Edward's journal entry for March 7th complains that he suffers from "not forcing myself on enough religious thoughts", an interesting concept. I think that many today would argue that this kind of "forced" religious thought and meditation, forced devotion would be futile. Devotion, they would argue, I suspect, must be from the heart, it must be willing and come from the heart, and be fully from the inner being with whole consent of the will, not forced, else it is invalid.
Yet, I think we must admit that Edwards demonstrates the opposite. There is nothing wrong and everything right with such "forced" exercises. We see the benefit in forced exercised in virtually every other area of life (included all intellectual areas) and yet, for some reason we deny that benefit in the matter of the spiritual - here - it **must** be voluntary and it must be something that we do with the full vigor and vitality and zeal of our "want to", no force, no habit, no "legalism" allowed or we invalidate the entire affair and not accomplishing anything truly worth while. If discipline is worth-while in all other, lesser areas of endeavor, they it is all the more worth-while, and doubly so in this one!
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