" And again--[49] "As many as are led by the spirit
of God, they are the sons of God."
[Footnote 47: Titus 3.5.]
[Footnote 48: Rom. 8.2.]
[Footnote 49: Rom. 8.14.]
The Quakers say, that this inward redemption or salvation as effected by
the spirit, is obvious also from the experience of all good men, or from
the manner in which many have experienced a total conversion or change
of heart. For though there are undoubtedly some who have gone on so
gradually in their reformation from vice to virtue, that it may have
been considered to be the effect of reason, which has previously
determined on the necessity of a holy life, yet the change from vice to
holiness has often been so rapid and decisive, as to leave no doubt
whatever, that it could not have been produced by any effort of reason,
but only by some divine operation, which could only have been that of
the spirit of God.
Of these two kinds of redemption, the outward and the inward, of which
the latter will be the subject of our consideration, it may be observed,
that they go hand in hand together[50]. St. Paul has coupled them in
these words: "for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by
his life;" that is, by the life of his spirit working inwardly in
us.--And as they go together in the mind of the apostle, so they go
together as to the benefit of their effects.
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