The dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in several treatisesThe dead saint speaking to saints and sinners living in severall treatises

Answ. Thou sayest thou puts forth this act of faith, and thus qualified, and yet thou sayest thou art not justified. How knowest thou that? Thou sayest thou art not, because thou dost not know thou art, I know that will be the next. For thus poor hearts reason to their own discouragement. I want assurance of Justification, therefore I am not justified; I want that inward peace, and therefore fear my peace is not made with God. Though there be nothing more clear than this, that a man may have peace with God, and yet want the peace of this in himself; it is possible for a man to be justified, and yet want assurance of it within. Affiance, doth justify in the Court of God; Assurance justifieth in the Court of Conscience; to be justified is one thing, to be assured is another.

Answ. Thou sayest thou puts forth this act of faith, and thus qualified, and yet thou sayest thou art not justified. How knowest thou that? Thou sayest thou art not, because thou dost not know thou art, I know that will be the next. For thus poor hearts reason to their own discouragement. I want assurance of Justification, therefore I am not justified; I want that inward peace, and therefore fear my peace is not made with God. Though there be nothing more clear than this, that a man may have peace with God, and yet want the peace of this in himself; it is possible for a man to be justified, and yet want assurance of it within. Affiance, doth justifie in the Court of God; Assurance justifieth in the Court of Conscience; to be justified is one thing, to be assured is another.

In the object all is sure, in the subject there may be much uncertainty: It is possible for a man to put forth the act of faith, yea, and to continue in so doing, and yet walk without peace, and apprehensions of his own safety; thy condition may be safe in the promise to the eye of faith, though not to thy self in the evidence of sense. Thy condition may be safe and secure, although thou for the present dost not apprehend thy own safety, or the security of it. It is secure in the promise, in respect of God; though stormy and troubled to sense, in respect of our selves.