---- V. The fifth thing is, What the difference is between the convictions of the Spirit by this or
V. The fifth thing is, What the difference is between the convictions of the Spirit by this or that instrument, by nature, law, and gospel.
What difference there is between the Spirit's setting sin before us in a way of conviction, and Satan's setting sin before us, who doth interest himself sometimes in this conviction of sin, when it is attended with much terror; what the difference is between the sense of sin barely from natural principles, and a sense of sin that is wrought by the Spirit; then what the difference is between a legal and an evangelical conviction.
1. Though there are some beams of candle-light in nature, which make a discovery of some unrighteousness, whence arise rebukes of conscience, yet nature is not able to furnish us with a full conviction, and such a one as is necessary for our repair. Blind nature cannot see the rubbish, much less remove it; depraved nature is not sensible of all its crookedness, much less can it rectify it: it cannot hew and prepare itself for the introduction of the image of God. The highest natural improvements of our natural faculties cannot guide us into the close dens and chambers of sin, and give us a true prospect of the poisonous entrails of it. Nature may spring up some good operations in the heart, take nature in its latitude, what a man may be in his natural state, before his conversion to Christ; nature as it is propped up by the mediation of Christ, and as there are some commendable relics left in it, there are still some inbred principles which bring forth many excellent things according to their proportion; as there is virtue in the earth since the curse of it after man's fall, to bring forth many excellent plants and medicinal herbs. But these convictions by nature are, First, Light and uncertain, of a short duration; they are sudden qualms and fits upon some observation of outward judgments. As all judgments are sent to make men sensible there is a God in the earth, and that there are unrighteous actions that are displeasing to him, upon these judgments there are some reflections in a natural
conscience, some sense of God, what is due to sin, and what deviations are from him; but they continue no longer than the cause that raised them; they are sudden frights and startings, which soon settle again, as in a sudden fright and start nature is speedily reduced to its former temper, and the blood that was put on the sudden into another motion is quickly brought to its former consistence. They are usually like a land-flood, which causes an inundation, but sink not into the roots of the soul: Ps. 9:20, they are 'put in fear,' and while they are in fear, they 'know themselves to be but men.' It is a work not so much upon the judgment as upon the affections, therefore it is like a fire falling upon flax, and other combustible matter, which flames and expires, and you see its death almost as soon as it begins to live; whereas, those convictions that arise from the Spirit settle upon the judgment, and, like a fire in a log of wood, are kept alive in the soul, eat into the soul, dive into the bottom, produce serious and lasting affections. Conscience is staggering and unfixed, therefore whatsoever ariseth from it, partaketh of the uncertain nature of the cause. We shall be moveable in our affections, unless first stedfast in our judgment; until then, there can be no abounding in the work of the Lord. The apostle makes one the cause of the other: 1 Cor. 15:58,
'Be stedfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.' First a stedfastness in judgment, and then a settlement in the affections, and then an abounding in practice. No conviction can fasten in a rolling and unballasted mind, no conviction that ariseth from nature. Besides, fear is an unwelcome passion, as love is a delightful one; nature is held longer in the chains of love than in the fetters of fear: the one it hugs and embraceth, the other it knocks off.
The whole course of nature strives against flashes of fear, and will not endure the object of it; not invite and encourage its stay, but rather is up in arms against it; and, upon this account, those convictions that arise barely from natural principles, from anything of bare nature, are not of long duration. Any conviction from nature is like the smart of a prick of a pin in the flesh, which is soon forgot; a conviction by the Spirit is like the stab of a sword in the heart. The arrows of nature are easily plucked out, but God's arrows stick fast,
Job 6:4. Nature likes not to retain anything of God in its knowledge,
Rom. 1:28; but the Spirit imprints things and holds them upon the soul, binds his corrosive to it, that it cannot shake it off.
Secondly, Convictions by nature do at best but stand at a stay; they are not growing. If the convictions by nature do remain, yet they are not growing convictions, they gather not strength and perfection every day; if they do not decay and fall, as a seeming star, into dust and rottenness, yet they rise not up into a stronger light, are not in a state of progress, but are stinted to low measures. If they do seem bigger, it is by an external addition from multiplied causes and renewed observation of judgments, not from any internal principle of an enlightened mind; but, in the conviction of the Spirit, the light yesterday was as the light of a torch, to-morrow as the moon, and still rising till it be as the sun, which discovers the filthiness and little motes of the heart, as the sun doth the filthiness as well as the beauty of the earth; and this light will increase sevenfold, as the light of seven days put into one: Prov. 4:18, 'The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.' His path from his first stepping into anything that tends to it, is as the shining light, which shines more and more unto the perfect day; whereas the way of the wicked is as darkness: a sudden gleam of light lighting upon him and vanishing, leaves his eye under more darkness than before. The Spirit makes a progress from the first step towards righteousness, till the dawning of the day of righteousness in the soul. As Christ came not only to give life, but to give it more abundantly, John 10:10, so the Spirit giveth not small flashes of light in the mind and conscience, but an abundant and growing light.
