One of the characteristics of the Protestant Reformers was their deep sense of the assurance of their salvation through Christ. As a result, their doctrine of assurance tied it by an inseparable knot to saving faith. True saving faith was always characterized by this assurance of salvation, they believed. The Reformers went too far in that respect, but their position was understandable. The Catholic Church had denied the possibility of the assurance of salvation and called the Protestant doctrine of assurance ‘the greatest of Protestant’s heresies.’ The Reformers did not come to their doctrine of assurance through deductive reasoning or even through the reading of Scripture alone. They derived their view from the internal witness of the Spirit to their spirit. Periods of great revivals are periods when assurance is one of the primary marks of the converts. The Reformation was the greatest period of revival since the Day of Pentecost and the Reformers and their children were given an assurance of their salvation that was above measure. It is understandable, therefore, that they emphasized the internal witness of the Holy Spirit to the degree that they did. The Puritans corrected this view of assurance with a more mature statement of it in the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Puritans realized that some saints will struggle for a long time and have many conflicts to overcome before they attain the full assurance of faith and salvation. In this week’s article, I am once again including quotes from Dr. Lloyd-Jones analysis of William Williams and the Calvinistic Methodists. I hope you enjoy it.
“That brings me to say just a little more about this whole question of assurance, because in many ways it was the distinguishing mark of Methodism and the same thing that was common to Methodism. They divided over holiness teaching, as we have already been reminded, and over other matters, but here there was this great unity, this teaching concerning assurance. What was it? It was this, that our assurance of salvation is not only, and not merely, something that is to be deduced from the Scriptures. They agreed that that was part of it. I would say that the bulk of evangelical people today, in this and other countries, stop at that. That is their only assurance, that which you deduce from the Scriptures. ‘Whosoever believeth in Him is not condemned.’ So they say, ‘Do you believe in Him? ‘Yes.’ ‘Very well, you are not condemned, and there is your assurance. Do not worry about your feelings,’ etc. etc.
“Now Methodism taught the exact opposite. That is the point at which you start, and you can go on and test yourself in terms of the teaching of the first Epistle of John. As you do so you will get a better assurance, an assurance which will save you from a kind of ‘believism’, or an intellectualism that just says that it believes and accepts all this, and which emphasizes the importance of evidences of new life. But these men were concerned to go on to a further source of assurance, which to them was the one that they desired and coveted above everything else. That was the direct witness of the Spirit himself to the fact that they were the children of God. So they made much, of course, of Romans 8:15 and 16; and also of Galatians 2:20: “The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”, etc.
“This, I repeat, was common to all of them. We are all familiar with the experience of John Wesley in Aldersgate Street on May 24, 1738. ‘My heart was strangely warm, and I did know that my sins even mine, had been forgiven.’ William Williams made a great deal of this. Let me give two quotations to establish this point. I am translating out of his book, The Door (or ‘Entry’ if you like) to the Experience Meeting – the Experience Society. He was giving instructions to the men in charge of the societies as to how they should question and catechize and cross-examine the people who were anxious to be admitted to the societies, and, indeed, how they should examine the experiences of those who belonged to the societies. He drew a distinction between the way in which you questioned and catechized young members, new members, and the way in which you catechized older members. He says: ‘You must not expect as much of the light of faith, and certainly amongst those whom you are receiving for the first time, as you must expect amongst those who have been in for some time’—although he goes on to say that ‘sometimes you will get a shock and you will find that people’s early experiences are very much better than their later experiences.’ However, that is his main point of distinction—that you do not expect as much light and clarity and certainty from the young convert as you do from the older one.
“How, then, do you question and examine the young convert? This is one of his ways of putting it—that the examiner is to say to the young convert, ‘Though you have not yet received the testimony of the Spirit (to your salvation), nevertheless, are you seeking God with your whole heart, and with this as the main rule of your life? Not by fits and starts or occasional touches of conviction—Is this the main thing in your life?’ But notice how he starts: ‘Though you have not yet received the testimony of the Spirit.’ Then when he comes to the way in which they should question the older men he says, ‘You must examine them concerning the clarity or the clearness of their testimony, how they first received their testimony, whether they have lost any of it or not.’ Then he tells them to ask: ‘Has this testimony which you have in your own spirit been doubled by the Holy Spirit?’ That is the term he used—’doubled’. In other words, that was Williams’ view of the ‘Spirit himself also beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God’ (Rom. 8:16). Our spirit tells us this, ‘the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father’. But the Spirit, as it were, doubles it, seals it, guarantees it, gives an extra, an overplus on top of it, confirms it. That is the term which he uses with regard to these older converts.
“That was their teaching, and, of course, it was their own experience. This comes out very clearly in the case of Daniel Rowland, who having come to see the doctrine of justification by faith as he had heard it preached by Griffith Jones at Llanddewi Brefi, still did not have certainty about it. But one day when he was reading the litany at the communion service in his own church in the village of Llangeitho, suddenly the Spirit came and did this ‘doubling’; and he knew. And it was from then on that he began to preach in that amazing way and with that amazing power, of which Ryle writes in his famous book, Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century. The same thing is very clear in the case of Howell Harris. Howell Harris, being convicted of sin on the Sunday before Good Friday 1735, got an assurance at Whitsun. But it was only three weeks later that he had this ‘doubling’ by the Spirit, and that was the thing that made him an evangelist. They taught this, and they taught people to expect this, not to be satisfied with anything less, as my quotation from Williams’ book has already shown you.”
(D. M. Lloyd Jones, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors (Edinburgh, Scotland and Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), 198-200.
Dewey Roberts, Pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Destin, FL
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