Re: CVS future!

[Gary Funck]

comes in more clearly and
powerfully. But yet, I think, more frequently, great terrors have been
followed with more sudden and great light and comfort; when the sinner
seems to be as it were subdued and brought to a calm, from a kind of
tumult of mind, then God lets in an extraordinary sense of His great
mercy through a Redeemer.

Converting influences very commonly bring an extraordinary conviction of
the reality and certainty of the great things of religion; though in
some this is much greater some time after conversion, than at first.
They have that sight and taste of the divine excellency there is in the
gospel, which is more effectual to convince them than reading many
volumes of arguments without it. It seems to me, that in many instances,
when the glory of Christian truths has been set before persons, and they
have at the same time as it were seen, and tasted, and felt the divinity
of them, they have been as far from doubting their truth as they are
from doubting whether there be a sun, when their eyes are open in the
midst of a clear hemisphere, and the strong blaze of His light overcomes
all objections. And yet, many of them, if we should ask them why they
believed those things to be true, would not be able well to express or
communicate a sufficient reason to satisfy the inquirer; and perhaps
would make no other answer but that they see Him to be true. But a
person might soon be satisfied, by a particular conversation with them,
that what they mean by such an answer is, that they have intuitively
beheld, and immediately felt, most illustrious and powerful evidence of
divinity in them.

Some are thus convinced of the truth of the gospel in general, and that
the Scriptures are the word of God: others have their minds more
especially fixed on some particular great doctrine of the gospel, some
particular truths that they are meditating on, or reading of, in some
portion of Scripture. Some have such conviction in a much