---- IV. The fourth thing; what sins, or what in sin the Spirit doth chiefly convince of!
seize upon me, there is a rich gospel, full of blessings, that is offered to me; here is death to sinners that will not have God to reign over them, there is life to believers that submit with the obedience of faith. If I sin while I live, I must perish when I die; I must be saved by grace, or be punished by wrath. And shall I sin away my hopes, to fall into a miserable eternity? shall I sin myself to death, when the promise of grace is freely made to me in order to my salvation? Thus the soul is brought to a sense of sin by the law, and the insufficiency of the creature, and then welcome Christ, and gospel, and covenant, and promises of grace; welcome the yoke of Christ. And when it cometh to this, then conviction ends, hath its perfect work, concluding in a thorough conversion and acceptance of Christ.
IV. The fourth thing; what sins, or what in sin the Spirit doth chiefly convince of!
The conviction by any other cause is partial, it is but half baked, roast on one side, and raw on the other; the Spirit's conviction is universal, he holds a right rule to the crooked heart; he measures all the dimensions of the soul, and of sin in it, considers root and branch, leaves and fruit. As the Spirit in a good man mortifies all sin, cleanses from all sin, so in this work he discovers all sin.
First, The Spirit usually singles out some one sin at the first to set home upon the soul; sometimes some base unworthy action, some blasphemous word, some disparaging thought of God, some captain and master sin, which is first brought out to face the soul, and presented in its hideous shape: as crucifying the Saviour of the world was charged by Peter upon the Jews, Acts 2; fornication upon the woman of Samaria, by Christ, John 4:18. As the Spirit of adoption, in working assurance, evidenceth to the soul some one particular grace which is wrought in the soul, whereby he may be able to judge of his state; so, as a Spirit of bondage, he presseth some particular sin at first, whereby a man may judge of his deplorable condition. Some one sin the Spirit takes hold of, to begin this work of conviction. But though one sin chiefly sticks in the conscience at first, yet in the
Spirit's work all others do rush in afterwards to have their share.
When one bee cometh forth and stings one that hath disturbed the hive, the rest come out to revenge the quarrel; or when one mastiff sets upon a passenger, all the rest will come barking in. The guilt of one sin is let loose upon the conscience; not that the work ends here
(for then the soul might be lost), but this is an introduction. Judas's thought dwelt only upon one sin, Mat 27:4, betraying innocent blood, that did affect him; but he never searched further into the kennel, never into the depravation of his nature. But the Spirit begins at one, and leads the soul from chamber to chamber, from lust to lust, till it hath viewed the whole den by degrees; for he doth not shew all at once, that the soul for whom he hath kind thoughts may not fail before him.
Secondly, The Spirit usually convinceth the soul first of gross sins.
He begins with these, because they are more legible and obvious by natural light, which of itself condemns them, and sets the soul speechless. As in the siege of a town, batteries are planted against that part of it which is weakest. Sins in the conversation are more visible than those that lie secret in the heart, other sins are obscured by these outward ones, as stars are by a bigger light, and a little spot by a greater stain; these are more visible to the inward senses, and more easily read by conscience, by principles of reason which rise up in accusation of them. David's murder and adultery first affected his conscience by Nathan's ministry, but in the progress he complains of his hypocrisy, Ps. 51:10; of those sins which poured in their streams to the increasing that river, those auxiliaries which had contributed their assistance to maintain his heart in its hardness for that sin. As in thankfulness one great mercy appears, but when that is dissected, the whole train of mercies appear; so in conviction, one gross sin first shews itself, and when this is discerned, the whole litter comes in view. Christ rouseth Paul for his persecution first, but after, if spread further on his conscience; for he acknowledges himself not only a persecutor, but a blasphemer and injurious. The Spirit holds the conscience to the visible letter of the law before he applies the invisible spirit of it to the heart, and affects the heart with that which
is biggest, because of its nearness, rather than others, which, though as bad or worse, seem less by reason of their remoteness.
