8 Sermon Illustrations on Assurance of Faith

The merchant adventurer puts to sea, rides out many a bitter storm, runs many a desperate hazard, upon the bare hope of a gainful return; the valiant soldier takes his life into his hands, runs upon the very mouth of the cannon, dares the lion in his den, merely upon the hope of victory; every man hazards one way or other in his calling, yet are but uncertain venturers, ignorant of the issue: but so it often falls out, that the greedy adventurer, seeking to increase his stock, loseth many times both it and himself; the covetous soldier, gaping after spoil and victory, findeth himself at last spoiled, captivated: but the confident Christian, the true child of God, runs at no such uncertainty.

— Spencer

Practical sciences are not to be learned but in the way of action. It is experience that must give knowledge in the Christian profession, as well as in all others; and the knowledge drawn from experience is quite of another kind from that which flows from speculation or discourse. It is not the opinion, but the path, of the just, that the wisest of men tells us shines more and more unto a perfect day. The obedient, and the men of practice, are those sons of light that shall outgrow all their doubts and ignorances, that shall ride upon these clouds, and triumph over their present imperfections, till persuasion pass into knowledge, and knowledge advance into assurance, and all come at length to be completed in the beatific vision, and a full fruition of those joys which God has in reserve for them whom by his grace he shall prepare for glory. Dr. South.

Our union with Christ is the union of the covenant, and therefore not dependent upon frames and feelings. — A. L. Newton. — The rock does not shake nor change, though the sea may ebb and flow about it. — Rutherford. — He who looks upon Christ through frames and feelings is like one who sees the sun on water, which quivers and moves as the water moves; but he that looks upon him in the glass of his word, by faith, sees him ever the same.

"My confidence is," said the pious Dr. Doddridge shortly before his death, "not that I have lived such or such a life, or served God in this or the other manner; I know of no prayer I ever offered, no service I ever performed, but there has been such a mixture of what was wrong in it, that instead of recommending me to the favor of God, I needed his pardon, through Christ, for the same. Yet I am full of confidence; and this is my confidence—there is a hope set before me: I have fled, I still fly, for refuge to that hope."