🚀 go-pugleaf

to this discovery of grace
is a real acceptance of it. They know not that the sweet complacence
they feel in the mercy and complete salvation of God, as it includes
pardon and sanctification, and is held forth to them only through
Christ, is a true receiving of this mercy, or a plain evidence of their
receiving it. They expected I know not what kind of act of soul, and
perhaps they had no distinct idea of it themselves.

And indeed it appears very plainly in some of them, that before their
own conversion they had very imperfect ideas what conversion was. It is
all new and strange, and what there was no clear conception of before.
It is most evident, as they themselves acknowledge, that the expressions
used to describe conversion, and the graces of God's Holy Spirit-such as
a spiritual sight of Christ, faith in Christ, poverty of spirit, trust
in God, etc.-did not convey those distinct ideas to their minds which
they were intended to signify. Perhaps to some of them it was but little
more than the names of colors are to convey the ideas to one that is
blind from his birth.

In this town there has always been a great deal of talk about conversion
and spiritual experiences; and therefore people in general had formed a
notion in their own minds what these things were. But when they come to
be the subjects of them, they find themselves much confounded in their
notions, and overthrown in many of their former conceits. And it has
been very observable, that persons of the greatest understanding, and
who had studied most about things of this nature, have been more
confounded than others. Some such persons declare, that all their former
wisdom is brought to nought, and that they appear to have been mere
babes, who knew nothing. It has appeared, that none have stood more in
need of instruction, even of their fellow-Christians, concerning their
own circumstances and difficulties, than they: and it seems to have been
with delight, that they have seen themselves thus brought down, and
be