Thirdly, The Spirit from thence proceedeth to the conviction of the bosom sin. All men worship some golden calf, set up by education, custom, natural inclination, or the like; and while a Delilah lies in the bosom and engrosseth the affections, the soul cannot be set with its love upon God; and if the heart be disaffected to this, the others are more easily hated. When a general is taken, the army runs. This is the great stream, others but rivulets which bring supply. The disaffecting the soul to this, facilitates the remaining work, because this is the strongest chain wherein the devil holds a man, the main fort. The Spirit fights against the lighter parties that come forth, but chiefly against that which hath been the great commander of all the other forces against God, and the greatest confidence of the devil. As a wise general directs his force against the stoutest body, wherein the strength of the enemy consists, when that is worsted, the arms presently fall out of the hands of the rest. Other sins are as the stragglers of an army, by the routing of which the victory is not obtained, but by the shattering the main body. The Spirit doth chiefly convince of this bosom sin. Violence was the soldiers', extortion was the publicans' sin, and the Spirit directs John Baptist against these; hypocrisy was the darling iniquity of the pharisees, Christ plants his battery most against this; Paul, in his whole progress after conversion, abhors most his persecution. As sanctification is a cleansing a man from his iniquity, so is a conviction of the Spirit, a discovering to a man his proper iniquity, Ps. 18:21.
Fourthly, Thence the Spirit directs the soul to a sight of its corruption by nature, opens the root of bitterness, makes us smell the sink of sin, discovers the dunghill whence all these little serpents derived their life and strength, shews us the rotten core as well as the wormeaten skin; that the nature of the person lies in wickedness, as a mole in the earth, or a carcase in putrefaction, 1 John 5:19, all under sin, no good spring in the heart; that there is poison in the heart, that taints every work of the hand, imagination, fancy, thoughts of the
mind, and motions of the will. He brings a man from the chamber of outward to the closet of inward sins, until he arriveth to the large room of nature; bids him see if he can find out one clean corner in the heart, and so conducts him to the first sin of Adam, makes him behold the first fountain whence all issued, and all little enough to make the proud heart stoop to God. He makes him consider he is deeply concerned in that first sin, though so many revolutions of years have passed. This makes a man vile in his own eyes, that he cannot look upon himself, but with confusion and an universal blush.
God looks to this sin of nature as the ground of punishment: Gen.
6:5, 6, 'The imagination of the heart was only evil,' and therefore it repented God that he made man on the earth; therefore the Spirit doth affect most with this in conviction. As Christ came to cure the wound of nature, so the Spirit shews the impurity of nature in order to that cure; he would not else act upon the foundation Christ had laid. He is sent to convince men of their need of Christ, therefore of that which lays men under the greatest necessity of Christ, which is the violation of the first covenant, and the evil consequents of it. As the Spirit in mortification strikes to the root of sin, so in conviction he digs to it; as in sanctification he cleanses from the sink of sin, so in conviction he shews it. Christ, in his discourse with Nicodemus, lays this open to him, who thought the doctrine of the necessity of regeneration a strange kind of discourse, and must needs think so, until he understood, John 3:6, that 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh,' that nature was universally depraved. David begins with a sense of his adultery in his conviction, but traceth up his sin to the spring, his natural conception, Ps. 51:5. He followeth the young cubs to the old one's den, where he found sin's mark upon every member at his first formation. If the Spirit did not convince of this, he did little or nothing to the purpose; for as long as we think there is any good in us, we shall depend upon it, and never go to Christ. But when we see the running issue of nature, as well as the outflowings of nature, then we shall with open arms fly to him. To be ignorant of this, and complain of other sins, is a sign of conscience but half awakened. This is the proper work of the Spirit, and it cannot be done without this; the branches and fruit are visible, so are the
beams and rafters of a house, but the root and foundation lies under ground. The Spirit shews this corruption of nature not by a glimmering but clear light; not only shews a man that he is fallen, but makes him see the heavens in their glory, from whence he fell; hell in its misery, to which he fell. He affects him with his nature, as the seminary of all sin, as a womb to prepare and ripen sin, until a suitable temptation is offered to give birth to it.
