“The secret of Sandemanianism is this: it is the doctrine of justifying righteousness along with the Popish doctrine of faith … The story of a man who was seeking admission somewhere to church fellowship, who, on being asked, ‘Do you believe the faithful saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners?’ answered, ‘It’s a glorious truth, whether I believe it or not!’ That answer would have delighted Sandeman” (John M. Brentnall, Just A Talker: Sayings of John (‘Rabbi’) Duncan, p. 158).
Sandeman has been demonstrated as an heretic in my “Theron & Apasio” posts, but Duncan just flat-out misrepresents Sandeman’s position here. If J-Dunc wants to wrongly label Sandemanian faith as “Popish,” then he ALSO ought to call Puritan/Reformed faith as “Popish” since all three allow for doubts about salvation contrary to Romans 8:16 and Romans 10:1-4.
1 Timothy 1:15 IS TRUE whether or not a person believes it to be true. It appears J-Dunc wrongly thought that Sandeman believed a person was saved whose life was characterized by apathy towards the things of God. Evidently many like-minded with J-Dunc think that reducing the faith of God’s elect to mere intellectual assent implies that regenerate persons so assenting live lives characterized by disobedience to God’s precepts laid out in Scripture.
Agrammatos 