But does the christian world, or any of you that hear me this day, want the Holy Ghost to convince you of unbelief? Are there any infidels here? Yes, (O that I had not too great reason to think so!) I fear most are such: not indeed such infidels as professedly deny the LORD that bought us (though I fear too many even of such monsters are in every country); but I mean such unbelievers, that have no more faith in CHRIST than the devils themselves. Perhaps you may think you believe, because you repeat the Creed, or subscribe to a Confession of Faith; because you go to church or meeting, receive the sacrament, and are taken into full communion. These are blessed privileges; but all this may be done, without our being true believers. And I know not how to detect your false hypocritical faith better, than by putting to you this question: How long have you believed? Would not most of you say, as long as we can remember; we never did disbelieve? Then this is a certain sign that you have no true faith at all; no, not so much as a grain of mustard-seed: for, if you believe now, (unless you were sanctified from your infancy, which is the case of some) you must know that there was a time in which you did not believe on the LORD JESUS CHRIST; and the Holy Ghost, if ever you received it, convinced you of this. Eternal truth has declared, “When he is come, he will convince the world of sin, because they believe not on me.”
None of us believe by nature: but after the Holy Ghost has convinced us of the sin of our natures, and the sin of our lives and duties, in order to convince us of our utter inability to save ourselves, and that we must be beholden to GOD, as for every thing else, so for faith (without which it is impossible to please, or be saved by CHRIST) he convinces us also, that we have no faith. “Dost thou believe on the Son of GOD?” is the grand question which the Holy Ghost now puts to the soul: at the same time he works with such power and demonstration, that the soul sees, and is obliged to confess, that it has no faith.
This is a thing little thought of by most who call themselves believers. They dream they are christians, because they live in a christian country: If they were born _Turks_, they would believe on _Mahomet_; for what is that which men commonly call faith, but an outward consent to the established religion? But do not you thus deceive your own selves; true faith is quite another thing. Ask yourselves, therefore, whether or not the Holy Ghost ever powerfully convinced you of the sin of unbelief? You are perhaps so devout (you may imagine) as to get a catalogue of sins; which you look over, and confess in a formal manner, as often as you go to the holy sacrament: but among all your sins, did you ever once confess and bewail that damning sin of unbelief? Were you ever made to cry out, “LORD, give me faith; LORD, give me to believe on thee; O that I had faith! O that I could believe!” If you never were thus distressed, at least, if you never saw and felt that you had no faith, it is a certain sign that the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, never came into and worked savingly upon your souls.
But is it not odd, that the Holy Ghost should be called a Comforter, when it is plain, by the experience of all GOD’s children, that this work of conviction is usually attended with sore inward conflicts, and a great deal of soul-trouble? I answer, The Holy Ghost may well be termed a Comforter, even in this work; because it is the only way to, and ends in, true solid comfort. Blessed are they that are thus convicted by him, for they shall be comforted. Nay, not only so, but there is present comfort, even in the midst of these convictions: the soul secretly rejoices in the sight of its own misery, blesses GOD for bringing it out of darkness into light, and looks forward with a comfortable prospect of future deliverances, knowing, that, “though sorrow may endure for a night, joy will come in the morning.”
Thus it is that the Holy Ghost convinces the soul of sin. And, if so, how wretchedly are they mistaken, that blend the light of the Spirit with the light of conscience, as all such do, who say, that CHRIST lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and that light, if improved, will bring us to JESUS CHRIST? If such doctrine be true, the promise in the text was needless: our LORD’s apostles had already that light; the world hereafter to be convinced, had that light; and, if that was sufficient to bring them to CHRIST, why was it expedient that CHRIST should go away to heaven, to send down the Holy Ghost to do this for them! Alas! all have not this Spirit: it is the special gift of GOD, and, without this special gift, we can never come to CHRIST.