Chapter 11: Bound to Know Your True Character You may see a class of professors of religion who are always happy, and they are lovely companions, but they are very seldom engaged in pulling sinners out of the fire. You find others always full of agony for sinners, looking at their state, and longing to have souls converted. Instead of enjoying the antepast of heaven on earth, they are sympathizing with the Son of God when he was on earth, groaning in his spirit, and spending all night in prayer.
9. The real revival spirit is a spirit of agonizing desires and prayer for sinners.
10. You see how you may account for your own feelings at different times.
People often wonder why they feel as they do. The answer is plain. You feel so, because you think so. You direct your attention to those objects which are calculated to produce those feelings.
11. You see why some people's feelings are so changeable.
There are many whose feelings are always variable and unsteady. That is because their thoughts are unsteady. If they would fix their thoughts, they would regulate their feelings.
12. You see the way to beget any desired state of feeling in your own mind, and how to beget any desired state of feeling in others.
Place the thoughts on the subject that is calculated to produce those feelings, and confine them there, and the feelings will not fail to follow.
13. There are multitudes of pious persons who dishonor religion by their doubts.
They are perpetually talking about their doubts, and they take up a hasty conviction that they have no religion. Whereas if instead of dwelling on their doubts they will fix their minds on other subjects, on Christ for instance, or go out and seek sinners, and try to bring them to repentance, rely upon it, they will feel, and feel right, and feel so as to dissipate their doubts.
Remember, you are not to wait till you feel right before you do this. Perhaps some things that I said to this church have not been rightly understood. I said you could do nothing for God unless you felt right. Do not therefore infer, that you are to sit still and do nothing till you are satisfied that you do feel right. But place yourself in circumstances to make you feel right, and go to work. On one hand, to bustle about without any feeling is no way, and on the other hand, to shut yourself up in your closet and wait for feeling to come, is no way.
Be sure to be always active. You never will feel right otherwise. And then keep your mind constantly under the influence of those objects that are calculated to create and keep alive