This
evidence that they who are spiritually enlightened have of the truth
of the things of religion, is a kind of intuitive and immediate
evidence. They believe the doctrines of God's word to be divine,
because they see divinity in them; _i.e._, they see a divine, and
transcendent, and most evidently distinguishing glory in them; such a
glory as, if clearly seen, does not leave room to doubt of their being
of God, and not of men.
Such a conviction of the truth of religion as this, arising, these
ways, from a sense of the divine excellency of them, is that true
spiritual conviction that there is in saving faith. And this original
of it, is that by which it is most essentially distinguished from that
common assent, which unregenerated men are capable of.
I proceed now to show how this light is immediately given by God, and
not obtained by natural means.
1. It is not intended that the natural faculties are not made use of
in it. The natural faculties are the subject of this light: and they
are the subject in such a manner that they are not merely passive,
but active in it; the acts and exercises of men's understanding are
concerned and made use of in it.
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