Fifthly, The Spirit convinceth of the evil nature of sin; and this is a necessary work of the Spirit. As in striving against it, the renewed soul quarrels with it as it is sin, so in a thorough conviction the Spirit doth unmask it as it is sin; he presents it under those considerations upon which the soul is to fight against it; he evidenceth it sensibly to be enmity to God, to his essence, attributes, his law, turning the back upon God with the greatest scorn, and lifting up the heel against him,
Jer. 32:33, endeavouring to despoil God of his government (whence sinners are said to be without God in the world), casting the holy law behind their backs, preferring a dirty creature before the Creator, a base lust before a blessed Jesus. He doth evidence every sin to be idolatry, an implicit adoration of Satan: ingratitude, because our mercies are received after our lives were forfeited; theft, in robbing
God of that reverence that is due to him, and the revenues of his glory; unbelief, not believing his promises whereby he allures, nor his threatenings whereby he scares; unfaithfulness, in breach of covenant, and abundance more bound up in the womb of sin; this the Spirit doth convince a man is in the nature of sin, in every sin.
Now, the Spirit shews sin to be an injury to a gracious God, impurity, disingenuity against a holy God, disloyalty to our supreme Lord, a breach of a holy and righteous law, a stab to the heart of Christ, a shedding the best blood that ever was, and such a heinous thing as is not to be remitted without the blood of God. As the Spirit's second conviction, of the righteousness of Christ, is as it is the expiating cause of the sin of man, so his first discovery of sin is, as it appears to be the occasion of the death of Christ. Without this conviction of the evil nature of sin, the Spirit is not like to attain its end; for there
cannot be a conversion till a man be sensible of what sin is in its own nature, aversion from God, alienation and contrariety to him.
Sixthly, The Spirit doth convince of the filthiness and pollution of sin. Sin is the contagion of the soul, the universal stain of nature; nothing but pollution succeeded in the place of original purity. The Scripture doth set forth sin to us under all the vilest terms, calls it an Ethiopian blackness, spots, mire, dirt, dang, plague, ulcer, sore. As there is a saltness in every drop of water in the sea, so there is a filthiness in every action of sin. The Spirit discovers the naughtiness of the heart, and the nastiness of lusts, being more loathsome than toads, and infections than plagues: Isa. 57:20, the wicked man's heart is like the sea, 'casting up mire and dirt.' The Spirit in this work doth (as it were) spread dung in the face of the sinner, he shews what slime and frogs it hath left behind in every part it hath touched, that he may feel as well as see the loathsomeness of it. When the Spirit cometh thus as a judge into the soul, though we seem to be washed with snow-water, and our hands appear clean, yet we shall be as plunged in a ditch, that our own clothes will abhor us, Job 9:30, 31.
Then a man sees himself bemired from head to foot, like one over head and ears in a common sewer. By seeing original sin, we see the defilement of it, how it hath infected the whole nature; and that human nature is not like a river to purify itself, but its mud is increased rather than diminished. If the Spirit should stir up all the stench of sin, and unmask all its ugliness, without making any further progress, utter despair, fury, confusion, self-hatred, would be the effect of it. The Spirit in this work must needs discover this filthiness, if he attain his end in it. For as the soul in sanctification is to purge out sin by the strength of the Spirit, so it is necessary by conviction it should see the filth of that that is to be purged out, as an incentive to cleanse it. No soul will hate it, no soul will move its hand to its expulsion, till it be stripped of its painted colours, till it be shewn in its native blackness, till the serpent be stripped of his skin, and manifested in the venom and poison of its nature. Cain saw his sin in the wrathful effects, as it was not forgiven, but not in the polluting effect, as the blood of his brother had defiled his
conscience. When we see the guilt, it terrifieth us; and the filth, it shameth us: the one makes us desire ease, the other cleansing.
