the Third Week of Advent
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Dictionaries
Imagination
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary
or Is a power or faculty of the mind, whereby it conceives and forms ideas of things communicated to it by the outward organs of sense; or it is the power of recollecting, and assembling images, and of painting forcibly those images on our minds, or on the minds of others. The cause of the pleasures of the imagination in whatever is great, uncommon, or beautiful, is this; that God has annexed a secret pleasure to the idea of any thing that is new or rare, that he might encourage and stimulate us in the eager and keen pursuits after knowledge, and inflame our best passions to search into the wonders of creation and revelation; for every new idea brings such a pleasure along with it, as rewards any pains we have taken in its acquisition, and consequently serves as a striking and powerful motive to put us upon fresh discoveries in learning and science, as well as in the word and works of God.
See Rev. W. Jones's Works, vol. 6: ser. 17; Ryland's Contemplations, vol. 1: p. 64; Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination; Addison's beautiful papers on the Imagination, vol. 6:; Spect. p. 64, &c.; Grove's Mor. Phil. p. 354, 355, 410, vol. 1:
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Buck, Charles. Entry for 'Imagination'. Charles Buck Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/cbd/i/imagination.html. 1802.
