Saturday, January 9, 2021

R.T. Kendall on the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger Catechism, and Good Works being the Ultimate Source of Any Assurance of Salvation

Commenting on the Westminster Confession of Faith (and the Larger Catechism), Reformed theologian R.T. Kendall noted the lack of assurance one can have if they subscribe to the theology thereof, and how, ultimately, the ground of one’s assurance they are in a saved state was one’s good works:

 

REPENTANCE: THE CONDITION OF THE NEW COVENANT

 

The Westminster divines do not explicitly state that repentance is the condition of the new covenant. But they should have; for this is virtually what they finally say. While the Westminster divines never intended to make works the ground of salvation, they could hardly have come closer. Since having faith is defined as ‘yeelding obedience’ to God’s commands, the ‘principall Acts’ of faith being of the will, this seems to make the claims of ‘free grace’ suspect. This is being illustrated by looking at the federal theology of these documents.

 

While the old covenant (of works0 was promised ‘upon condition of perfect and personall obedience’ (VII.ii), the ‘Covenant of Grace’ is promised to sinners, ‘requiring of them Faith’ (VII.iii). In the ‘second Covenant’ God ‘freely provideth and offereth to sinners a Mediator’; the sole requirement: ‘Faith as the condition’ (Larger Catechism, 7). God requires ‘nothing of them for their Justification, but Faith’ (Ibid. 16). But while this faith is said to be God’s gift (Larger Catechism, 16), we also know it is an act of the will. And since we may believe—indeed, wait long—without assurance that our faith is saving, we must still turn elsewhere before we know we have truly met the ‘condition’. Thus ‘free’ justification has a price after all before it can be enjoyed: our perseverance in repentance and good works. The old covenant was promised upon the condition of ‘perfect and personall obedience’; the new is promised upon the condition of faith—‘yeelding obedience to the Commands’ (XV.iii). The difference seems to be that perfect obedience was required under the old covenant and doing our best is required under the new.

 

Indeed, although repentance is not the cause of our being pardoned, ‘none may expect pardon without it’ (XV.iii). Being repentant means that one ‘so grieves for, and hates his sins, as to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavouring to walk with him in all the ways of his Commandments’ (CV.ii). Men should not be contended ‘with a generall repentance, but it is every means duty to endeavour to repent of his particular sins, particularly’ (XV.v). Sanctification is described in much the same way, stressing mortification of lusts and the universality of sanctification ‘in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life’ (XIII.ii). Furthermore, ‘good works’ done in obedience to God’s commandments ‘are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith’, and by them believers ‘strengthen their assurance’ (XVI.ii).

 

Although Westminster theology posits that ‘faith’ is the condition of the new covenant, by describing faith as an act of the will it comes quite close to making justification, or, at least, the knowledge of it, the reward for doing our best to be holy and good. While the predestinarian structures of Westminster theology are undeniable—making salvation utterly the gift of God—its doctrine of faith none the less tends to put the responsibility for salvation right back on to man.

 

Furthermore, once having obtained the assurance, the believer may lose it.

 

True belieevers may have the assurance of their salvation divers wayes shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as, by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some speciall sin, which woundeth the conscience, and grieveth the spirit; by, some sudden, or vehement temptation, by Gods withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darknesse and to have no light . . . (XVIII.iv)

 

While such are ‘never destitute of that seed of God’ (XVIII.iv), inasmuch as believers ‘can neither totally, or finally, fall away from the state of Grace’ (XVII.1; cf. XII), they seem to lose their assurance because it was grounded in a good conscience in the first place. Thus the loss of assurance is possible because the ground of assurance is not a solid rock but shifting sand; it may fluctuate in proportion to how one’s conscience witnesses by reflection.

 

We are told, moreover, that our ‘good works are accepted in Him’ (XVI.vi), not because they are perfect but because God ‘is pleased to accept, and reward that which is sincere’ for the sake of Christ (XVIII.iii). This seems to bring us back to Perkins’s idea that God accepts the will for the deed (cf. Larger Catechism, 50: one who does not have assurance but who ‘unfainedly desires to be found in Christ, and to depart from iniquity’ should come straight to the Lord’s Table). Assurance, then, is grounded in the reflection of our sincerity. This is the line so often seen in the experimental predestinarian tradition. Such a conclusion seems to be an inevitable consequence of imposing a voluntaristic doctrine of faith upon a theology of double predestination. One the other hand such a doctrine is likely indeed to be very far ‘from inclining men to loosenesse’ (XVIII.iii). One of the offices of Christ the King is not only bestowing saving grace upon the elect but ‘rewarding their obedience, and correcting them for their sins’ (Larger Catechism, 10).

 

A good conscience, which must be maintained by good works, repentance, and perseverance, does not seem to be motivated by sheer gratitude to God for free salvation but by one’s keen interest in salvation itself. While Calvin’s doctrine of sanctification can be seen as thankfulness, Westminster theology lends itself to making sanctification the payment for the promise of salvation. Presumably the loss of assurance means that the unhappy subject in such a time does not know but that he is reprobate after all. The only way to recover assurance is to till the ground—conscience—by measuring up to the Law . . . such insurance to protect the Church from Antinomianism and to preserve godliness costs, the cost that Calvin warned against—endless introspection, the constant checking of the spiritual pulse for the right ‘effects’, and, possibly, legalism. (R.T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979], 205-8, emphasis in bold added)

 

Further Reading

An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology

Reformed Theologian William Ames (1576-1633): True Assurance Can Only Be Known By Performing Good Works

John MacArthur's (and Jonathan Edwards') 11 Tests of Examining if One is a True Convert

Are Good Works Always "Filthy/Menstrual Rags"? Not According to John Calvin