Tagged.

Tim Brown of the Clay-Pot blog tagged me to complete the latest literary "survey" going around the blogosphere. The rules of this particular survey are as follows:

1. Grab the book closest to you.

2. Open to page 123; go down to the fourth sentence.

3. Post the text of the following three sentences.

4. Name the author and book title.

5. Tag three people to do the same.

At the time when I first saw I was tagged, the book closest to me was Today's Evangelism by Ernest Reisinger. Page 123 is in a chapter titled, "Assurance of Grace and Salvation." The fourth sentence down is in the middle of a quote from Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards, in which Edwards is explaining the meaning of Romans 8:14-16. This fourth sentence and the subsequent two sentences read as follows:

Hence they have taken it [the concept of the Holy Spirit bearing witness to us], not to be any effect or work of the Spirit upon the heart, giving evidence from whence men may argue that they are the children of God; but an inward immediate suggestion as though God inwardly spoke to the man, and testified to him, and told him that he was His child, by a kind of secret voice, or impression: not observing the manner in which the word witness or testimony is often used in the New Testament; where such terms often signify, not only a mere declaring and asserting a thing to be true, but holding forth evidence from whence a thing may be argued and proved to be true. Thus (Heb. 2:4), God is said to bear witness, with signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost. Now these miracles, here spoken of, are called God's witness, not because they are of the nature of assertions, but evidences and proofs.

Finally, I tag Brian Shank, Modern Day Magi, and The World's Most Famous Christian Blogger.