experience. They _feel_, and perhaps deeply; but they know not _why_
they feel. Such religious feeling is to be suspected as spurious. It may
be the delusion of the devil. By persuading people to rest upon this
spurious religious feeling, he accomplishes his purpose as well as if he
had kept them in carnal security. And the clearer our views of truth,
the more spiritual and holy will be our religious affections. Thus,
godly sorrow arises from a sight of our own depravity, with a sense of
the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as committed against a holy God, and
against great light and mercy. Faith is produced by a spiritual view of
the atonement of Christ, and of his infinite fulness as a complete and
perfect Saviour. Love is excited by a discovery of the excellence of
God's moral perfections. Holy fear and reverence arise from a sight of
the majesty and glory of his natural attributes, and a sense of his
presence. Joy may come from a sense of the infinite rectitude of his
moral government; from the sight of the glory of God, in his works of
providence and grace; or from a general view of the beauty and
excellence of divine truth. Comfort may be derived from evidence of the
divine favor; and confidence, from an appropriation of God's promises to
ourselves. And in many other ways, also, the Holy Spirit produces
spiritual feelings through the instrumentality of the truth. But all
religious feeling, produced by impulse, without any rational view of the
truth, is to be suspected. It may be the work of Satan, who is very busy
in counterfeiting religious experiences for those he wishes to deceive.
Every religious affection has its counterfeit. Thus, sorrow may be
produced by the fear of hell, without any sense of the evil of sin; a
presumption of our own good estate may be mistaken for faith, and this
will produce joy; we may exercise a carnal or selfish love to God,
because we think he loves us, and has made us the objects of his special
favor; and the promises of God, so far as they concern the personal good
of the believer, may administer as much comfort to the hypocrite as to