Usually, convictions of nature do stand at a stay; nature will not row long against the stream, but at last be carried down by its force.
Talents not improved are quickly lost, and plants, when they begin to wither, never cease till quite blasted, unless influenced afresh by the beams and showers of heaven.
Thirdly, Natural convictions arise from some external cause, spiritual from the word imprinted upon the soul. Natural convictions are, from some natural outward cause, only from the sight of judgments
on others, or some personal afflictions on themselves; but the word is the sword of the Spirit, Ephes. 6:17, whereby he cuts open the soul.
By this he did execution upon those whose hands were red with the blood of Christ, Acts 2. This is always his instrument to cut, though he useth judgments and afflictions as whetstones to sharpen the edge, or as a mallet to strike it in the deeper. David, a most intelligent person, well skilled in natural notions, was not convinced of his sin of murder and adultery by any immediate excitation of his natural principles, or those spiritual notions in his mind, without the instrumentality of the word in the mouth of Nathan; that man of understanding was not sensible of his sin, till Nathan came with a message from God, and upon this alarm the Spirit arms his memory, and conscience, and understanding, to carry on the work, 2 Sam.
12:7, 8. The filthy soul and the pure word are brought together when a spiritual conviction is wrought, and it discovers millions of loathsome lusts which the dim light of nature could never discern.
That is the first thing; the difference between the convictions of nature and the Spirit.
2. There are also differences between legal and evangelical convictions. And, First, In regard of the principles whence they proceed.
(1.) A legal conviction ariseth from a consideration of God's justice chiefly, an evangelical from a sense of God's goodness. A legally convinced person cries out, I have exasperated a power that is as the roaring of a lion, a justice that is as the voice of thunder; I have provoked one that is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, whose word can tear up the foundations of the world with as much ease as he established them. This is the legal conviction. But an evangelically convinced person cries, I have incensed a goodness that is like the dropping of the dew; I have offended a God that had the deportment of a friend, rather than that of a sovereign. I have incurred the anger of a judge, saith a legalist; I have abused the tenderness of a father, saith an evangelically convinced person. Oh my marble, my iron
heart, against a patient, wooing God, a God of bowels! It makes every review of acts of kindness to be a sting in the conscience; it makes such a person miserable by mercy, and scorches him with the beams of goodness; turns the honey into a bitter pill, and useth a branch of the balsam tree as a rod wherewith to lash him. O wretch, to run from so sweet a fountain to rake in puddles! to rush into a river of brimstone, through a sea of goodness! What a cut is it, when ingenuity is awakened, to reject a natural goodness, much more an infinite goodness; to reject the goodness of a man, much more that of a God; the goodness of a friend never provoked, much more the goodness of a God that had been so highly incensed! There is a torture of hell in both, kindled by the breath of the Lord; in the one by the breath of his wrath, in the other by the breath of his goodness.
One is inflamed by justice to a sense of rebellion, the other by goodness to a sense of his own vileness. This is that which was promised should be in gospel times, that in the latter days men should fear the Lord and his goodness, Hos. 3:5. That is a true evangelical conviction, that springs from a thorough sense of God's goodness, when the goodness of God excites ingenuity, as well as the majesty of God strikes a terror.
(2.) A legal conviction springs from a sense of God's power, an evangelical from a sense of God's holiness. Power is the relief of a friend, and the terror of an enemy. Faith pitcheth upon the power of God for its establishment, and unbelief sinks under the sense of God's power with confusion; the believer stays himself upon the name of God, but the sinner languisheth under the consideration of the mightiness of that stroke that power can inflict. An evangelical convict dissolves under the sense of God's holiness, the other falls under the sense of God's power. I have offended majesty that can punish me, saith one; I have offended purity that would have sanctified me, saith the other. As the forgetfulness of God's power and majesty is the cause of men's sins, we regard not how corrupt our practices and offerings to God are, when we consider him not as a great king and dreadful Lord, Mal. 1:14. As the forgetfulness of this is the cause of sin, so the remembrance of his greatness is the cause
of man's reflection; but a beam of God's holiness shining upon the understanding makes a soul more sensible of its dross than all the flames of wrath. The angels solemnly applauding of God's holiness, which they cried up in Isaiah's hearing, Isa. 6:3, 5;—one cried to another, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,'—cast him down in a sense of his vileness. Then said I, 'Woe is me! because I am a man of unclean lips.' The sight of their covering their pure faces with their wings made him abhor, and cry out of the uncleanness of his soul. He saw the sun in its purity, and himself in his darkness and filthiness. A conviction by wrath is like a fire which only scorcheth; a conviction by holiness is like that of the sun, which burns by its heat, and discovers atoms by its light. The one measures his loathsomeness by the judgment of men, the other his filthiness by the holiness of God.
