The
certainty of God's "grace," of "justification," "salvation," is an
objective belief that usually accompanies the change in Christians; but
this may be entirely lacking and yet the affective peace remain the
same--you will recollect the case of the Oxford graduate: and many
might be given where the assurance of personal salvation {243} was only
a later result. A passion of willingness, of acquiescence, of
admiration, is the glowing centre of this state of mind.

The second feature is the sense of perceiving truths not known before.
The mysteries of life become lucid, as Professor Leuba says; and often,
nay usually, the solution is more or less unutterable in words. But
these more intellectual phenomena may be postponed until we treat of
mysticism.

A third peculiarity of the assurance state is the objective change
which the world often appears to undergo. "An appearance of newness
beautifies every object," the precise opposite of that other sort of
newness, that dreadful unreality and strangeness in the appearance of
the world, which is experienced by melancholy patients, and of which
you may recall my relating some examples.[135] This sense of clean and
beautiful newness within and without is one of the commonest entries in
conversion records. Jonathan Edwards thus describes it in himself:--

[135] Above, p. 150.

"After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became
more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. The
appearance of everything was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a
calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything.
God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in
everything; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in
the grass, flowers, and trees; in the water and all nature; which used
greatly to fix my mind. And scarce anything, among all the works of
nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning; formerly nothing
had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified
with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunderstorm
rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoices me."[136]

[136] Dwight: Life of Edwards, New York, 1830, p. 61, abridged.

{244} Billy Bray, an excellent little illiterate English evangelist,
records his sense of newness thus:--

"I said to the Lord: 'Thou hast said, they that ask shall receive,
they that seek shall find, and to