What is the frame of the soul in general that is excited by grace, and resolves in the strength thereof to attempt a recovery out of tlie depths of sin-entanglements, hath been declared. We have also showed what entertainments, in general, such a soul had need to ex- pect, yea, ordinarily shall be sttre to meet withal. It may be he goes forth at first like Samson with his locks cut, and thinks he will do as at other times; but he quickly finds his peace lost, his wounds painful, his conscience restless, God displeased, and his whole condi- tion, as the utmost of his own apprehension, hazardous. This fills him with the thoughts expressed in this third verse, and fixes the conclusion in his mind discoursed of before. He finds noAV that he hath the law afresh to deal withal. Thence ariseth that sense and acknowledgment of sin, that self-condemnation in the justifica- tion of God, whereof we now speak. He grows not sullen, stubborn, displeased, and so runs away from God ; he doth not " \itterly faint," despond, and give over, he pleads not any thing in his own justifica- tion or for the extenuation of his sin and gitilt; he quarrelleth not with, he repineth not against, the holiness, severity, and righteousness of the law of God; but reflects wholly on himself, his own unworthiness, guilt, and desert, and in a sense of them lies down at the foot of God, in expectation of his w^ord and sentence.
Three things in this condition Ave ascribe unto such a soul: — First, A sincere sense of sin. There is a twofold sense of sin. The one is general and notional ; whereby a man knows what sin is, that himself is a sinner, — that he is guilty of this or that, these or those sins; only his heart is not affected proportionably to that dis- covery and knowledge which he' hath of these things. The other is active and efficacious. The soul being acquainted Avith the nature of
Ver.3.] THE soul's ACTINGS TOWARDS A RECOVERY. 3C9
sin, with its own guilt in reference unto sin in general, as also to tliis or that sin, is universally influenced by that apprehension unto suit- able affections and operations.
Of both these we have an instance in the same person. David, before Nathan's coming to him, had the former; afterwards he had the latter also. It cannot be imagined but that, before the coming of the prophet, he had a general knowledge and sense, not only ab- solutely of the nature of sin, but also that himself was a sinner, and guilty of those very sins which afterward he was reproved for. To think otherwise is to suppose not only that he was unsainted, but unmanned also and turned into a beast. But yet this wrought not in him any one affection suitable to his condition. And the like may be said of most sinners in the world. But now, when Nathan comes to him, and gives him the latter efBcacious sense whereof we speak, we know wliat effects it did produce.
It is the latter only that is under consideration; and that also is tw^ofold: — 1. Legal, or antecedaneoiis unto conversion; 2. Evangeli- cal, and previous to the recovery from depths, whereof we treat. How these two differ, and how they may be discerned one from the other, being both of them in then* kind sincere, is not my business to declare.
Now, this last, which we assign as the first duty, work, or acting of a returning soul, is a deep and practical apprehension, wrought in the mind and heart of a believing sinner by the Holy Ghost, of sin and its evils, in reference unto the law and love of God, the cross and blood of Christ, the communion and consolation of the Spirit, and all the fruits of love, mercy, or grace that it hath been made jDartaker of, or on gospel ground hoped for.
1. The iwincipal efficient cause of it is the Holy Ghost. He it is who " convinceth of sin," John xvi. 8. He Avorks indeed by means, — he Avrought it in David by the ministry of Nathan, and he wrought it in Peter by the look of Christ, — but his work it is; no man can work upon his own soul. It will not spring out of men's rational considerations. Though men may exercise their thoughts about such things, as one would think were enough to break the heart of stones, yet if the Holy Ghost put not forth a peculiar efficacy of his own, this sense of sin will not be wrought or produced. As the waters at the pool of Bethesda were not troubled but when an angel descended and moved them, no more will the heart for sin without a saving illapse of the Holy Ghost.
2. It is deep apiirehension of sin and the evils of it. Slight, transient thoughts about them amount not to the sense of which we speak. "My sorrow," saith David, "is continually before me," Ps. xxxviii. 17. It pressed him always and greatly. Hence he com- pares this sense of sin wrought by the Holy Ghost to " arrows that
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370 AN EXPOSITION UPON PSALil CXXX. [Ver.3.
stick in the flesh," verse 2 ; they pain sorely and are always perplex- ing. Sin, in this sense of it, lays hold on the soul, so that the sinner cannot look up, Ps. xl. 12; and it abides with him, making "his sore run in the night without ceasing," Ps. Ixxvii. 2, and depriveth the soul of rest. " My soul," saith he, " refused to be comforted." This apprehension of sin lies down and rises with him in whom it is. Transient thoughts, attended with infrequent sighs and ejaculations, little become a returning soul. And, —