Lutherans still differ: elect according to foreknowledge cannot finally fall, and believers have sure inward certainty of pardon
Once more the gap from the Remonstrants is not a single point.
1. Lutherans grant that those elect according to God's foreknowledge cannot make a final exit from faith and grace, because that foreknowledge in God is, by hypothesis, infallible.
2. They likewise grant every believer an inward, infallible assurance that his sins are forgiven and that he will be saved. That assurance rises from what faith is — trust in God's mercy in Christ — while the Holy Spirit testifies with our spirit (Romans 8:16).
Such trust braces the soul more firmly than anything else. It is a pledge like Rahab's cord of twice-dyed thread (Joshua 2:18), buried deep in the heart; an anchor that holds us to God through the waves so that even the last crisis does not make us panic.
It is also real fuel for godliness and a spur to love God. The closer the harbor comes into view, the harder we gasp for it — with sighs and groans no speech can render.
And because this trust is born only of the regenerating Spirit, it in turn sets the spirit on fire; we treat that more fully elsewhere.
Latin
Discrimen rursus non unum ab ipsis Remonstrantibus apparet. 1. Fatentur Lutherani, Electos secundum praescientiam Dei, non posse finaliter excidere a fide & gratia, ex hypothesi illius in Deo Praescientiae, quae infallibilis sit. 2. Iidem quoque, dari subjectivam certitudinem, in unoquoque credente, eamque infallibilem, remissionis suorum peccatorum, suaeque salutis; Idque ex natura fidei, seu fiducia de misericordia Dei in Christo, Spiritu Sancto testante cum Spiritu nostro, Rom. VIII. 16. Quae fiducia firmissimum sit animae nostrae columen; arrha quaedam, instar funiculi fili dibaphi, Jos. II. 18. sed cordibus alte condita; & quaedam velut anchora, qua in Deum mediis in fluctibus defixi, ne in extremo etiam discrimine expavescimus; Sed & verus pietatis fomes, & divini amoris incentivum. Quo enim propius portum intuemur, hoc magis, suspiriis & gemitibus enarrari nesciis, ad portum anhelamus. Et quemadmodum haec fiducia nonnisi ex Spiritu regenerante est, ita etiam spiritum accendit, ut nos alibi pluribus.