Was I made for God? did not his holy as well as his powerful finger frame me? and am I so base as to wallow in corruption? But,
(3.) Legal conviction ariseth only from a sense of the omniscience of God, but an evangelical ariseth from a sense of the disaffection of God to sin. The cause why men sin is the unbelief of God's omniscience, and the cause why they are troubled is a sense of this attribute, and not of God's hatred of their sins. The first impression from the edge of the word is, 'that all things are naked and open before him with whom we have to do,' Heb. 4:13; and that sins, even secret sins, are set in the light of his countenance, Ps. 90:8. Men will forbear their actions of folly when they think the eye of a grave man beholds them, but are bold to commit them when his back is turned.
If a prince be unknown behind the hangings, when subjects speak treason, they will be afraid when they discover he hath overheard them; not because they spoke it, but because he heard it; they consider it as the object of his knowledge, and the mark of his vengeance. A legalist considers God only as privy to his iniquity, the other as he is disaffected to it; he would never be troubled for his sin, if it never came under God's notice; the other sinks under it, because it is the object of God's displeasure. The one shakes, because he is convinced God observes it; the other trembles, because he is sensible
God disapproves it.
(4.) A legal conviction is a sense of sin in the death of the soul, an evangelical is a sense of sin arising from the death of Christ. One person seeth sin in the misery of his soul, and the other in the cross of the Redeemer. The moral law condemns sin, and the practice of the ceremonial acknowledged that condemnation. The offerer saw himself in those sacrifices which died for him, guilty of death; hence in the renewing of them there was a remembrance of sin, Heb. 10:3, and the killing of them was a bond or handwriting, whereby they confessed themselves obnoxious to the curse, and debtors to punishment, Col. 2:14. This was only a sight of sin in the death of a beast, though it typified the death of Christ. An evangelical conviction seeth sin in the sighs and groans, cries and agonies, suffering and blood of the Son of God, an only Son, an innocent Son, unspotted as to any inherency of sin in his person, only submitting to the imputation of sin to him, and infliction of punishment upon him, even to a commotion of soul and body. This giveth a clearer evidence of the demerit of sin to a full conviction, than the whole latitude of threatenings, or the roarings the damned utter, or the destroying millions of angels and men. This giveth ground for a full sense of the inviolable sanction of the law, the reasonable severity of justice against us, and the unavoidable demerit of sin, more than thousands of sacrifices could discover to the Jews. The voice of Christ's blood discovers more the malignity of sin than all men or angels are able to express. In this glass doth the Spirit shew it, to convince the soul in an evangelical manner. One seeth sin in the handwriting of ordinances against him, and the other sees it more meltingly in the tearing and cancelling this bond and bill by Christ upon the cross.
That is the first thing, they differ in the principles whence this sense doth arise.
Secondly, They differ in regard of the object of the conviction, or matter they are convinced of.
