Re: SOFTWARE for SALE!!! 27008
davi...@worldnewstonight.net
however impossible it is for us to prove it by reason, this inability
demonstrates only the weakness of our reason, but not, as they affirm, the
uncertainty of all our knowledge. For the knowledge of first principles, as
space, time, motion, number, is as sure as any of those which we get from
reasoning. And reason must trust these intuitions of the heart, and must
base them on every argument. (We have intuitive knowledge of the
tri-dimensional nature of space and of the infinity of number, and reason
then shows that there are no two square numbers one of which is double of
the other. Principles are intuited, propositions are inferred, all with
certainty, though in different ways.) And it is as useless and absurd for
reason to demand from the heart proofs of her first principles, before
admitting them, as it would be for the heart to demand from reason an
intuition of all demonstrated propositions before accepting them.
This inability ought, then, to serve only to humble reason, which would
judge all, but not to impugn our certainty, as if only reason were capable
of instructing us. Would to God, on the contrary, that we had never need of
it, and that we knew everything by instinct and intuition! But nature has
refused us this bo
davi...@worldnewstonight.net
sometimes with interruptions of much darkness.
The way that grace seems sometimes first to appear, after legal
humiliation, is in earnest longings of soul after God and Christ: to
know God, to love Him, to be humble before Him, to have communion with
Christ in His benefits; which longings, as they express them, seem
evidently to be of such a nature as can arise from nothing but a sense
of the superlative excellency of divine things, with a spiritual taste
and relish of them, and an esteem of them as their highest happiness and
best portion. Such longings as I speak of, are commonly attended with
firm resolutions to pursue this good for ever, together with a hoping,
waiting disposition. When persons have begun in such frames, commonly
other experiences and discoveries have soon followed, which have yet
more clearly manifested a change of heart.
It must needs be confessed that Christ is not always distinctly and
explicitly thought of in the first sensible act of grace (though most
commonly He is), but sometimes He is the object of the mind only
implicitly. Thus sometimes when persons have seemed evidently to be
stripped of all their own righteousness, and to have stood
self-condemned as guilty of death, they have been comforted with a
joyful and satisfying view, that the mercy and grace of God is
sufficient for them-that their sins, though never so great, shall be no
hindrance to their being accepted; that there is mercy enough in God for
the whole world, and the like-when they give no account of any
particular or distinct thought of Christ. But yet, when the accoun