1584–1835

The Experience of Conversion and Assurance of Salvation: the Puritans, the Westminster Confession, Pietism, Edwards and Finney

According to Lane, interest in the "order of salvation" – the natural sequence of conversion and sanctification – begins with William Perkins (Cambridge, 1584–1602). The Puritans raised the question of assurance and began to seek it within themselves, in evidences of conversion; whereas for Luther and Calvin assurance was part of saving faith, the Westminster Confession (18:3) separated it from the essence of faith. Francke required believers to point to their "penitential struggle" and to a conversion at a definite time and place. Jonathan Edwards, a Calvinist and the chief theologian of the Great Awakening, taught in the Religious Affections (1746) that true religion lies in the affections, yet not every affection is evidence of grace. Charles Finney (1835) described conversion as an act of the human will and taught that a revival can be prepared for.