us, a prey to doubt, uneasiness, and perplexity. The latter, if received as true, quashes every doubt, removes every difficulty, and fills us necessarily with joy and peace in believing.

It is to the conviction produced by the latter of these -as the answer which we believe God in his word returns to the question proposed-that we apply the phrase assurance of faith. Any remnant of conditionality, and thereby of uncertainty in the mind respecting God's love to ourselves personally and our own personal enjoyment of everlasting life, appears to us to be inconsistent with and destructive of the privilege which the phrase denotes. That the personal certainty of everlasting life is not the sense in which the words assurance of faith have always been employed by theologians, is freely admitted; but it is the sense in which they are most commonly used at the present day, and that in which we intend to use them throughout this treatise.

Before proceeding farther, it is, perhaps, due to myself to mention, that, like some of my opponents, although upon grounds different from theirs, I also have my doubts respecting the propriety of applying the phrase assurance of faith as is commonly done; or rather respecting the propriety of using the phrase at all. Two of the causes in which these doubts have originated are the following.

First. The tautology implied in the expression. Faith by its nature is assurance. Or, if this may be questioned in regard to our belief in the testimony of

man, at all events it will be found to hold true in regard to our belief in the testimony of God. What is my

having faith in or believing what God has declared, but my being assured or absolutely certain that his testimony is true? Faith in a divine testimony and assurance are thus convertible terms, or are capable of being used the one for the other; but if so, why combine and employ them as is done when we adopt the phraseology assurance of faith? What real addition to our meaning is the result of joining them in this way? Is it not just equivalent to saying the assurance of assurance, or the faith of faith? Is it not stating the thing in two distinct terms, where one word would have been amply sufficient for the purpose? But can tautology like this have obtained the sanction of the word of God?

των

Secondly. The doubt thus created, has received confirmation from the following circumstance. Luke i. 1. stands thus in the ordinary version. Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things WHICH ARE MOST SURELY BELIEVED among us. Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen, after having in the text of his translation rendered the Greek Twv πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν, by the English words WHICH HAVE BEEN ACCOMPLISHED AMONGST US, assigns his reason for the alteration in a long, interesting, and extremely valuable critical note. According to the Dr., and also according to Parkhurst who in this coincides with him, "the verb Anpopopew admits, in scripture, two interpretations. One is, to perform, fulfil, or accom

* Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon, under the word λnpopopew.

plish; the other, to convince, persuade, or embolden; that is, to inspire with that confidence which is commonly consequent upon conviction."+ It is true that Dr. Campbell confines this double sense of the word to the verb itself, for he says, although without producing even the shadow of an authority for the assertion, that "the noun Anpopopia denotes conviction, assurance, confidence." But after perusing carefully the Dr.'s exceedingly happy list of proofs that the verb signifies to perform, fulfil, or accomplish, I confess I have not been able to resist the conviction, that there are cases in which performance, fulfilment, or accomplishment,

may be fairly enough set down as the signification which the noun likewise has in scripture. For instance, in Hebrews vi. 11, and we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to THE FULL ASSURANCE OF HOPE unto the end, are not the last words susceptible of being much more fitly and intelligibly translated, to or until THE FULFILMENT OF HOPE or of your hope to or until the end ; προς την πληροφορίαν τῆς ἐλπίδος ἄχρι TEλove. Again, in Heb. x. 22, we find these words, Let τέλους. us draw near with a true heart in FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH. But when we consider, that throughout the whole of the preceding part of the epistle, and especially in the preceding part of the context, the Apostle is suggesting to New Testament believers that by them were possessed the realities of which the Mosaic insti

+ Campbell's Gospels translated from the Greek, &c., vol. 4. Notes Critical and Explanatory. Note on Luke i. 1.

Ibid.

tutions afforded merely the shadows, and that to them were fulfilled what had been merely objects of faith to the Old Testament Saints, may not the translation which follows be regarded as a much more correct representation of the Apostle's meaning? Let us draw near with a true heart, or a true understanding, pet' adŋlivñs kapdias, that is, with a right conception of subjects concerning which Jewish believers, previous to the Messiah's advent, could form only faint and incorrect notions,-see 1 Peter i. 10-12; and in THE FULFILMENT OF FAITH, εν πληροφορία πιστεως, that is, having had fulfilled to us what were merely objects of faith to the Saints who have preceded us,-see Hebrews xi. 39, 40. Observe, I am not asserting dogmatically that performance, fulfilment, or accomplishment, is actually the sense of the verbal noun Anpopopia in the passages quoted, and in one or two others which might be alluded to, for I do not pretend to set up my judgment, in a matter of this kind, in opposition to that of illustrious critics and commentators; but I am merely mentioning what, from the statements of some of these very critics and commentators themselves I have been led to suspect, and at the present moment cannot help suspecting, may after all turn out to be the meaning of the word.*

But I am content to waive every objection to the use of the phrase assurance of faith derived from the above and similar sources. Throughout these pages it is employed to signify, as has already been stated, that ab

* See Appendix A.

solute and infallible certainty of our own personal possession of everlasting life which, it is one of my principal objects to shew, necessarily results from or rather is implied in our believing the divine testimony.

Discussions respecting the assurance of faith are not of recent origin. From the earliest ages of Christianity, the subject, as from its importance might have been anticipated, has more or less engaged the attention of those who have been considered the heads of the church. Augustin's sentiments on this point, summed up in that remarkable declaration of his, fidem suam quisque qui eam habet, videt in corde suo, et tenet certissima scientia et clamante conscientia,* as well as the reasonings of Catarinus, Marinarus, and some other avowed Roman Catholics, are proof positive, that all those whose writings the Church of Rome professes to respect, and whom she claims as belonging to her communion, have not lent their countenance to that "doubtsome faith" upon which the superstructure of Popery seems most appropriately to be built. But the Mother of Harlots has not been so neglectful of her supposed interests as to encourage the sentiments of Augustin and his followers. The Canons of the Council of Trent in which it is positively denied, that any person can know with an assurance of faith which may not after all turn out to have been unfounded that he himself personally is a partaker of the grace of God, and in which all who maintain the necessity of the assurance of faith being possessed by a

* De Trinitate, 1. 13, c. 1.