Conviction of Sin.
There is another aspect of this argument which deserves to be considered. What is conviction of sin ? What are the experiences of those whom the Spirit of God brings under that conviction ? The answer to these questions may be drawn from the Bible, as for example the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, from the records of the inward life of the people of God in all ages, and from every believer's own religious experience. From all these sources it may be proved that every soul truly convinced of sin is brought to feel and acknowledge, (1.) That he is guilty in the sight of God, and justly exposed to the sentence of his violated law. (2.) That he is utterly polluted and defiled by sin ; that his thoughts, feelings, and acts are not what conscience or the divine law can approve; and that it is not separate, transient acts only by which he is thus polluted, but also that his heart is not right, that sin exists in him as a power or a law working in him all manner of evil. And, (3.) That he can make no atonement for his guilt, and that he cannot free himself from the power of sin ; so that he is forced to cry out, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death ! This sense of utter helplessness, of absolute inability, is as much and as universally an element of genuine con- viction as a sense of guilt or the consciousness of defilement. It is a great mercy that the theology of the heart is often better than the theology of the head.
6. The testimony of every man's consciousness is confirmed by the common consciousness of the Church and by the whole history of our race. Appeal may be made with all confidence to the prayers, hymns, and other devotional writings of the people of God for proof that no conviction is more deeply impressed on the hearts of all true Christians than that of their utter helplessness and entire dependence upon the grace of God. They deplore their inability to love their Redeemer, to keep themselves from sin, to live a holy life in any degree adequate to their own convictions of tlieir obligations. Under this inability they humble themselves. They never plead it as an excuse or palliation ; they recognize it as the fruit and evidence of the corruption of their nature derived as a sad inheritance from their first parents. They refer with one voice, whatever there is of good in them, not to their own ability, but to the Holy Spirit. Every one adopts as expressing the inmost conviction of his heart, the language of the Apostle, " Not I, but the grace of God which was with me." As this is the testimony