And thus I return to our own specific subject of instantaneous conversions. You remember thecases of Alline, Bradley, Brainerd, and the graduate of Oxford converted at three in the afternoon.

Similar occurrences abound bioderma matricium, some with and some without luminous visions, all with a sense ofastonished happiness, and of being wrought on by a higher control. If, abstracting altogether fromthe question of their value for the future spiritual life of the individual, we take them on theirpsychological side exclusively, so many peculiarities in them remind us of what we find outside ofconversion that we are tempted to class them along with other automatisms, and to suspect thatwhat makes the difference between a sudden and a gradual convert is not necessarily the presenceof divine miracle in the case of one and of something less divine in that of the other, but rather asimple psychological peculiarity, the fact, namely, that in the recipient of the more instantaneousgrace we have one of those Subjects who are in possession of a large region in which mental workcan go on subliminally, and from which invasive experiences, abruptly upsetting the equilibrium ofthe primary consciousness, may come.

I do not see why Methodists need object to such a view. Pray go back and recollect one of theconclusions to which I sought to lead you in my very first lecture. You may remember how I thereargued against the notion that the worth of a thing can be decided by its origin. Our spiritualjudgment, I said, our opinion of the significance and value of a human event or condition, must bedecided on empirical grounds exclusively. If the fruits for life of the state of conversion are good,we ought to idealize travel trade publication and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natural psychology; if not, weought to make short work with it, no matter what supernatural being may have infused it.

Well, how is it with these fruits? If we except the class of preeminent saints of whom the namesillumine history, and consider only the usual run of "saints," the shopkeeping church-members and ordinary youthful or middle-aged recipients of instantaneous conversion, whether at revivals or inthe spontaneous course of methodistic growth, you worthy ofa wholly supernatural creature fulgurates from them, or sets them apart from the mortals who havenever experienced that favor. Were it true that a suddenly converted man as such is, as Edwardssays,[125] of an entirely different kind from a natural man, partaking as he does directly of Christssubstance, there surely ought to be some exquisite class-mark, some distinctive radiance attachingeven to the lowliest specimen of this genus, to which no one of us could remain insensible, andwhich, so far as it went, would prove him more excellent than ever the most highly gifted amongmere natural men. But notoriously there is no such radiance. Converted men as a class areindistinguishable from natural men; some natural men even excel some converted men in theirfruits; and no one ignorant of doctrinal theology could guess by mere every-day inspection of the"accidents" of the two groups of persons before him, that their substance differed as much asdivine differs from human substance.

[125] Edwards says elsewhere: "I am bold to say that the work of God in the conversion of onesoul, considered together with the source foundation, and purchase of it, and also the benefit, end,and eternal issue of it, is a more glorious work of God than the creation of the whole materialuniverse."The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion have had practically to admitthat there is no unmistakable class-mark distinctive of all true converts. The super-normalincidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering impressions of the meaning of suddenlypresented scripture texts, the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the crisisof change, may all come by way of nature, or worse still, be counterfeited by Satan. The realwitness of the spirit to the second birth is to be found only in the disposition of the genuine child ofGod, the permanently patient heart, the love of self eradicated. And this, it has to be admitted, isalso found in those who pass no crisis, and may even be found outside of Christianity altogether.

Throughout Jonathan Edwardss admirably rich and delicate description of the supernaturallyinfused condition, in his Treatise on Religious Affections ,