Posted at Reformed Standards:
First published in 1560
Source: The Scottish Confession | Reformed Standards
First published in 1560
13. The Cause of Good Works
So that the cause of good works we confess to be not our free will, but the Spirit of the Lord Jesus a, who dwelling in our hearts by true faith brings forth such good works as God has prepared for us to walk in. For this we most boldly affirm, that it is blasphemy to say that Christ Jesus abides in the heart of those in whom is no spirit of sanctification. And, therefore, we fear not to affirm that murderers, oppressors, cruel persecutors, adulterers, whoremongers, filthy persons, idolaters, drunkards, thieves, and all workers of iniquity have neither true faith nor any portion of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus so long as they obstinately continue in their wickedness. For how soon that ever the Spirit of the Lord Jesus (which God’s elect children receive by true faith) takes possession in the heart of any man, so soon does He regenerate and renew the same man so that he begins to hate that which before he loved and begins to love that which before he hated. And from thence comes that continual battle which is betwixt the flesh and the spirit in God’s children. While flesh and the natural man (according to their own corruption) lusts for things pleasing and delectable unto the self b, grudges in adversity, is lifted up in prosperity, and at every moment is prone and ready to offend the majesty of God. But the Spirit of God, who gives witness to our spirit that we are the sons of God c, makes us to resist the devil, to abhor filthy pleasures, to groan in God’s presence for deliverance from this bondage of corruption, and finally to triumph over sin that it reign not in our mortal bodies. This battle has not the carnal man being destitute of God’s Spirit: but do follow and obey sin with greediness and without repentance, even as the devil and their corrupt lusts do prick them. But the sons of God (as was before said), do fight against sin, do sob and mourn when they perceive themselves tempted to iniquity; and if they fall, they rise again with earnest and unfeigned repentance, and these things they do not by their own power, but by the power of the Lord Jesus without whom they were able to do nothing d.