of the soul,
the poor people are threatened with the devil, eternal death, and hell.
The intention is to cause a sinner to pray earnestly in order, by such
prayer, to receive the Holy Spirit. To produce this result, joint
prayers are said to contribute the most, _viz._, when a number of
people gather and strain every power of body and soul in crying and
screaming to move the Holy Spirit, or even to force Him, to finish the
work of regeneration. They imagine that, by their own exercises in
prayer, and especially by their joint prayers, they have advanced the
matter and earned and obtained the Holy Ghost, and that, He [the Holy
Ghost] having united with their exercises and labor, the work of
regeneration was finished through the combined operation of their
prayers and the gifts of the Holy Spirit acquired by them. They mistake
imaginations for divine revelations. And the sensation rising from such
imaginations they regard as effects of the Holy Spirit. They apply to
themselves what the Apostle Paul writes Rom. 8, 16: 'The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.' They
declare: We are born anew, and we know indeed that it is so, for the
Spirit of God has given testimony to our spirit. But if one desires to
learn how He had given this testimony, whether they had seen Him or
heard Him, or in what manner or whereby He had given such assurance,
they appeal to their imaginations and sensations, from which also
something peculiar, like an apparition, may come to them; but whatever
this is we do not know. One can be absolutely sure, however, that it is
not the Holy Spirit. For as soon as you let them understand that you
believe that they have been deceived and you endeavor to lead their
attention to the testimonies of Holy Scripture in order to obtain from
it reliable testimonies, immediately their anger begins to rise, their
countenance becomes disfigured, and, alas, with some already a fist is
clenching with which they strike the table or their knees and declare
defiantly: 'I don't care anything for what you say; it is none of your
business; I know that I am born of God, and will suffer it to be taken
away from me by nobody, by no learned man, nor by any devil; what I know
I do know.' There is a reason, why such a person will not suffer his
opinion to be taken from him by anybody, and he need not fear that any
devil will rob him of it, especially when he is ready to use his fist in
defense o