And did the Comforter, my dear friends, ever come with such a convincing power as this into your hearts? Were you ever made to see and feel, that in your flesh dwelleth no good thing; that you are conceived and born in sin; that you are by nature children of wrath; that GOD would be just if he damned you, though you never committed an actual sin in your lives? So often as you have been at church and sacrament, did you ever feelingly confess, that there was no health in you; that the remembrance of your original and actual sins was grievous unto you, and the burden of them intolerable? If not, you have been only offering to GOD vain oblations; you never yet prayed in your lives; the Comforter never yet came effectually into your souls: consequently you are not in the faith properly so called; no, you are at present in a state of death and damnation.
Again, the Comforter, when he comes effectually to work upon a sinner, not only convinces him of the sin of his nature, and the sin of his life, but also of the sin of his duties.
We all naturally are Legalists, thinking to be justified by the works of the law. When somewhat awakened by the terrors of the LORD, we immediately, like the Pharisees of old, go about to establish our own righteousness, and think we shall find acceptance with GOD, if we seek it with tears: finding ourselves damned by nature and our actual sins, we then think to recommend ourselves to GOD by our duties, and hope, by our doings of one kind or another, to inherit eternal life. But, whenever the Comforter comes into the heart, it convinces the soul of these false rests, and makes the sinner to see that all his righteousnesses are but as filthy rags; and that, for the most pompous services, he deserves no better a doom than that of the unprofitable servant, “to be thrown into outer darkness, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.”
And was this degree of conviction ever wrought in any of your souls? Did the Comforter ever come into your hearts, so as to make you sick of your duties, as well as your sins? Were you ever, with the great Apostle of the _Gentiles_, made to abhor your own righteousness which is by the law, and acknowledge that you deserve to be damned, though you should give all your goods to feed the poor? Were you made to feel, that your very repentance needed to be repented of, and that every thing in yourselves is but dung and dross? And that all the arguments you can fetch for mercy, must be out of the heart and pure unmerited love of GOD? Were you ever made to lye at the feet of sovereign Grace, and to say, LORD, if thou wilt, thou mayest save me; if not, thou mayest justly damn me; I have nothing to plead, I can in no wise justify myself in thy sight; my best performances, I see, will condemn me; and all I have to depend upon is thy free grace? What say you? Was this ever, or is this now, the habitual language of your hearts? You have been frequently at the temple; but did you ever approach it in the temper of the poor Publican, and, after you have done all, acknowledge that you have done nothing; and, upon a feeling experimental sense of your own unworthiness and sinfulness every way, smite upon your breasts, and say, “GOD be merciful to us sinners?” If you never were thus minded, the Comforter never yet effectually came into your souls, you are out of CHRIST; and if GOD should require your souls in that condition, he would be no better to you than a consuming fire.
But there is a fourth sin, of which the Comforter, when he comes, convinces the soul, and which alone (it is very remarkable) our LORD mentions, as though it was the only sin worth mentioning; for indeed it is the root of all other sins whatsoever: it is the reigning as well as the damning sin of the world. And what now do you imagine that sin may be? It is that cursed sin, that root of all other evils, I mean the sin of _unbelief_. Says our LORD, verse 9. “Of sin, because they believe not on me.”