As men, when they know God, have no mind to glorify him as God, so men, when they cannot avoid the knowledge of the threatenings of God, have no mind to believe them and consider them as the threatenings of God. The Spirit was to be sent into the heart by an inward operation, as well as by an outward demonstration of miracles, and the Father and the Son promised to make their abode with the souls of believers, and manifest themselves to them: how, except in this manner? The waters that proceed from the throne of the Lamb are not only refreshing and cooling, but also purging and cleansing. The sight of their covering their pure faces with their wings made him abhor, and cry out of the uncleanness of his soul. It makes every review of acts of kindness to be a sting in the conscience; it makes such a person miserable by mercy, and scorches him with the beams of goodness; turns the honey into a bitter pill, and useth a branch of the balsam tree as a rod wherewith to lash him. They knew some sins, but not all the kinds of sin to which wrath is due; they looked upon some sins as part of their happiness, rather than their misery. Man in his first creation stood in an indifferency to the promises and comminations of the law, according as his carriage should be, but when sin came, the promise of the law was of no force, because the condition of obedience was not performed, whereupon man lay under the power of the curse. 3. 7:7, 'I had not known sin but by the law;' by this sin is revived: Rom. So that you see nature is utterly insufficient, and there is a necessity of some higher power than nature to convince the soul of sin. If it hath any voice at all, it is not loud, but faint, like that of Eli to his sons, Do no more so; and it is apt to speak peace when there is no ground of peace. Cat is the web producer and editor of 412teens.org. (2.) 15:58, 'Be stedfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.' These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features. When the soul is in a dead sleep, there is no consideration of justice; and when awakened by the law, without the sight of the gospel, and a discovery of his mercy in Christ, like Adam and Eve the soul runs from God's presence, and every voice of God is terrible; and finding himself culpable, and seeing nothing but a sea of sin, he fears the justice of God, that the sovereign Judge of all the world will bring him to a speedy account, and inflict that death that he knows himself worthy of. What glosses will a winding wit put upon sin, present evil as good, and good as evil! The word "convict" is translated from the Greek word elencho, which means “to convince someone of the truth; to reprove; to accuse, refute, or cross-examine a witness.” The Holy Spirit exposes evil in our lives, rebukes us in our sin, and reminds us of our need to strive for Christlikeness (John 16:8). It is by the Spirit that we see, as well as crucify, the lusts of the flesh. Such things are the language of many under troubles, when Satan puts his finger into them, and by this means keeps men off in a sight of sin, from closing with the promise. Thirdly, The Spirit from thence proceedeth to the conviction of the bosom sin. And though it was made by that person who was the Redeemer, yet it was not made in the way of redemption, nor with the manifestation of those attributes of love, wisdom, and righteousness, which were evident in the work of redemption. The devil always, in setting sin before the soul, endeavours to drive it to despair, the Spirit to encourage it to faith; the one to sink it in despair of pardon, the other to excite it to a mourning for sin. Murmur not against God. Take heed therefore of valuing your own tears in the room of Christ's blood, your own petitions in the room of his intercessions, and applauding yourselves in a vain righteousness, instead of the meritorious satisfaction of the blood of God, as though a few good duties could expiate a multitude of sins. Click to enable/disable _gat_* - Google Analytics Cookie. 19:12, cries out of secret sins, 'Who can understand the errors of his life? Christ by his death appeased the anger of his Father, and bare the punishment we had merited, and opened those treasures of grace which by reason of our sins had been shut up from us. First, Desire the Spirit to pull the scales from your eyes which Satan hath put on; beg of God, 'What I see not, teach thou me;' desire him to lead you into the seminary of corruption, and cause you to possess your sins, till you cry out, Guilty, guilty; to see them in their filthiness, not as a dunghill in a picture, but as a real dunghill, offending a delicate smell. 14:24, 'He is convinced of all.' He pulls up the foundation of their own righteousness, strips it of its painted garment, and makes them look upon their pretended beauties as loathsome deformities. 3:3. 4:17, 18, that can never be in any sort a remedy, which is the cause of the disease, therefore the wrong notions of men make them un-capable of working this conviction upon themselves by the law. Thirdly, The Spirit doth irradiate and enlighten the mind and practical judgment. A conviction by wrath is like a fire which only scorcheth; a conviction by holiness is like that of the sun, which burns by its heat, and discovers atoms by its light. The Spirit, by this dissecting knife, opens the entrails of the heart, to manifest the secret holes and traverses of this inward serpent; as when the body is opened, all the little strings within are plainly seen to the back-bone, τετραχηλισμένα, everything in the whole composition of it lies open to public view, Heb. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. 66:1, God dwells 'with the humble and contrite spirit;' not I will dwell, but I dwell; I dwell there when I wound and bruise, but the end of my dwelling there is not principally to bruise, but 'to revive the spirit of the humble.' A natural man may by natural conscience be convinced of great sins against the light of nature, as a dim eye can read a great print; but such are usually most sensible of sins against the second table, or more open sins against the first; but the Spirit convinceth of the more inward imperceptible sins, affects it with those against both tables. Fourthly, Thence the Spirit directs the soul to a sight of its corruption by nature, opens the root of bitterness, makes us smell the sink of sin, discovers the dunghill whence all these little serpents derived their life and strength, shews us the rotten core as well as the worm-eaten skin; that the nature of the person lies in wickedness, as a mole in the earth, or a carcase in putrefaction, 1 John 5:19, all under sin, no good spring in the heart; that there is poison in the heart, that taints every work of the hand, imagination, fancy, thoughts of the mind, and motions of the will. He makes your heart soft - you almost think it could break, you've no rest, you've no peace - and like Job says: 'the Almighty troubleth me'.
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