HOLY SPIRIT, Fill My Heart With YOUR Love.

A new impulse--a nobler bent!

(Hannah More, "Practical Piety")

In salvation, the HOLY SPIRIT operates
on the human character to produce
a new heart and a new life.

By this operation the affections 
and faculties of the man receive
 a new impulse . . .
   his dark understanding is illuminated,
   his rebellious will is subdued,
   his irregular desires are rectified,
   his warped judgment is informed,
   his vile imagination is chastised,
   his sinful inclinations are sanctified, and
   his hopes and fears are directed
to their true and adequate end.

Heaven becomes the object of his hopes--
and eternal separation from GOD
the object of his fears.

HIS love of the world,
is transformed into the love of GOD.

The lower faculties are pressed
into the new service.

The senses have a higher direction.

The whole internal frame and
constitution receive a nobler bent . . .
  the intents and purposes of the mind
acquire a sublimer aim;
  his aspirations gain a loftier flight;
  his vacillating desires find a fixed object;
  his vagrant purposes attain a settled home;
  his disappointed heart has a certain refuge.

That heart, no longer the worshiper of
the world, now struggles to overcome it.

   
~  ~  ~  ~

GraceGems has published the puritan Thomas Vincent's powerful article, 
"The Vain Securities of the Wicked!"