OF THE ASSURANCE OF GRACE AND SALVATION

1.  Although temporary believers, and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions that they are in the favor of God and state of salvation, such a hope on their part will perish; yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love Him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before Him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.[1]

2.  This certainty is not merely a conjectural and probable persuasion based upon a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel; and also upon the inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit unto which promises are made, and on the testimony of the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God; and, as a fruit thereof, keeping the heart both humble and holy.[2]

3.  This infallible assurance is not so joined to the essence of faith that it is an automatic and inevitable experience, but that a true believer may wait long and fight with many difficulties before he becomes a partaker of it; yet being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given to him by God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, attain this assurance by using the means of grace in the right way: and therefore it is the duty of every one to give the utmost diligence to make his calling and election sure, so that his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness for carrying out the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance; ¯for it is far from inclining men to slackness.[3]

4.  True believers may have the assurance of their salvation in various ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as by their negligence in preserving it, or by their falling into some special sin which wounds the conscience and grieves the Spirit; or by some sudden or vehement temptation, or by God’s withdrawing the light of His countenance, and causing even those who fear Him to walk in darkness and to have no light, yet believers are never destitute of the seed of God and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren that sincerity of heart and that conscience about their spiritual duty out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived, and by the which, in the meantime, they are preserved from utter despair.[4]