Assurance and Appropriating Faith

The experience of assurance of faith involves the experience of appropriating faith. Appropriation may exist without assurance; but, such is the relation of ideas and doctrines in the two cases, that assurance cannot exist without appropriation. The person who exercises appropriating faith, believes in Christ, not only as the sacrifice for men generally, and believes in the promises of God not merely as promises available to men generally, but unites the object of faith with the subject of faith; and believes in Christ as a Savior applicable and savingly available in his own case, and in the promises, as belonging to himself. Assurance of faith, without being the same thing as appropriation of faith, includes all this; but it includes also or rather it implies something more. In other words, assurance of faith differs from appropriation of faith, which may be more or less decided and strong according to the circumstances of the case, chiefly in the particular of carrying the act of belief or faith to the highest degree. He, who is in the state of assurance of faith, does not believe in his acceptance with God feebly and inefficiently. The faith, which he exercises, is a strong faith; so much so, as the term assurance itself obviously indicates, as altogether to exclude the feeling of uncertainty.

The Assurance of Faith

We have already had occasion to make the remark, that there are different degrees of faith. In some cases faith is feeble, so much so as scarcely to be a distinct subject of notice in our consciousness. In other cases, existing with increased strength in greater or less degrees, it develops itself as a distinctly marked and operative principle. And there are yet other cases, less frequent, it is true, than would be desirable, in which it exists in that high degree, which is denominated ASSURANCE. A state of Christian experience, which implies the highest degree of Christian devotedness, and brings the soul into the most intimate communion with God.

The existence of the state of Assurance is generally admitted. There are many passages of Scripture, which imply its existence; and many statements, which cannot well be explained on any other grounds.

President Edwards in his Work on the religious affections, says,

It is manifest that it was a common thing for the saints that we have a history or particular account of in the Scripture, to be assured. God, in the plainest and most positive manner, revealed and testified his special favor to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Daniel, and others. Job often speaks of his sincerity and uprightness with the greatest imaginable confidence and assurance, often calling God to witness to it; and says plainly, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall see him for myself, and not another,’ Job 19:25. David, throughout the book of Psalms, almost every where speaks without any hesitancy, and in the most positive manner, of God as his God; glorying in him as his portion and heritage, as his rock and confidence.

The Apostle Paul, through all his Epistles, speaks in an assured strain; ever speaking positively of his special relation to Christ, his Lord, and Master, and Redeemer; and his interest in, and expectation of the future reward.

Many of the formularies of belief or creeds of different religious sects, which may properly be regarded as expressing the deliberate and cherished sentiments of those who have adopted them, recognize the existence of the state of assurance. The Confession of Faith, adopted by the American Congregational Churches in 1680, has the following expressions in a short chapter especially devoted to this subject. “Such as 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 a state of grace; and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.”

And in accordance with this view, Dr. Hopkins, the learned author of a system of theology and a member of the religious denomination whose belief on this subject has been given in the passage just quoted, says, “If a person, who has lived a life eminently devoted to God, and in the constant practice of all the duties of Christianity, shining externally in good works, and all the graces of our holy religion, should, on proper occasions, humbly and modestly declare to his Christian friends, that he was raised above all doubts about his state, and had, for a long time, enjoyed full assurance of his salvation, no one would have reason to call it in question.” [Hopkins’ System of Doctrines, Part. 2d. Ch. 4.] And he adds very correctly, that it is the duty of Christians “constantly to have and maintain this assurance.”

And it may be proper to add here, that the doctrine of Assurance, generally expressed by the phrase Assurance of Faith, was formerly more familiar to the public mind in this country, as it seems to me, than it is at present. In the early periods of our country’s history, the subject of religion took the precedence of every other subject, and men were expected, under the thorough discipline of the Word and of Providence, not merely to believe faintly and doubtfully, but to believe with that higher degree of religious trust, which is expressed by assurance. A writer in the recently published work, entitled the Great Awakening, in giving an account of a meeting of Ministers in Boston, more than a hundred years ago, at which he himself was present, says, “Our conversation was upon Assurance; the grounds of it, the manner of obtaining it, and the special operation of the Holy Spirit therein. A very useful conversation.”

— edited from The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 16.

Love and Justice

They tell us, we must first do right,
And not leave JUSTICE out of sight.
We answer, look below, above;
and what is justice but to LOVE?