(1.) A legal convict accounts his torture the greatest evil, an evangelical his sin. Both indeed are burdened, the one with his punishment, the other with his desert of it; one counts his torment
hateful, the other his sin abominable. The first is troubled there is not a beam of mercy, but not troubled that he hath not a spark of grace. He groans under the presages of damnation, but not under the want of holiness; he is of the devil's temper, Why dost thou torment us? but doth not desire to be restrained from sin, but to be kept from torment; cries out as Lamech, Gen. 4:23, 'I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt'; not to God's dishonour, no complaint of that. It is true, he hath no pleasure in his sin, in the remembrance of it at the present, not for want of affection to it, but because it is embittered to him with the gall in his conscience; the law spits fire in his face, and makes his beloved object too hot for his holding; his allegiance to sin is not cast off, but at present only interrupted in the exercise. The other, the evangelically convinced man, cries out of his sin as the greatest burden, My God I have dishonoured, his Spirit I have grieved, his name I have slighted, and his mercy abused. And therefore the one, when his rack is laid aside, and the storm in his conscience blown over, falls as roundly to his former course as before; or if he abstains from that sin which was a cause of his smart, he opens his heart for more spiritual, and therefore more rooted iniquity, which breaks out into worse. Some think Ananias and Sapphira were in the number of those that had their hearts pricked at Peter's sermon, but their covetousness in a great measure remained in their affections, and ended in lying against the Holy Ghost. Such lay aside their apparel as players, to put on a disguise that suits the part they are to act, but strip themselves after, to put on their old garment again. Whereas the other, that is evangelically convinced, is more tender and careful to avoid the smallest slip as well as the grossest, not only when his conscience torments, but when the heat is allayed; careful to avoid sin in his duties, as well as in his more public conversation; he is afraid of the sting of sin, as well as of the sting of punishment; he judgeth sin his greatest evil, and next to that the want of God's favourable presence:
'How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord; how long wilt thou hide thy face, for ever?' Ps. 13:1. But then,
(2.) A legal convict is convinced of some sin, but he is also conceited that he hath some good. An evangelically convinced person is sensible he hath no good dwelling in his flesh; his conviction is more universal, the other's is more limited; a legal conviction lays a man but half dead, an evangelical lays him wholly dead; he hath no esteem of his sin, nor any of his righteousness. One is sensible of his sin, but not of his utter insufficiency to redeem his soul from everlasting death; the other sees fully what poor stuff his own righteousness is to make a saviour of. The Spirit, as it discovers the ugliness of sin, so it discovers the rottenness of that righteousness wherewith a man stilted himself up; it makes all seem as grass, and fading flowers, and of no value. The other, like the prodigal, though he be sensible of his misery, yet he thinks to preserve himself by husks. A true convict seeth himself under the curse of the law, without ability in anything but Christ to take it off; he seeth a necessity to have Christ to deliver him, or he must be for ever bound; and Christ to raise him, or he is utterly lost; whereas the other thinks he is able to raise himself. The one thinks to repair himself out of the ruins of nature, and raise up a building of righteousness by materials of his own hewing; the other, like Job, abhors not only sin, but himself too, Job 42:6, and speaks not a word of that integrity he boasted of before. The one knows himself a debtor to the law, but thinks himself able to do something to content the creditor, and patch up his credit by promises of reformation; he lies down in sparks of his own kindling, wraps himself in a garment of his own weaving, thinks himself rich by conceits framed in his own mint, and fancies that he is able to silence the clamours of the law, and lick the wound of his conscience whole; as Saul thought to redeem his credit with God by the sacrifice of beasts, after he had offended in the case of Amalek: he makes self a God, and idolises his own power. This is a secret self-pride, that runs in the channel of the whole nature from Adam; and as sin is irritated by the law, so these thoughts start up by it, and make many that seemed to begin to be spiritually convinced, to end in the flesh. As sin revives by the law, so doth this pride rise up afterwards, and is the ruin of many. Hence arise those frequent excuses of men before they will come to a downright confession;
whereas the other, that is evangelically convinced, is dead to his own righteousness, as well as his sin; he is sensible he hath no activity in himself, unless grace inspire him with a new principle. He performs duties, but doth not idolise them; puts forth his power to the utmost, but doth not rest in it; he seeth the emptiness of his righteousness, as well as the foulness of his sin; and thinks the one as unable to deliver him from the stroke of justice as the other to deserve it; and despairs of help and relief from the spring of nature. Paul, when a Jew, was of the same stamp with his brethren, thought to keep up his reputation with God by an external observation of the law, but when the law came in the band of the Spirit, he died; saw not only his damnable condition, but the insecurity of his soul upon any legal foundation, and the rottenness of all his former services to bring him to heaven.
Then all his natural and moral excellencies were as unvaluable as before they were amiable; they were loss in his sight. And to heighten his vile esteem of them, he adds dung, a dunghill righteousness, things of no account as to justification; yet none more holy than Paul, by a holiness derived from Christ by the Spirit after conversion, as none was more moral before by the strength of nature. Thus was he dead to the law, convinced of the vanity of any confidence in legal services; not that he might live to sin, but to God, by a new power derived from Christ, Gal. 2:19, for he was supplied with sap from that crucified root. Now what was really the attainment of Paul, is so of every true convert, and is the desire of every evangelically convinced person. This conceit which the legalist hath of some good in himself, ariseth from the consideration of himself, compared with those that defile themselves more in sin. A sense of our own vileness, when truly convinced, ariseth from our consideration of the perfection of the law of God; for measuring ourselves with the holiness of God, we see nothing at all that bears proportion to him. Morality is but as the moon, which is glorious if compared with a candle, but faint if compared with the sun.
