THE REFORMERS

AND

THE DOCTRINE OF ASSURANCE.*

SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON,† in the course of his attack upon Archdeacon Hare, introduces a lengthened and elaborate historico-theological statement, chiefly upon the subject of Assurance. We quote the passage as it is the text of our present discourse :

"Assurance, Personal Assurance, Special Faith (the feeling of certainty) that God is propitious to me, that my sins are forgiven,-(Fiducia, Plerophoria Fidei, Fides Specialis),—Assurance was long universally held in the Protestant communities to be the criterion and condition of a true or saving faith. Luther declares that he who hath not assurance spews faith out;' and Melancthon, that 'assurance is the discriminating line of Christianity from Heathenism.' Assurance is, indeed, the punctum saliens of Luther's system, and an unacquaintance with this, his great central doctrine, is one prime cause of the chronic misrepresentation which runs through our recent histories of Luther and the Reformation. Assurance is no less strenuously maintained by Calvin; is held even by Arminius; and stands, essentially, part and parcel of all the confessions of all the churches of the Reformation, down to the Westminster Assembly. In that synod assurance was, in Protestanism, for the first, indeed only time, formally declared not to be of the essence of faith; and,

*British and Foreign Evangelical | possessed it, that he was to die so soon, Review. October 1856.

Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform, etc. By Sir WM. HAMILTON, Bart. 1853.

In the interval between the publication of the former article and the present one, Sir William Hamilton died, and Dr Cunningham, in his introductory remarks, thus refers to the event:-"The knowledge, if we had

would assuredly have modified somewhat the tone in which the discussion was conducted,-would have shut out something of its lightness and severity, and imparted to it more of solemnity and tenderness; and the knowledge which we did possess, that he, as well as ourselves, was liable every day to be called out of this world and summoned into God's presence, ought to have produced this result."-EDS.

accordingly, the Scottish General Assembly has subsequently, once and again, condemned and deposed the holders of this, the doctrine of Luther, of Calvin, of all the other churches of the Reformation, and of the older Scottish church itself. In the English, and more articulately, in the Irish establishment, assurance still stands a necessary tenet of ecclesiastical belief. (See Homilies, Book I., Number iii., Part 3, specially referred to in the eleventh of the Thirty-nine Articles; and Number iv., Parts 1 and 3; likewise the sixth Lambeth Article.) Assurance was consequently held by all the older Anglican churchmen, of whom Hooker may stand for the example; but assurance is now openly disavowed without scruple by Anglican churchmen, high and low, when apprehended; but of these, many, like Mr Hare, are blissfully incognisant of the opinion, its import, its history, and even its name.

"This dogma, with its fortune, past and present, affords, indeed, a series of the most curious contrasts. For it is curious that this cardinal point of Luther's doctrine should, without exception, have been constituted into the fundamental principle of all the churches of the Reformation; and, as their common and uncatholic doctrine, have been explicitly condemned at Trent. Again, it is curious that this common and differential doctrine of the churches of the Reformation should now be abandoned virtually in, or formally by, all these churches themselves. Again, it is curious that Protestants should now generally profess the counter doctrine, asserted at Trent in condemnation of their peculiar principle. Again, it is curious that this, the most important variation in the faith of Protestants, as, in fact, a gravitation of Protestantism back towards Catholicity, should have been overlooked, as indeed, in his days, undeveloped, by the keen-eyed author of The History of the Variations of the Protestant churches.' Finally, it is curious that, though now fully developed, this central approximation of Protestantism to Catholicity should not, as far as I know, have been signalised by any theologian, Protestant or Catholic; whilst the Protestant symbol (Fides sola justificat,'-' Faith alone justifies'), though now eviscerated of its real import, and now only manifesting an unimportant difference of expression, is still supposed to mark the discrimination of the two religious denominations. For both agree that the three heavenly virtues must all concur to salvation; and they only differ, whether faith, as a word, does or does not involve hope and charity. This misprision would have been avoided had Luther and Calvin only said, "Fiducia sola justificat,''Assurance alone justifies ;' for on their doctrine assurance was convertible with true faith, and true faith implied the other Christian graces. But this primary and peculiar doctrine of the Reformation is now harmoniously condemned by Catholics and Protestants in unison.” *

We hope to be able to prove that this elaborate statement contains about as large an amount of inaccuracy as could well have been crammed into the space which it occupies; and, if we succeed in doing this, we may surely expect that Sir William's

* Discussions, 2d Ed., pp. 508-9.

authority upon theological subjects will henceforth stand at least as low as zero.

It may help us to form an estimate of the accuracy of Sir William's history of this subject, if we begin with a brief statement of what were the views of the Reformers and the Romanists upon this point, and of what was the general course which the discussions regarding it followed. That the Reformers generally held very high views upon the subject, that they were in the habit of speaking very strongly of the importance and necessity of men being personally assured about their own salvation, -is of course well known to every one who has the slightest acquaintance with their history and writings. The causes that tended to produce a leaning towards what may be regarded as exaggerated views and statements upon this subject, were chiefly these two:-1st, Their own personal experience as converted and believing men; and, 2d, The ground taken by the Romanists in arguing against them.

