PART III. ofgracious Ajeaons. a&ual Being of a gracious Principle in the Soul, tho' in its,irft Vie- ginning, as a Seed there planted, as inconfiflent with a Man's being a Sinner, r john 3. 9. And natural Men are reprefented in Scripture as having no fpiritual Light, no fpiritual Life, and no fpiritual Being ; and therefore Converfion is often compared to opening the Eyes of the Blind, raifing the Dead, and a Work of Creation, (whereinCrea- tures are made entirely new) and becomingnew born Children. From thefe Things it is evident, that thofe gracious Influences which theSaints are theSubjeas of, & theEffeas of God'sSpirit which they experience, are entirely above Nature, altogether of a different Kind from any Thing that Men find within themfelves by Nature, or only in the Exercife of natural Principles ; and are Things which no Improvement of thole Qualifications, or Principles that are natural,, no advancing or exalting them to higher Degrees, and no Kind of Compofition of them, will ever bring Men to ; becaufe they not only differ from what is natural, and from every Thing that natural Men experience, in Degree and Circumftances ; but alto in Kind ; and are of a Nature vafily more excellent. And this is what I mean by rape, natural,when I fay, that gracious Afet7ions are from thcfelnfluences that are farpernatural. From hence it follows, that in thofe gracious Exercifes and Affec- tions which are wrought in the Minds of the Saints, thro' the laving Influences of the Spirit of God, there is a new inward Perception or Senfation of their Minds, entirely different in its Nature and Kind, from any Thing that ever their Minds were the Subjeas of before they were fan6uified. For doubtlefs if God by his mighty Power produces fomething that is new, not only in Degree and Circum- ftances, but in its whole Nature, and that which could be produced by no exalting, varying or compounding of what wac there before, or by adding any Thing of the like Kind ; I fay, if God produces fomething thus new in a Mind, that is a perceiving, thinking, con- fcious Thing ; then doubtlefs fomething entirely new is felt, or per- ceived, or thought ; or, which is the fame Thing, there is fome new Senfation or Perception of the Mind, which is entirely of a new Sort, and which could be produced by no exalting, varying or compound- ing of that Kind of Perceptions or Senfations which the Mind had before ; or there is what fome Metaphyficians call a newfmple Idea. If Grace he, in the Senfe above defcribed, an entirely new Kind of Principle ; then the Exercifes of it are allo entirely a new Kind of Exercifes. And if there be in the Soul a newSort ofExercifes which it is confcious of, which the Soul knew nothing of before, and which no Improvement, Compofition or Management of what it was before confcious or fenfible of, could produce, or any Thing like it ; then it follows that the Mind has an entirely new Kind of Perception or Senfation ; and here is, as it were, a new fpiritual Sen,fe that the 1 Mind'
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