Thirdly, There are differences in regard of the carriage of the persons under each of these works of conviction.
(1.) Legally convinced persons snatch at comfort, though never so false; an evangelical convict looks for comfort only from the month of God. The one doth not kindly own the supremacy of God, and therefore makes not full and close addresses to him for healing, but seeks for shelter from every hedge, like Saul in his melancholy to music, and in his distress to the witch of Endor; like Pharaoh to his magicians, the charming pleasures of the world. He thinks, by thus being in a fool's paradise, by the pleasures of sin to choke the sense of conscience; take a receipt from any unskilful hand rather than from the physician; worldly mirth, carnal advice; or at best he runs to sermons, and fasts in hopes of remedy, catches at any passage in a sermon to ease his soul. Sometimes he endeavours to stupefy his trouble by sinful diversion; he moves hell for ease, and cries, Give me comfort, or I die! Sometimes he snatches a promise wherein he is in no manner concerned, and claps it on by a misapprehension, and so charms his trouble for a time; and in this he is assisted by the devil, who is skilful in this art, and so he makes a flower of paradise prove poison. Such wrest the Scripture to their own destruction, and to allay the storm is all they look for. Now, an evangelically convinced person, he longs for comfort from that Spirit which first impressed the sense of sin. As he was struck by the law, so he will be healed by the gospel only. He longs for joys, not of the world, but of God's salvation; his eye is fixed with Heman's only upon the God of salvation, Ps. 88:5. He will wait God's leisure, and take nothing but what the word offers; examine well whether the word belongs to him.
The Spirit makes him, like Christ, inquire into anything that is alleged, that he be not deluded by Satan's fair pretences; he longs for healing by the Sun of righteousness, that he may come and scatter the darkness he sits in. All the good opinion of men concerning him cannot give him a grain of true contentment; he is willing to do anything with the gaoler for the saving his soul—'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'—resolved to undergo the hardest conditions prescribed by the word of God; but he knows all the true spring of comfort is the blood of Christ, the covenant of grace, the promises sealed by that blood, and a sound and substantial faith in them, and till milk spout from these breasts into his mouth he will not be contented; he is for
no other peace but that which is the fruit of God's lips; whereas the other is satisfied with a slight answer, warms himself by his own sparks, drinks of any puddle, so he may but quench his inflamed bowels, and regards not faith in Christ. Such coolers make men go on more resolutely in the ways of death afterwards, since they can quickly have an allay for conscience when it begins to stir. These legally convinced persons snatch at comfort though never so false.
(2.) A legally convinced person would only be freed from the pain, an evangelically convinced person from the sin, the true cause of it. Like swine, they would not have the cudgel, but they would have the mire; would have a freedom from the lash of the law, but hate to come under the yoke of Christ. They hate the iron that is come into their side, but not the crime, as a malefactor doth the gaol or a thief the gibbet. Such a one had rather have a rotten heart than a painful rack; he had rather have a putrefied soul than a deep incision. The one cries for a plaster to ease his conscience, the other for an axe to be laid to the root of his sin. He would keep his right hand and eye, provided they would not fester. The other would not have any corner of his heart inhabited by any sin; he is desirous it might lose its empire and dominion in the heart. He hath a respect to God's testimonies, though tremblings at the considerations of God: Ps.
119:119, 120, 'My flesh trembles for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments;' the other, like the man possessed in the Gospel, would not have the devil tormented in him, and utters not a word to have the devil cast out of him, Luke 8:28. He that is evangelically convinced looks forward to sin that may tempt him, and is watchful against the occasions of it; the other at best looks only backward to those already committed, and spends this disaffection he hath only on that for which he is racked; he singles out that to wreak his anger upon; he doth not fall on the troops of sin, not upon sin in general, but some particular sin which hath been painful to him; he hath no disaffection to the pleasure promised in other occasions, though he hath a distaste of the pain for that which is past. If the legalist be wrung into some reformation, it is with as much regret to part with his darling sin as David with Absalom, or Adam to be turned out of
paradise. Though he forbears it, he doth not abhor it; if he abhors it, it is only the pain, not the sin; and the reason is, because there is no higher principle in such a person than fear and self-love, and to one or both of these all the reformation he hath owes its original. He is only afraid of hell, and could he enjoy sin without terror in his conscience or wrath in hell, he did not care if the glory of God were lost for him, whether ever he came at heaven or the presence of God, whether ever he had an hatred of evil or acted good; he distastes the evil only. But one that is evangelically convinced distastes the foulness of sin, relishes the excellency and beauty of holiness, because of its suitableness to its Creator. Where there is fear only, there is nothing but bondage and a legal frame. The voice of one legally convinced is, How shall I do this wickedness, and open the flood-gates of wrath? The voice of an evangelical convict is this, How shall I do this wickedness, and sin against God, and spurn at his bowels?
