In the eighteenth century the religious life of Europe suffered from the blight of Rationalism. Religion became a matter of the intellect only, and religious truth was made to depend on rational arguments. Religious certainty was identified with a rational insight into the truth, and divorced from the experience of a supernatural change, and the resulting testimony of the Holy Spirit. Under this chilling influence real spiritual life fast declined, and alongside of it there appeared a luxurious growth of a purely historical or a merely temporal faith.

It was but natural that reaction should follow. When a spurious faith became alarmingly prevalent, the question forced itself upon serious-minded Christians with an ever increasing insistency: How can we distinguish the true from the false? The proper method was found in a close and sustained self-examination. The life of the soul was submitted to a very careful scrutiny and to an analysis surprising in its minuteness. A constantly growing number of marks were discovered by which true faith might be recognized, many of them based on an unwarranted generalization and therefore of a very questionable character. The spiritual experiences of those who were regarded as established Christians became the standard by which others were judged. But, though this method was undoubtedly applied with the best intention, it did not promote the glad assurance of salvation in the Church of God; in many cases it even led to hopeless confusion.

louis Berkhof | The Assurance of Faith (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1939), 29–30.

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