Did William Perkins lack assurance?

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RamistThomist

RamistThomist

Puritanboard Clerk
I came across this piece, but I don't know the context for it.

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That would not be unheard of: ‘True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted’ (BCF 1689, XVIII.4). Such was the case also of John Bunyan, if I recall correctly, as recorded in his, ‘Grace Abounding to the Chiefest of Sinners’.
 
This appears to be a partial and thus mistaken citation. While Fuller reported the perception, he clearly disagreed with it.

Chap. 10. The life of Mr. PERKINS

...He dyed in the 44th yeare of his age of a violent fit of the stone. It hath been reported that he dyed in the conflict of a troubled conscience; which admit were so, had been no wonder. For God sometimes seemingly leaves his Saints when they leave the world, plunging them on their death-beds in deep temptations, and casting their souls down to hell, to rebound the higher to heaven. Besides, the devil is most busie on the last day of his Term; and a Tenant to be outed cares not what mischief he doth.

But here was no such matter. Indeed he alwayes cryed out Mercy Mercy: which some standers by misinterpreted for despair, as if he felt not Gods favour, because he call'd for it: whereas Mercy is a Grace which they hold the fastest, that most catch after it. 'Tis true that many on lesse reason have expressed more confidence of their future happinesse, and have delivered themselves in larger speeches concerning the same. But who could expect a long oration from him, where every word was accented with pain in so sharp a disease. [bolding mine]

(Thomas Fuller, The Holy State, [Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1642], pp.88, 91f)​
 
God’s people sometimes lack assurance of faith when they will be exchanging time for eternity because they feel their sins are too great nevertheless they are kept by God who always finishes the works of His own hands.
 
Gesetveemet said:
God’s people sometimes lack assurance of faith when they will be exchanging time for eternity because they feel their sins are too great nevertheless they are kept by God who always finishes the works of His own hands.
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Sometimes the mind grows weak also. It can grow infirmed and is not as full as it was in its better days. But the text above from 'The Life of Mr. Perkins' puts things in a fuller light.

Thank You Phil.
 
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