Fourthly, There are differences in regard of the effects of these, and (1.) A legal conviction doth not of itself soften, but rather harden; an evangelical is melting and submissive. The making a fleshy heart and disposing it to such a frame, is the incommunicable property of the covenant of grace, and was never within the verge and compass of the law. The law, like a cannon, thunders only bullets and cursing, not a word of a promise but to perfect righteousness; therefore a legal conviction cannot be attended with any melting fruit. It is like a hammer, that may break a stone in pieces, yet every part retains its hardness. After a mere legal conviction, the heart is commonly harder, as water; if it grow cold after it is heated, freezes harder than it would have done if it had retained its native cold, without the interruption of a contrary quality. All those strivings of the Spirit with the old world abated nothing of that evil figment, those evil imaginations, which lodged in the heart continually. And it is observed, that though the Israelites heard the thunder, saw the lightning, the mountain burning with fire, the blackness, darkness, and tempest, as a preparation for giving the law, which made them
tremble, yet before forty days were over, they had not only forgotten that law, but they sin against that God whose power they feared, renounce God and his power over them, and make themselves a golden calf, Exod. 32:1, 4. The scorching of the law makes the burned place more brawny after the fire is out. The understanding may be soundly convinced, yet the heart not melted; the one is from the undeniable evidence of truth, the other is from the kindly influence of the Spirit. But when the Spirit convinceth the heart in a spiritual method, it shines like the sun in the heavens, which thaws the cold and frozen earth, and makes a man to be as melting wax before God.
Oh how immense is this love of God, that should offer me a Christ, provide a Redeemer, set him apart from all eternity for me that am self-condemned, while I was a rebel, for me who am a firebrand of hell! O inestimable mercy! O melting goodness! O free grace! Then he calls to his heart, Down, rocky heart, down to the very dust; lie as low as hell by abasement, since Christ hath made himself so low for thee! This is always attended with humility; such a person falls down on his face and worships God, 1 Cor. 14:25 and with submissiveness will bear the indignation of the Lord, Micah 7:9. And therefore a renewed man, that is past these pikes, is more humble under a sense of his own vileness than all the legalists ever were; for the Spirit keeps his foundation firm, which he first laid, whereon to build the superstructure of grace and comfort. As this sense of sin, the root, grows downward, so these noble fruits grow upward. The sense
David had at his conviction for the blood of Uriah, made him startle at the numbering the people, and afraid of the water fetched from the well of Bethlehem, but he poured it out before the Lord, lest he should seem to countenance the shedding of any blood. Well, then, the legal conviction is as a brick in the kiln, burned and hardened; the other like gold, inflamed and melted, separating itself from the dross.
(2.) A legal conviction of itself tends only to destruction, evangelical to health and salvation. The law presents nothing but condemnation and ruin, and can speak no other language; its mouth is filled only with curses, without the mixture of any one blessing for degenerate
man: what can be the issue of this, but confusion and endless torment? Not the least drop of comfort streams from it. It is impossible but that when it chargeth home the violation of the law, and brandisheth all its curses, self-condemnation and despair must reign in the conscience; and conscience, the deputy of God, when awakened, cannot but (like the Israelites) subscribe an Amen to every curse. The law, like mount Ebal, is barren of comfort; blessing grows only upon the mount of the gospel. Hence, many under sharp terrors of the law have endeavoured to make away themselves, and leaped into the flames of hell to avoid the sparks. This of itself, like poison, works to the dissolution of the temperament of the body; but evangelical is like physic, which, though it disturbs the humours, yet it tends to the preserving and rectifying the complexion of the body.
And by this at last the soul is brought to such a frame that it is willing to lie under affliction and torment, yea, under the fury of devils, rather than sin against God; for fear and ingenuity in the soul join hands to the keeping of God's commandments. The one discovers the disease, the other the remedy; the one causes fear, the other hope; the one shews the plague, the other discovers the plaster; the one is like a dart in the side of a deer, that makes him run further from him that shot it, the other is as a chain to draw the soul nearer to God.
