It is certain, that there are many excellent divines, in our own and foreign nations, who have defined faith by assurance; which they have supposed so essential to it, that without it no one can be reckoned a believer. It may be they might be inclined thus to express themselves by the sense in which they understood several texts of scripture, in which assurance seems to be considered as a necessary ingredient in faith; as it is said, _Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith_, Heb. x. 22. and when the apostle speaks of assurance, as a privilege that belonged to the church to which he wrote, _We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens_, 2 Cor. v. 1. and elsewhere, he so far blames their not knowing themselves, or being destitute of this assurance, that he will hardly allow them to have any faith, who were without it; _Know ye not your ownselves, how that Jesus, Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates_, chap. xiii. 5. From such like expressions as these, they who plead for assurance being of the essence of faith, are ready to conclude, that they who are destitute of it, can hardly be called believers. But, that this matter may be set in a true light, we must distinguish between assurance of the object, _viz._ the great and important doctrines of the gospel, being of the essence of faith; and assurance of our interest in Christ being so. The former of these we will not deny; for no one can come to Christ, who is not assured that he will receive him, nor trust in him till he is fully assured that he is able to save him: but the latter we must take leave to deny; for if no one is a believer but he that knows himself to be so, then he that doubts of his salvation, must be concluded to be no believer; which is certainly a very discouraging doctrine to weak Christians. And also, when we lose the comfortable persuasion we once had, of our interest in Christ, we are bound to question all our former experiences, and to determine ourselves to be in a state of unregeneracy, which is, in effect to deny to give God the glory of that powerful work which was formerly wrought in us, which we then thought to be a work of grace.