N03467:804
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal…
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal salvation, viz. I. Justification by faith alone. II. Pressing into the Kingdom of God. III. Ruth's resolution. IV. The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. V. The excellency of Jesus Christ. : Delivered at Northampton, chiefly at the time of the late wonderful pouring out of the spirit of God there. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. ; [Three lines from Deuteronomy]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1738
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
But yet the vigorous Exercise of the Mind, does doubtless more strongly impress it with imaginary Ideas, in some than others, which probably may arise from the difference of Constitution, and seems, evidently in some, partly to arise from their peculiar Circumstances: When Persons have been exercised with extreme Terrors, and there is a sudden change to Light and Joy, the Imagination seems more susceptive of strong Ideas, and the inferior Powers, and even the Frame of the Body, is much more affected and wrought upon, than when the same Persons have as great spiritual Light and Joy afterwards; of which it might, perhaps, be easy to give a Reason. The forementioned Rev. Messi Lord and Owen, who I believe, are esteemed Persons of Learning and Discretion where they are best known, declared that they found these Impressions on Persons Imaginations, quite different things from what Fame had before represented to them, and that they were what none need to wonder at, or be stumbled by, or to that purpose.
But yet the vigorous Exercise of the Mind, does doubtless more strongly impress it with imaginary Ideas, in some than others, which probably may arise from the difference of Constitution, and seems, evidently in some, partly to arise from their peculiar Circumstances: When Persons have been exercised with extreme Terrors, and there is a sudden change to Light and Joy, the Imagination seems more susceptive of strong Ideas, and the inferior Powers, and even the Frame of the Body, is much more affected and wrought upon, than when the same Persons have as great spiritual Light and Joy afterwards; of which it might, perhaps, be easy to give a Reason. The forementioned Rev. Messi Lord and Owen, who I believe, are esteem'd Persons of Learning and Discretion where they are best known, declared that they found these Impressions on Persons Imaginations, quite different things from what Fame had before represented to them, and that they were what none need to wonder at, or be stumbled by, or to that purpose.
There have indeed been some few Instances, of Impressions on Persons Imaginations, that have been […] ⟨p. 54⟩mysterious to me, and I have been at a loss about them; for tho' it has been exceeding evident to me by many things that appeared in them, both then (when they related them) and afterwards, that they indeed had a great sense of the spiritual Excellency of Divine Things accompanying them; yet I have not been able well to satisfy myself, whether their imaginary Ideas have been more than could naturally arise from their spiritual Sense of things. However, I have used the utmost Caution in such Cases; great Care has been taken both in public and in private to teach Persons the difference between what is spiritual and what is merely imaginary. I have often warned Persons not to lay the stress of their Hope on any Ideas of any outward Glory, or any external thing whatsoever, and have met with no Opposition in such Instructions. But 'tis not strange if some weaker Persons, in giving an account of their Experiences, have not so prudently distinguished between the spiritual and imaginary Part; which some that have not been well affected to Religion, might take advantage of.