John Newton
I wish you to believe that I would be no advocate for carelessness or formality. I hope my conscience bears me witness that, besides trusting in the letter of the Scripture, I likewise desire an increase of that inward and comforting sense of Divine things in which I believe you are happy. I wish not only to be a subject of the kingdom of Jesus, but likewise to have that kingdom powerfully set up in my heart, which consists of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Indeed, I do not see how these can be distinguished, or what ground I could have to think that I am a subject of His kingdom, unless I earnestly desired to have that kingdom in all its branches and blessings flourishing in my soul. I do not know that I live in the neglect of any means appointed by God for my growth in these blessings, or willingly allow myself to do what is inconsistent with them. I think my heart is habitually in pursuit of them and that there is seldom an hour in any day when lively communion with my God, in Christ, is not present to my view as the chief good.1
1The first part of a letter to a friend, taken with editing from Newton’s Works, vol 1.
To this purpose, through grace, I can venture to express myself to man. Yet, notwithstanding the diligence and care I would aim at, it is still true that, when I come before the Lord, I see myself a poor inconsistent creature, my strength is perfect weakness, and all I have is sin. I confess I am afraid of fixing the criterion of a work of grace too high, lest the mourners in Zion should be discouraged, because I find it is the will of God that such people should not be discouraged but comforted, and because it appears to me that the Scriptural marks relate rather to desires, if real, than to attainments, or at least to those attainments which those often possess who are kept very short of conscious comforts (Mt 5:3-9, Lk 18:12,13, 1 Pet 2:7).
The points between you and me seem chiefly the following: (1.) When may a person be properly denominated a believer? (2.) What are the proper evidences that necessarily accompany a lively, thriving frame of spirit? (3.) Will such a degree of faithfulness to light received, as is consistent with the remnant of a depraved nature in our present state, certainly and always preserve our souls from declensions and winter seasons? (4.) Is that gracious humility, which arises from a due sense of our own vileness and of the riches of Divine grace, ordinarily attainable without some mortifying experience of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of our own hearts? A few lines on each of these particulars, will, I think, take in the chief parts of your letter.
1. We differ somewhat about what constitutes a believer.
I own nothing has surprised me more, in the course of our friendly debate, than that you suppose a person should date his conversion and the beginning of his believing, from the time he receives the truths of the gospel with that clearness and power as to produce in him an abiding assurance. By the experience and observation of many years, I have been more and more persuaded that to represent assurance as of the essence of faith, does not agree with Scripture, which in many places either expressly asserts, or strongly intimates, the contrary (Jn 1:50, 20:29; Rom 10:9; 1 Jn 5:1).
Whoever is not a believer must be an unbeliever; there can be no middle ground. Either there are many believers who do not have assurance, or else there are many unbelievers who love the Lord Jesus, hate sin, are poor in spirit, and adorn the doctrine of the gospel by their temper and life. I do not doubt but those who now have assurance had, before they attained it, a something which wrought by love and overcame the world. I do not know any principle capable of these effects but faith, which is the seed of God, though at first it is like a grain of mustard seed; though it is faint, it is genuine, as the dawning light is of the same nature with the light that flows from the sun at noon. I allow that, while faith is weak, there may be little solid comfort, if that expression means abiding comfort. Faith gives safety and spiritual life; abiding peace and establishment may follow. But though an infant does not have the strength, activity and understanding which he will attain when he arrives to the age of manhood, he is as fully possessed of a principle of life while he is an infant as at any time afterwards.