Seventeenth century Puritan Thomas
Goodwin............
A man's communion and converse is
... sometimes with the Father, then
with the Son, and then with the
Holy Ghost; sometimes his heart is drawn
out to consider the Father's love
in choosing, and then the love of Christ
in redeeming, and so the love of
the Holy Ghost, that searcheth the deep
things of God, and revealeth them
to us, and taketh all the pains with us;
and so a man goes from one
witness to another distinctly. [Assurance] is not a knowledge by way of
argument or deduction, whereby we infer that if one Ioveth me then the other
loveth me, but it is intuitively, as I may so express it,and we should never be
satisfied till all three persons lie level in us, and all make their abode with
us, and we sit as it were in the midst of them, while they all manifest their
love unto us.