The Quest for Full Assurance

Name: The Quest for Full Assurance
SKU: 9780851517452
Availability: OutOfStock

The Legacy of Calvin and His Successors

Author

Joel Beeke

Category Theology Books

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Weight	1.16 lbs
Dimensions	8.5 × 5.4 × 1.25 in
ISBN	9780851517452
Binding	Paperback
Topic	Assurance, General Theology, Salvation
Original Pub Date	1999
Banner Pub Date	Apr 1, 1999
Page Count	411
Format	Book

ENDORSEMENT

‘A long-needed and outstanding work on the subject of assurance…of permanent importance for preachers and students’. — IAIN H. MURRAY

Book Description

Against the background of the sixteenth century Reformers (with special attention to Calvin), Beeke examines the theological development of personal assurance of faith in English Puritanism and its parallel movement in the Netherlands, the Dutch Second Reformation.

Table of Contents Expand ↓

	TABLE OF CONTENTS	ix
	ABBREVIATIONS	xiii
	PREFACE – Sinclair Ferguson	xv
	INTRODUCTION	1
	*Part One*
	ASSURANCE PRIOR TO THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY
	THE EARLY AND MEDIEVAL CHURCH	9
	THE REFORMATION FROM LUTHER TO BULLINGER	16
	Martin Luther (1483-1546)	19
	Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560)	24
	Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531)	27
	Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575)	31
	REFORMED DEVELOPMENT IN CALVIN AND BEZA	36
	John Calvin (1509-1564)	37
	Nature and Definition of Faith	37
	Assurance of the Essence of Faith	39
	Qualifying Statements	41
	Making Sense of Apparent Contradictions	44
	Faith and Experience	44
	Flesh versus Spirit	46
	Germ of Faith versus Consciousness of Faith	51
	Trinitarian Framework	55
	The Practical Syllogism (syllogismus practicus)	65
	Theodore Beza (1519-1605)	72
	Comparison with Calvin	73
	The Grounds of Assurance	75
	THE FATHERS OF ENGLISH PURITANISM AND THE DUTCH SECOND REFORMATION	82
	William Perkins (1558-1602)	83
	Structuring Principles	83
	The Grounds of Assurance	87
	Conversion’s Steps	88
	Step #1: Humiliation	88
	Step #2: Faith in Christ	89
	Steps #3-4: Repentance and New Obedience	96
	William Teellinck (1579-1629)	98
	Assurance by Faith Working Through Love	104
	Assurance by the Promises of God	105
	Assurance by the Immediate Witness of the Holy Spirit	107
	*Part Two*
	ASSURANCE FROM THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY TO ALEXANDER COMRIE
	ENGLISH PURITANISM AND THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION, CHAPTER 18	111
	Puritan Thought on Assurance by the 1640s	113
	18.1: Threefold Possibility	119
	False Assurance	120
	True Assurance	121
	Lacking the Consciousness of Assurance	122
	18.2: The Foundations of Personal Assurance	123
	Divine Promises in Christ	124
	Inward Evidences of Saving Grace	130
	The Seat of Assurance: Christ’s Internal Presence	130
	The Method of Assurance: The Practical and Mystical Syllogisms	131
	The Witnessing Testimony of the Spirit	142
	18.3: The Cultivation of Assurance	147
	The Organic Relation of Faith to Assurance	147
	The Time Element in Faith’s Maturation	150
	The Means of Attaining Assurance	152
	The Duty of Seeking Assurance	154
	The Fruit of Assurance	155
	18.4: Assurance Lost and Renewed	156
	The Causes of an “Unreachable” Assurance	156
	Causes in the Believer: Sin and Backsliding	156
	Causes in God: Withdrawing and “Tempting”	159
	The Revival of Assurance	162
	Conclusion	164
	JOHN OWEN	165
	Two Short Catechisms (1645)	166
	The Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance (1654)	167
	Polemical Response to John Goodwin	167
	Setting the Stage for Elaboration on Assurance	171
	Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (1657)	173
	Communion with the Father: Love	177
	Communion with the Son: Grace	178
	Conjugal Relationship	178
	Adoption	180
	Communion with the Spirit: Comfort	181
	Witnessing in the Court of Conscience	182
	The Believer’s “Earnest”	185
	The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order (1658)	187
	An Exposition upon Psalm CXXX (1668)	189
	Personal Crises	189
	Enlargement Upon the Westminster Confession	191
	The Attainability of Assurance	191
	Assurance Normative but not Common	192
	How Assurance is Obtained	196
	Retaining, Renewing, and Improving Assurance	198
	Pneumatologia: A Discourse on the Holy Spirit (1674ff.)	200
	The Sealing of the Spirit	201
	The Unction of the Spirit	208
	The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1677)	209
	An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews (1668-1684)	211
	Conclusion: Owen’s Influence and Pneumatological Emphasis	212
	ALEXANDER COMRIE	214
	Historical and Biographical Context	214
	Saving Faith	217
	The Habit and Act of Faith	218
	Unity and Oneness (eenheid) of Faith	226
	Three Faculties of Faith	227
	Spiritual Knowledge	228
	Spiritual Assent	229
	Spiritual Trust	230
	Assurance of Faith	231
	The Direct and Reflex Acts of Faith	231
	Assurance of the Uprightness of Faith and of Adoption	233
	Assurance of Faith and Assurance of Sense	234
	Conditional and Unconditional Promises	236
	Faith and Justification	237
	*Part Three*
	COMPARISON OF ENGLISH PURITANISM AND THE DUTCH SECOND REFORMATION ON ASSURANCE
	THOMAS GOODWIN: THE MERGING OF ENGLISH-DUTCH THINKING OF ASSURANCE	245
	Goodwin and Owen	247
	Spiritual Experience and Dutch Influence	247
	Faith’s Relation to Assurance	255
	Assurance and Knowledge of the Divine Persons	257
	Discursive and Intuitive Assurance	259
	Goodwin and Comrie	265
	CONCLUSION	269
	APPENDIX: THE DUTCH SECOND REFORMATION (DE NADERE REFORMATIE)	286
	The Term Nadere Reformatie	287
	The Essence of the Dutch Second Reformation	293
	Assessment in Secondary Sources	303
	BIBLIOGRAPHY	311
	INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS	381
	INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES	393