(3.) A difference in regard of duration. The legal conviction is like a convulsion fit of the earth, when it quakes and trembles, and affects all that feel it with amazement, but holds not long ere it return to its natural consistency and stability; but an evangelical conviction lasts as long as we live, and is not cast off but with the mantle of the body; then the sense of sin shall be left, and we wholly taken up with the praises of a Redeemer. Without this, grace would not grow and thrive to a due maturity.
3. Thirdly, As there is a difference between those convictions which rise from nature, and which rise from the law, so there is a difference between Satan's setting sin in order before us, and the manner of the Spirit's presenting it to us (for Satan doth sometimes set sin in order before the soul, and there is a difference between their methods). In
convictions begun by the Spirit, Satan doth interest himself, and if he cannot stifle them, he endeavours to increase them. Though they are not in themselves acts of comfort, yet they are the act of a comforting
Spirit, and in order to comfort; but the devil impresseth them only as a terrifying spirit. God sometimes employs him as his officer after conversion for a correction of his people, as a beadle to discipline vagrants when they stray from their duty; but there is a manifest difference between the impressions of guilt made by him, and those stamped by the Holy Ghost.
(1.) Satan sets sin in order as an accuser, the Spirit as a comforter.
The tendency of a spiritual conviction is comfort, the intention of Satan is only to charge us with our fault. Satan, as an enemy, with violence brings his charge; the Spirit, as a friend, with tenderness doth impress conviction upon the soul. Satan hath no mind to awaken the conscience, but would rather lull men asleep in a carnal and endless security as to this world, and not discover the danger until they feel the stroke; he rather tempts to sin than accuseth for it, and sets men before the cannon of wrath, and giveth them no warning until they feel the bullet at their hearts, and are shattered in pieces by it. When he hath a full possession of the heart, all things are in quiet, and this great deceiver doth what he can to hinder true conviction; and this great Pharaoh doth not double the burden until he is like to lose his prey, and is afraid the soul should be snatched out of his hands; then he charges, as before he charmed. He chargeth violently, therefore his title is, 'The accuser of the brethren,' Rev.
12:10. He is also diligent in it, for he doth accuse them day and night: he is no less an accuser, and a diligent accuser, of men to their own consciences. His accusations do not precede, but follow, the Spirit's conviction, to spoil the Spirit's work, and keep off the soul from coming under any other government than his own. Satan doth only accuse like a councillor at the bar, with violence doth implead the prisoner that he is counsel against, rakes up all crimes that can be found, presents them with the sharpest edge, blunts all his apologies made in his defence, giveth no direction to procure a pardon; if the man look after any, he puts him out of hopes of obtaining. This Satan
doth when he is afraid lest he should lose a man that he finds soundly convinced by the Spirit, and ready to go off from him, when other means are successless. He deals with such a soul as with Job: after God had granted him liberty to afflict him, he dispatched not one messenger with good news to him, but hastened one after another with tidings of his loss and misery. He doth rather overaccuse than under-accuse; he is a lying spirit, and being envious too, that delights in the misery of others, he cares not what he saith to strengthen his charge. He would not speak truth to God when he accused Job, but makes a charge of hypocrisy, and a false prognostication of Job's cursing God, if he were stripped of his worldly riches, Job 1:11 and 2:5. And he accuseth Job to his friends of more than he was guilty of; this he doth to drive to despair. But the Spirit is a Spirit of truth; he sets sins in order as they are, and is a Spirit of tenderness, convinceth the soul with a compassion to it.
Satan deals with the soul as the thieves with the man in the Gospel, whom they left for half dead, but had no pity on his wounds. He acts quite contrary to Christ, and the Spirit of Christ in the world. When the Spirit is only a convincer, Satan will be a comforter, tells them sin shall do thorn no hurt, there is no cause of fear; but when the Spirit's conviction operates kindly, and is like to be a preparation to Christ, when the Spirit begins to be a comforter, then Satan will be a convincer; then his language is, Nothing will cure. Satan tormented men; Christ, when he was on the earth, cured them. The Spirit, being
Christ's deputy, acts as Christ did when he was here, and with the same affection as Christ did. Not but that the Spirit reproves sharply, as Christ did upon occasion Peter and the Pharisees, and yet, upon compliance, was as gentle as before severe. The Spirit doth accuse for sin, but doth also shew a righteousness to answer those accusations, if it be embraced.
