1. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate people may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and fleshly presumptions of being in God’s favor and in a state of salvation (a hope of theirs that will perish), yet people who truly believe in the Lord Jesus and love him in sincerity, trying to walk in all good conscience before him, may be assured with certainty in this life that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, a hope that will never make them ashamed.

2. This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable belief grounded on a fallible hope, but a confident assurance of faith founded on

• the divine truth of the promises of salvation,
• the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made,
• and the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God. This Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, by which we are sealed to the day of redemption.

3. This confident assurance does not belong to the essence of faith, so that a true believer may wait a long time and come into conflict with many difficulties before he partakes of it. Yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things that are freely given to him by God, a person may attain it, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means. Therefore it is the duty of each person to give great diligence to make sure of his calling and selection by God, so that by it his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, which are the proper fruits of this assurance. Thus this assurance is far from inclining people to looseness.

4. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation shaken in various ways, diminished, and cease for a time,

• by negligence in preserving it,
• by falling into some special sin which wounds the conscience and grieves the Spirit;
• by some sudden or vehement temptation,
• or by God’s withdrawing the light of his face, allowing even those who fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light. Yet are they never utterly destitute of the seed of God, the life of faith, the love of Christ and the brethren, sincerity of heart, and consciousness of duty, all of which the operation of the Spirit may use to revive this assurance in due time. In the meantime, they are supported by the Spirit from utter despair.