Starbuck, in addition to “escape from sin,” discriminates “spiritual illumination” as a distinct type of conversion experience. Psychology of Religion, p. 85. ↩
E. D. Starbuck: The Psychology of Religion, p. 117. ↩
E. D. Starbuck: The Psychology of Religion, p. 385. Compare, also, pp. 137–144 and 262. ↩
For instance, C. G. Finney italicizes the volitional element:
“Just at this point the whole question of Gospel salvation opened to my mind in a manner most marvelous to me at the time. I think I then saw, as clearly as I ever have in my life, the reality and fullness of the atonement of Christ. Gospel salvation seemed to me to be an offer of something to be accepted, and all that was necessary on my part was to get my own consent to give up my sins and accept Christ. After this distinct revelation had stood for some little time before my mind, the question seemed to be put, ‘Will you accept it now, today?’ I replied, ‘Yes; I will accept it today, or I will die in the attempt!’ ” He then went into the woods, where he describes his struggles. He could not pray, his heart was hardened in its pride. “I then reproached myself for having promised to give my heart to God before I left the woods. When I came to try, I found I could not. … My inward soul hung back, and there was no going out of my heart to God. The thought was pressing me, of the rashness of my promise that I would give my heart to God that day, or die in the attempt. It seemed to me as if that was binding on my soul; and yet I was going to break my vow. A great sinking and discouragement came over me, and I felt almost too weak to stand upon my knees. Just at this moment I again thought I heard someone approach me, and I opened my eyes to see whether it were so. But right there the revelation of my pride of heart, as the great difficulty that stood in the way, was distinctly shown to me. An overwhelming sense of my wickedness in being ashamed to have a human being see me on my knees before God took such powerful possession of me, that I cried at the top of my voice, and exclaimed that I would not leave that place if all the men on earth and all the devils in hell surrounded me. ‘What!’ I said, ‘such a degraded sinner as I am, on my knees confessing my sins to the great and holy God; and ashamed to have any human being, and a sinner like myself, find me on my knees endeavoring to make my peace with my offended God!’ The sin appeared awful, infinite. It broke me down before the Lord.”
Memoirs, pp. 14–16, abridged
E. D. Starbuck: The Psychology of Religion, pp. 91, 114. ↩
Extracts from the Journal of Mr. John Nelson, London, no date, p. 24. ↩
E. D. Starbuck: The Psychology of Religion, p. 64. ↩
E. D. Starbuck: The Psychology of Religion, p. 115. ↩
E. D. Starbuck: The Psychology of Religion, p. 113. ↩
Edward’s and Dwight’s Life of Brainerd, New Haven, 1822, pp. 45–47, abridged. ↩
Describing the whole phenomenon as a change of equilibrium, we might say that the movement of new psychic energies towards the personal centre and the recession of old ones towards the margin (or the rising of some objects above, and the sinking of others below the conscious threshold) were only two ways of describing an indivisible event. Doubtless this is often absolutely true, and Starbuck is right when he says that “self-surrender” and “new determination,” though seeming at first sight to be such different experiences, are “really the same thing. Self-surrender sees the change in terms of the old self; determination sees it in terms of the new.”
Edward’s and Dwight’s Life of Brainerd, New Haven, 1822, p. 160A. A. Bonar: Nettleton and His Labors, Edinburgh, 1854, p. 261. ↩
Charles G. Finney: Memoirs Written by Himself, 1876, pp. 17, 18. ↩
The Life and Journal of the Rev. Mr. Henry Alline, Boston, 1806, pp. 31–40, abridged. ↩
My quotations are made from an Italian translation of this letter in the Biografia del Sig. M. A. Ratisbonne, Ferrara, 1843, which I have to thank Monsignore D. O’Connell of Rome for bringing to my notice. I abridge the original. ↩
Published in the International Scientific Series. ↩
The reader will here please notice that in my exclusive reliance in the last lecture on the subconscious “incubation” of motives deposited by a growing experience, I followed the method of employing accepted principles of explanation as far as one can. The subliminal region, whatever else it may be, is at any rate a place now admitted by psychologists to exist for the accumulation of vestiges of sensible experience (whether inattentively or attentively registered), and for their elaboration according to ordinary psychological or logical laws into results that end by attaining such a “tension” that they may at times enter consciousness with something like a burst. It thus is “scientific” to interpret all otherwise unaccountable invasive alterations of consciousness as results of the tension of subliminal memories reaching the bursting-point. But candor obliges me to confess that there are occasional bursts into consciousness of results of which it is not easy to demonstrate any prolonged subconscious incubation. Some of the cases I used to illustrate the
