c. In the Last Two Centuries
the Holy Spirit. It calls this the "infallible (full) assurance of faith," and asserts that this is not necessarily enjoyed by believers from the very moment that they accept Christ by faith. So understood the teaching of the Confession does not materially differ from that of the Reformers and of the other great Protestant Confessions, though there is undoubtedly a difference of emphasis. It may also be regarded as significant that the Confession, speaking of faith, says:
"This faith is different in degrees, weak or strong; may be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory; growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith." How can faith grow into this full assurance, if assurance is not, in any sense, of the essence of faith? Moreover, the Confession also takes the position that, though believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted, "yet they are never utterly destitute of that seed of Cod … out of which, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived, and by the which, in the meantime, they are supported from utter despair." We fully agree with Shaw, when he says in his Commentary on the Confession: "But although the assurance described in this chapter
(the full assurance referred to above) is not essential to faith, yet there is an assurance which belongs to the essence of faith, and this our Confession recognizes in the Chapter which treats of saving faith." c. In the Last Two Centuries In the eighteenth century the religious life of Europe suffered from the blight of Rationalism. Religion became a matter of the intellect only, and religious truth was made to depend on rational arguments.
Religious certainty was identified with a rational insight into the truth, and divorced from the experience of a supernatural change, and the resulting testimony of the Holy Spirit. Under this chilling influence real spiritual life fast declined, and alongside of it there appeared a luxurious growth of a purely historical or a merely temporal faith.
It was but natural that reaction should follow. When a spurious faith became alarmingly prevalent, the question forced itself upon seriousminded Christians with an ever increasing insistency: How can we distinguish the true from the false? The proper method was found in a close and sustained self-examination. The life of the soul was submitted to a very careful scrutiny and to an analysis surprising in its minuteness. A constantly growing number of marks were discovered by which true faith might be recognized, many of them based on an unwarranted generalization and therefore of a very questionable character. The spiritual experiences of those who were regarded as established Christians became the standard by which others were judged. But, though this method was undoubtedly applied with the best intention, it did not promote the glad assurance of salvation in the Church of God; in many cases it even led to hopeless confusion. Perplexing doubts and uncertainties became so common that even these were finally looked upon as a mark of true piety. Scripture warrant for this was found in the word of Solomon,
"Happy is the man that feareth alway," Prov. 28:14. A distinction was made between the being and the well-being of faith; between a faith merely fleeing for refuge to Christ and an assured faith. The general conviction was that assurance was not of the essence or of the very being of faith, and was certainly not included in any sense in a faith that merely revealed itself in a fleeing to Christ for salvation.
Assurance was, in fact, regarded as a high and rare privilege, the prerogative of a few favored souls, sometimes obtained only in a special way.
There is especially one great historical movement that sought to point out a more excellent way to obtain personal assurance.
Methodism reacted against the prevailing spiritual pessimism of the age and aimed at promoting a cheerful and joyous Christian life. And this is still one of its purposes to-day. It places the sinner squarely before the law of God and causes him to tremble at the thought of the coming judgment. But when it has cast him down, has filled his heart with the terrors of the law, and has brought him to a realization of his lost condition, it at once gladdens the heart with the joyous
message of salvation. The experience of salvation is contracted in a single moment; the deepest gloom is instantly transformed into the greatest joy. And it is only natural that this tremendous change immediately carries with it a full assurance. The converted sinner at once shouts for joy, because he feels that he is saved. This glad assurance Methodism regards as one of the characteristics of saving faith.
Now it may strike us as an anomaly that the Methodist can feel sure of being saved from the very moment of his conversion, and at the same time deny the doctrines of election, of the irresistible character of the grace of God, and of the perseverance of the saints. But this apparent inconsistency disappears, if we bear in mind that his assurance pertains to the present only and not the future, that it is an assurance of being in a present state of grace, and not an assurance of final salvation. Wesley describes this assurance as the result of an immediate operation of the Holy Spirit; but there is no small danger that it will ultimately prove to be only a psychological effect, artificially produced by playing on the emotions. Moreover, Sheldon, himself a Methodist, is quite correct in saying: "Wesley's description of the Holy Spirit's agency, as consisting in the immediate production of a specific conviction, applies far better to a possible crisis or exceptional exigency in Christian experience than to assurance as a standing fact in the normal Christian life." With the Methodist assurance is almost exclusively a matter of the feelings, and is therefore a rather unstable thing in itself. The assurance that reveals itself in the shouts of joy that are heard in present day revivals is not a very dependable thing. It easily turns into a feeling of great depression, and even of utter despair.