If they, indeed, mean by assurance, being of the essence of faith, that an assurance of our interest in Christ is essential to the highest or most comfortable acts of faith, designing thereby to put us upon pressing after it, if we have not attained to it; and that hereby God is very much glorified, and a foundation laid for our offering praise to him, for the experience we have had of his grace, which a doubting Christian cannot be said to do; we have nothing to say against it. Or, if they should assert, that doubting is no ingredient in faith, nor a commendable excellency in a Christian; this we do not deny. All that we are contending for is, that there may be a direct act of faith, or a faith of reliance, in those who are destitute of assurance that they are in a state of grace; which is the thing supposed in this answer, when it is said, that assurance is not of the essence of faith. That this may be better understood, and we be led into the sense of those scriptures that describe believers as having assurance, such as those but now mentioned, and others to the like purpose, let it be considered, that there are many scriptures, in which believers are said to have such an assurance, as only respects the objects of faith, _viz._ the person, offices, and glory of Christ, the truth of the gospel, and the promises thereof; which we do not deny to be of the essence of faith. Thus, when the apostle prays for the church, _That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ_, Col. ii. 2. and when elsewhere he says, _Our gospel came to you in much assurance_, 1 Thess, i. 5. and when he exhorts persons to _draw near_ to God, _with a true heart, in full assurance of faith_, Heb. x. 22. it is probable, that he means in these, and several other scriptures of the like import, no more than an assurance of the object of faith. And as for that scripture but now mentioned, in 2 Cor. xiii. 5. where he seems to assert, that all who are destitute of this privilege are reprobates; some understand the word, which we translate _reprobates_, as only signifying injudicious Christians; and if so, this is not inconsistent with the character of believers: but others, with an equal degree of probability, render it _disapproved_;[107] and so the meaning is, that if you know not your ownselves, to wit, that Christ is in you, you are greatly to be blamed, or disapproved; especially because this proceeds from your neglect of the duty of self-examination; by which means you have no proof of Christ’s being in you, who are so ready to demand a proof of his speaking in his ministers, as in verse 3. Therefore it does not appear from this text, that every one who endeavours to know that he is in a state of grace, by diligent self-examination, but cannot conclude that