God's law is full of righteousness
All truth, all justice; nothing less;
So just, it fills the world with awe;
And yet 'tis "Love fulfills the law."

We LOVE,  because we would be just;
We LOVE, because in God we trust;
We LOVE, because we would fulfill
His holy law, his holy will.

And he, who walks not in the light,
Of Love, leaves justice out of sight:
Look where thou wilt, below, above,
And what is Justice but to LOVE?

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXXI.

God and Nothing

We conquer ill and all distress,
By sinking into Nothingness;
For in our Nothing we are such,
That nothing can our Nothing touch.

Our enemies their arms prepare;
They smite, but find us empty air;
For when we see the lifted rod,
We leave ourselves, and hide in God.

We always know which way to run,
And thus all threatening dangers shun;
In vain they seek; they cannot find
Our hiding place in God's great Mind.

And when they undertake to smite,
They find that God is in the fight;
And God and Nothing make them know
A great and sudden overthrow.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXX.

The Place of Refuge

"A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest." — Ia 32. 2.

The clouds are gathering in the distant sky;
I hear the fiercely muttering thunders roll;
Terrors invade my breast; my trembling soul
Looks forth around, but sees no refuge nigh.
Ah, whither shall I flee? What friendly hand
Shall guide me to some safe, select retreat,
Where, while the dark, perpetual tempests beat,
Unscathed, uninjured, I may safely stand?
He comes! He comes! I see the platted crown;
I see the bleeding feet, the wounded side.
Now let the bellowing storm rush fiercely down,
Thy smile shall comfort me, Thine arms shall hide.
With Thee, Thou dear Redeemer, are no fears;
Thou scatterest all my doubts, and wipest all my tears.

— The Religious Offering (1835) Scripture Sonnets XXV.

The Ruler of the Nations

"The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind." — Is. 17.13.

There is a God, whose searching eye doth look
Into the hearts of private men and kings;
Who turns the nations, as the running brook,
And mighty empires to subjection brings.
If nations to his will and ways are given,
He binds them fast to his eternal throne,
But scatters, as the chaff by winds is driven,
Such as forget his laws, and such alone.
See Rome, with flags unfurled and eagles spread!
'Twas virtue made her powerful at first;
When virtue failed, and honor bowed its head,
An angry God did smite her to the dust,
Sheer from her seat of pride and empire hurl'd,
And made her thence the scorn and hissing of the world.

— The Religious Offering (1835) Scripture Sonnets XXIV.

She Bears Her Trials in Silence

Reflections on
the Life of
Madame Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon.

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Reflections on her conversion — and her continuing domestic sorrows.

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In general, she thought it best to bear her domestic trials in silence, whatever they might be. As a woman of prayer and faith, she did not look upon them exclusively in the human light; but regarding them as sent of God for some gracious purpose, she was somewhat fearful of seeking advice and consolation from any other than a divine source. Indeed she was so situated that she could not well do otherwise than she did, having but few friends at this time, with whom it would have been prudent to have consulted upon these things. Her own mother was dead. The half sister, whom she loved so much, and with whom she had been accustomed in earlier life to take counsel, was no longer living. The two sisters of her husband, constituting with him all the children of their family, who seem to have had no unfavorable dispositions, were almost constantly absent at the Benedictine Seminary. They were brought up under the care of the prioress, Genevieve Granger, a pious and discreet woman, whom we shall have occasion to mention hereafter. Those of her pious friends in whose discretion she could fully trust, were not only few in number, but it was not always easy or safe to see them. "Sometimes," she remarks on one occasion, "I said to myself, Oh that I had but any one, who would take notice of me, or to whom I might unbosom myself! what a relief it would be! But it was not granted me."

It ought to be added, however, in connection with the domestic trials of which we have given some account, that they were alleviated in some degree, by the satisfaction which she took in her two younger children. They were both lovely, and worthy to be loved. The birth of the second son has already been mentioned. The third child was a daughter, born in 1669. Of this child she speaks in the warm terms of admiration and love, dictated by the observation of her lovely traits of character, as well as by the natural strength of motherly affection. She represents her as budding and opening under her eye into an object of delightful beauty and attraction. She loved her for her loveliness; and she loved her for the God who gave her. When she was deserted by the world, when her husband became estranged from her, she pressed this young daughter to her bosom, and felt that she was blessed. This too, this cherished and sacred pleasure, was soon destined to pass away.

— edited from The Life of Madam Guyon (1877) Volume 1, Chapter 8.