The Reformers, speaking of them generally as a body, and with reference to their ordinary condition, seem to have enjoyed usually an assurance of being in a state of grace and of being warranted to count upon salvation. God seems to have given to them the grace of assurance more fully and more generally than He does to believers in ordinary circumstances. And this is in accordance with the general course of His providential procedure. The history of the church seems to indicate to us two positions as true, with reference to this matter, viz.,-1st, That assurance of salvation has been enjoyed more fully and more generally by men who were called to difficult and arduous labours in the cause of Christ, than by ordinary believers in general. And, 2dly, That this assurance, as enjoyed by such persons, has been frequently traceable to special circumstances connected with the manner of their conversion as its immediate or proximate cause. So it certainly was with the Reformers. The position in which they were placed, and the work they were called upon to do, made it specially necessary that they should enjoy habitually the courage and the strength which spring from a well-grounded assurance of salvation. This, accordingly, God gave them; and He gave them it in many cases, as He has often done in subsequent times, by so regulating the circumstances which preceded and accompanied their conversion, as to satisfy them, almost as if by a perception of

VOL. I.

8

their senses, that they had passed from death unto life. The Reformers having been in general, for these reasons and by such processes, assured, ordinarily, of their own salvation, were not unnaturally led, from this cause, to give great prominence to the subject of assurance, and to regard and to represent it as in some way or other necessarily connected with the Christian faith, and as an indispensable constituent element of the Christian character.

But, in the second place, the Reformers were the more induced to adhere to this view, and to exert themselves to establish and defend it, in consequence of the ground that was taken up by their popish antagonists. The Romanists then, as well as now, were accustomed to allege that it was impossible for Protestants to have any certainty of the soundness of their views, or of the safety of their position, that though they might be able to produce plausible and apparently satisfactory pleadings in support of what they taught, they could have no adequate ground for perfect assurance of its truth; while Romanists had a firm ground for absolute certainty in the testimony or authority of the church. There were three important subjects to which chiefly the Romanists were accustomed to apply this alleged point of contrast between their position and that of the Reformers. They were accustomed to allege that Protestants, upon Protestant principles, could have no certainty, and nothing more than a probable persuasion, 1st, That the books generally received, or any particular books specified, were possessed of divine authority; or, 2d, That this and not that was the meaning of a scriptural passage, or the substance of what Scripture taught upon a particular topic; or, 3d, That any particular individual was how in a state of grace and would be finally saved. The more reasonable Romanists did not deny that there were rational considerations bearing upon the establishment of the divine authority of the books of Scripture, sufficient to silence and confute infidels; or that, by the ordinary rules and resources of exegesis, something might be done towards settling the meaning of many scriptural statements; or that men, by a diligent and impartial use of scriptural materials, combined with self-examination, might attain to good hope with respect to their ultimate salvation. But they denied that Protestants could ever attain to full and perfect certainty upon any of these points,-could ever reach such

thorough and conclusive assurance as the authority of the church furnished to those who received it. Protestants, in dealing with this allegation, were not unnaturally led to maintain, that upon all these subjects they had, or might have, not merely a probable persuasion, but a strict and absolute certainty, and to labour to unfold the grounds of the certainty to which they laid claim. It was here that many of the Reformers were led to propound views which appear to have been somewhat extreme and exaggerated, both in regard to the kind and degree of the certainty they contended for, and the grounds on which they professed to establish its reality and legitimacy. Protestants are not infallible any more than papists. Neither the great Reformers of the sixteenth century, nor the great systematic divines of the seventeenth, are to be implictly followed. The truth is, that God has never yet given to any body of uninspired men to rise altogether, and in every respect, in their mode of dealing with the doctrines of His word, above the influence of their circumstances. There has never been any uninspired man, or any company of uninspired men, that has not given some indication of the imperfection of humanity, in their mode of dealing with some portion or other of divine truth. The Reformers, as a body, are unquestionably more entitled to deference in matters of theological doctrine than any other body of men who have adorned the church since the apostolic age. But there can be no reasonable doubt that there are some doctrinal points on which many of them have gone astray, either from retaining something of the corruption of the popish system which they had abandoned, or, what is about equally natural and probable, in consequence of the imperfection of human nature, from running into an extreme opposite to that which they had forsaken.

It is pretty evident that the papists, by taunting the Reformers with their want of certainty on the three points to which we have referred, drove them into the assertion of extreme and untenable positions. The Reformers claimed for their convictions and conclusions, on these questions, a kind and degree of certainty which the nature of the subject did not admit of, and they fell into further errors in endeavouring to set forth the grounds or reasons of the certainty or assurance for which they contended. They contended that they had, or might have, a perfect and absolute certainty in regard to all those matters,—a certainty resting not