easily grant it is, then as all other corruptions may prevail against the spirit and other graces, so may doubting prevail against assurance of faith, and there is no more privilege of freedom promised from the one than the other. If David may fall into gross sin, and murder and adultery prevail, I know not but that doubting may prevail too. For believers are perfectly freed from the prevailing of no sin but that against the Holy Ghost; and if the favour of sin may prevail against grace in other faculties, I know not but the guilt of sin may prevail against assurance in the conscience also. And further, I am sure, that through the Holy Ghost, the witness, be God, yet the light He witnesseth by is but a creature, a beam, a voice, a saying to man’s soul, “Thy sins are forgiven; and therefore, as other prevailing workings may be interrupted so may that also, and then what faith have men recourse unto, but such as is a casting a man’s self on free grace, that faith which stood them in stead at first? It is not the remembrance of his former assurance that will uphold a man, for he may grow blind, and forget he was purged from his old sins, II Peter 1: 9. He speaks of assurance in that and in the following verses. Assurance depends on strict and holy walking, and so may be interrupted by our remissness and negligence.
(3). That true faith may be prevailing where assurance is not, expresses by this that the sense of belief of general principles and foundations of faith, may be so over-clouded and provided against by temptation to the contrary, one by the atheism of man’s heart, so that a poor believer shall say, I doubt whether there be a God or no, whether the Scriptures be true and no; I cannot find I believe the truth of the premises. Thus the natural atheism of the heart may overflow, and seem to conquer this faith that there is a God, and yet then the soul believes strongly at the same time, that there is a God, and it appears in its actions, though not in its sense and light, for the soul fears this God in all its ways and walks, as believing this truth. Hence I argue, that if faith in the general may be overpowered in sense and inward light, when yet a man truly believes, then much more may the particular persuasion of a man’s being in the estate of grace, (which is but a deduction out, of these general principles) be, in a man’s sense, prevailed against by doubting, when yet secretly he doth most truly believe. The apostles, when Christ was dead and crucified, did almost begin to call in question the general principles of faith; they were much staggered in them, as appears from that speech, Luke 24: 21, “We trusted” said they, “it had been He that should have redeemed Israel, and it is now the third day, when He promised to raise, and yet we see Him not”. His sufferings staggered their faith, and therefore, v. 25, He calls them slow of heart to believe, and had recourse to the sepulchre, and an eye what should become of Him. Thus Thomas also would not believe the resurrection of Christ, a main article, unless he saw Him. Now if the faith in the principles may be in the heart, and yet be prevailed against by doubting, then much more the particular conclusions derived thence to ourselves, which are at no time so fully asserted to as the other; and yet faith must then be in the heart, for a man dies else. If the main root and stock may seem dead, much more the branches and the buds.
(4). Wicked men are not immediately bound to have assurance, and therefore it is not the essential act wherein faith consists. They are condemned, you know, for not believing. Now if the first act of faith commanded were to believe that Christ is mine, and that my sins are forgiven, how could a man in a state of nature be bound to it? For such an assurance of Christ being his, is not a truth in the state wherein he stands, but yet he is every hour bound to come to Christ as the fountain of life, and to cast himself on Him for his pardon, and to choose Him as the means appointed by God for remission; for Christ blames the Pharisees that they did not do so: John 5: 40, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life”. Therein, therefore, lies the act of faith which justifies.
(Book II, ch. 1, “On the Object and Acts of Justifying Faith”).
Those whose standing is in Christ have made satisfaction in Christ to all the requirements of God and His law.
Piscator.