Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

necessary to the finding redemption in Christ. Therefore such fears,
feelings, and apprehensions are not the offspring of a gloomy
superstition; but the fruit and evidence of a genuine Scriptural repentance.
2. Imagination cannot long support a mental imposture. To persuade the
soul that it is passed from darkness to light; that it is in the favour of God;
that it is an heir of glory, &c., will require strong excitement indeed; and
the stronger the exciting cause, or stimulus, the sooner the excitability
and its effects will be exhausted. A person may imagine himself for a
moment to be a king, or to be a child of God; but that revery, where there
is no radical derangement of mind, must be transient. The person must
soon awake, and come to himself. 3. But it is impossible that imagination
can have any thing to do in this case, any farther than any other faculty of
the mind, in natural operation; for the person must walk as he is directed
by the word of God, abhorring evil, and cleaving to that which is good:
and the sense of God's approbation in his conscience lasts no longer than
he acts under the spirit of obedience; God continuing the evidence of his
approbation to his conscience while he walks in newness of life. Has
imagination ever produced a life of piety? Now multitudes are found who
have had this testimony uninterruptedly for many years together. Could
imagination produce this? If so, it is a unique case; for there is none other
in which an excitement of the imagination has sustained the impression
with any such permanence. And all the operations of this faculty prove
that to an effect of this kind it is wholly inadequate. If, then, it can sustain
impressions in spiritual matters for years together, this must he totally
preternatural, and the effect of a miraculous operation; and this miracle
must he resorted to, to explain away a doctrine which some men, because
they themselves do not experience it, deny that any others can.
But might I, without offence, speak a word concerning myself? Those
that know me know that I am no enthusiast; that I have given no evidence
of a strong imagination; that I am far from being the subject of sudden
hopes or fears; that it requires strong reasons and clear argumentation to
convince me of the truth of any proposition not previously known. Now
I do profess to have received, through God's eternal mercy, a clear
evidence of my acceptance with God; and it was given me after a sore