Without this sight we cannot justify God in his righteousness, nor admire him in his patience, that he did not long since fling such nasty vessels on the dunghill; without a sight of this we can never hate sin spiritually. Sensibleness of the wrath that is due to it may make us fear it, but it is sensibleness of the filthiness of it that must make us loathe it. Both these are the designs of the Holy Spirit in conviction, to make God appear admirable, desirable, and sin appear hateful. Then, Seventhly, The Spirit convinceth of spiritual sins, and this is the great work. It convinces of the corruption of nature, the nature of sin, and the filth of sin; but it presseth most upon spiritual sins, the first motions, self-conceit of our own worth, pride against God, unbelief, and the like. Conscience hath a natural edge to wound a man for those sins which render a man inexcusable by the light of nature; but some sins lie remote out of sight, as spiritual wickedness in the high places of understanding, will, and affections, yea, and of conscience itself; a clearer light and a more piercing principle is requisite for the discovery of these. Drunkenness, murder, luxury, theft, &c., are sins condemned by the general consent of nature; the works of the visibly defiled flesh are manifest, but the works of refined flesh lie closer in the inward corner, and are not be easily discovered, though there is a greater defilement in these than men commonly imagine. Other sins disgrace us more in the eye of men, and these defile us more in the eye of God. The soul, which ought to be a living temple for God, is defiled by these sins, which is as if the throne of a prince should be besmeared with dung. That is worse in the eye of God, which consists in a conformity to the devil, God's great enemy, than that which consists in a conformity to the brutish creature, as sins of the flesh are. They are the strength of sin, the heart and life of the body of death, the main fort, the other sins are but the outworks. The great end of the Spirit is to convince of these. The outworks must be first taken, therefore gross sins must be first known; yet there is no hopes of conquest while the main strength remains invisible. As
sanctification begins at the sins of the flesh, but grows up to a cleansing from spiritual sins, so must a sense of sin in order to sanctification sail the same course. These being the subjects of the Spirit's sanctification, as that wherein the enemy's chief strength lies, are the subject of conviction too; and herein consists the spirituality of conviction. As the strength of an eye appears in discovering the spots in the sun, which lie covered with a rich robe of light, so the strength of conviction in the spirituality of it is discerned in the eye's discovering the stains in the heart, which are covered with a beautiful cloak of outward morality. When sciences are learned, the rudiments and more obvious principles are known before the mysteries are understood, and men grow up from a common to an abstruse knowledge; so the Spirit leads us from a sight and sense of more visible, till it dives at length to the secrets of sin, to the deceivableness of unrighteousness in the spiritual antichrist working in the soul. No spiritual conviction without a conviction of spiritual sins. A natural man may by natural conscience be convinced of great sins against the light of nature, as a dim eye can read a great print; but such are usually most sensible of sins against the second table, or more open sins against the first; but the Spirit convinceth of the more inward imperceptible sins, affects it with those against both tables. Paul was convinced not only of the sins he acted without, as his persecution, but of sins dwelling in him, springing up in him, and discovering themselves by their motions in him. And,
Eighthly, The Spirit convinceth the soul of its own impotency and weakness. He shews the sinner his filth and his chains; how lust brings guilt and slavery; how his understanding is deprived of true light, and his will of true liberty; whence there is an utter inability to make up the breach between God and the soul, from whence his best righteousness smells rank, and contracts a taint from that corruption which is derived from Adam unto the whole human nature. Men naturally glory in their own power, they think grace no more than walking according to the rules of blinded reason, they understand not the depth of their wound, nor their weakness by it. Sins of infirmity they think they have, which are to nature only like the
scratch of a pin, not like the stab of a sword; they think their vitals are sound and strong still. But the Spirit convinceth the soul that her wings are broke, and her feet crippled, and her hands possessed with a dead palsy; that man hath an universal impotency, spiritual feebleness, his weakness as incurable as his wickedness, that he can no more strengthen himself than purge himself, Rom. 7:15. The Spirit convinceth man that his best strength is but a shadow of righteousness, that as he was mutable in righteousness in innocency, so since the fall he is immutable to sin, and unable to turn from it; that he is a slave to his lusts, held in chains till they be knocked off, shut up in a prison that he cannot break, and under the power of a jailor that he cannot conquer. Without this he would think to lick himself whole, and never lie sighing and sobbing at the foot of Christ.
Though a man naturally justify himself, yet when the Spirit deals with him, overturns all his props, and discovers him overgrown with feebleness as well as sinfulness, he cries, like Job, chap. 9:20, 21, 'If I justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse. Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul; I would despise my life.'
Ninthly, He doth continually convince of the consequences and demerits of sin. He doth dissect sin, and shew it in its circumstances, and he doth convince and set home upon the soul the demerit of sin; and (though he doth also propose the gospel) he sets home that wrath which is deserved by it. For he speaks a language quite contrary to that of the devil to our first parents, persuading Adam that no wrath would ensue upon it; that he should meet with life in eating the forbidden fruit. The Spirit's method is contrary to that of the devil; death is the wages of every iniquity. You shall be as gods, saith Satan; you have made yourselves like devils, saith the Spirit; are transformed into the devil's nature, fallen into the devil's condemnation. The Spirit sets home what it deserves at the hands of God; although he doth propose the gospel, yet he affects the soul with what sin hath deserved.