In the second place, with this conviction of the truths of religion is connected an experience of their power. They produce to a greater or less degree an effect upon the feelings a[)pro{)riate to their nature ; a conviction of sin, the clear perception that what the Bible and the conscience teach of our guilt and pollution, pro- duces self-condemnation, remorse, and self-abhorrence. These are natural, as distinguished from gracious affections. They are ex- perienced often by the unrenewed and the wicked. A sense of God's justice necessarily produces a fearful looking for of judg- ment. Those who sin, the Apostle says, know the righteous judg- ment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death. (Rom. i. 32.) The attending conviction of entire hel])lessness ; of the soul's utter inability either to make expiation for its guilt, or to destroy the inward power of sin, and wash away its defile- nieiu, tends to produce absolute despair. No liuman suffering is more intolerable than that which is often experienced even in this life from these sources. " Heu me miserum et nimis miserum ! nimis enim miserum, quem torquet conscientia sua quam fugere non potest ! nimis enim miserum quem exspectat damnatio sua, quam vitare non potest ! Nimis est infelix, qui sibi ipsi est horril)ilis ; nimis infelicior, cui mors seterna erit sensibilis. Nimis aerumnosus, quem terrent continui de sua infelicitate horrores." ^
It is also natural and according to exj)erience, that the promise of the Gosjiel, and the exhibition of tlie plan of salvation, con- tained in the Scriptures, which commend themselves to the enlight-
1 Augustine, De Contrillone Cordis, Works, edit. Benedictines, Paris, 1837, vol. vi ap- peudix, p. 1376, c.