from the pulpit; and often in the course of reasoning
they are led into in their own meditations.
The arguments are the same that they have heard hundreds of times; but
the force of the arguments, and their conviction by them, is altogether
new; they come with a new and before unexperienced power. Before, they
heard it was so, and they allowed it to be so; but now they see it to be
so indeed. Things now look exceeding plain to them, and they wonder they
did not see them before.
They are so greatly taken with their new discovery, and things appear so
plain and so rational to them, that they are often at first ready to
think they can convince others; and are apt to engage in talk with every
one they meet with, almost to this end; and when they are disappointed,
are ready to wonder that their reasonings seem to make no more
impression. Many fall under such a mistake as to be ready to doubt of
their good estate, because there was so much use made of their own
reason in the convictions they have received; they are afraid that they
have no illumination above the natural force of their own faculties: and
many make that an objection against the spirituality of their
convictions, that it is so easy to see things as they now see them. They
have often heard, that conversion is a work of mighty power, manifesting
to the soul what neither man nor angel can give such a conviction of;
but it seems to them that these things are so plain and easy, and
rational, that any body can see them. If they are asked, why they never
saw thus before, they say, it seems to them it was because they never
thought of it. But v
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