(2.) Satan presents God only as a Judge to punish. The Spirit in the progress of conviction represents him not only as a Judge, who hath the power of punishment, but as a Sovereign and Father in Christ, who hath the power of pardon. Satan presents God upon several occasions, either armed only with fury, or covered only with a robe of
mercy; one, when he would drive to despair, the other when he would settle the heart in presumption. To a soul convinced thoroughly of sin, which is upon the threshold of conversion, he represents God as the Lord of the world, calling him to account in the strictness of justice; not as the reconciler of the world in Christ, not as standing with a pen dipped in the blood of Christ to cross out his debts upon his resignation to him. He tells the soul God is a God of terror, without a mite of mercy, never shews God in all his perfections; but the Spirit, being 'the Spirit of truth,' John 16:13, discovers God in all his excellencies. Satan is the ruler of darkness:
Eph. 6:12, 'The ruler of the darkness of this world.' He discovers nothing but what may increase the darkness in man, like that in himself, that God is revengeful and false, not willing to make good any word of grace; not only accuseth the soul to itself, but accuseth
God to the soul, and chargeth God falsely. He represents God as armed with wrath; the Spirit represents him as calmed by Christ.
Satan tells the afflicted sinner only of an iron rod in God's hand; the Spirit tells the sinner of a gracious sceptre; Satan shews justice brandishing terror, and the Spirit goodness with melting bowels. Not but that the Spirit shews the justice of God in the law against sin, but it is to make way for the better welcome of the mercy of the gospel; as Joseph carries himself like a judge, sends his brethren to prison, not to keep them languishing there, but to shew the affection of a brother, with the more comfort to them, and advantage to his own designs.
(3.) Satan conceals the remedy for sin by the mercy of God; but the Spirit discovers it. The devil may aggravate the disease, but not tell us of the true medicine; the devil discovers sin as an executioner, and nothing but the sin; the Spirit, as a physician in order to a cure, discovers both the wound and the plaster, the disease and the remedy. Satan shews only fire to inflame, but he never acquaints the soul with the blood of Christ to quench that flame; he is only a fiery serpent to sting, but never directs to the brazen serpent to cure that sting. Since he knoweth that all the strength and activity to cast off his yoke lieth in the knowledge of, and closing with, Christ, he useth
all arts to keep us from the knowledge of the gospel, and the gracious condescension and good will of Christ, that we might not, by becoming Christ's subjects, cease to be his slaves; therefore he uses all the power he hath, as 'the god of the world,' 2 Cor. 4:4, to blind the eyes of men, that they may not see a spark of the light of the glorious gospel, which he doth by putting strange fancies into the hearts of men; but the conviction of the Spirit is in order to the manifestation of the things of Christ. To the convinced soul, the devil shews only the curses of the law, but the Spirit shews the promises of the gospel. The devil is an envious spirit, and since he is thrown down from heaven, veils any light that comes from thence, that men may not look that way. The Spirit's conviction is in order to the manifestation of the things of Christ: 'He shall receive of mine, and shew it unto you.' Not but that the Spirit, many times, first shews justice with a drawn sword, and mercy with a veiled face, and doth not discover the promises for a while, and entertains the soul with this language: Look upon a doleful eternity, an unavoidable wrath, consider the easiness of utter ruin, how life and endless misery hang upon a small thread, and a puff of God can send thee among the damned; but this is but temporary, and to make the remedy more estimable; but the devil is always for obscuring the gospel, and flashing the law in the face of the sinner.
(4.) When Satan cannot conceal the remedy, he endeavours to disparage it, to keep the soul under terrors and a sight of sin, in opposition to that remedy. But the Spirit convinceth of the foul evil of sin, and also magnifies the excellency of the remedy provided against it. Satan would make them believe the blood of Christ is too shallow to cover the mountains of their iniquities; the Spirit wounds to raise an esteem of the depths of that blood. Since the devil cannot conquer Christ, he will endeavour to disparage Christ, and the merit and value of his blood; the Spirit was sent to glorify Christ, which is contrary to the devil's designs, to disparage him: John 16:14, 'He shall glorify me.' As Satan would wholly hide the mercy of God, so when he cannot, but that it breaks out, he extenuates the grace of the covenant, fills men full of disputes and carnal reasonings against the
riches of grace, and latitude of the promise. He sets up pride in the heart, as he did in Adam, against the grace of God; it was his old trade to make men jealous of God: the same arts he doth exercise still, with more subtilty, as being assisted with a large stock of experience since the fall. Distrust of God was that he tempted Adam to, and Christ himself, putting the thing to an If, 'If thou art the Son of God.' Satan presseth upon them their sin, as unpardonable; at first, to encourage security, he tells them sin is so small that justice will not regard it, and afterwards so great that mercy cannot forgive it, that they are past the limits of grace, that the candle of their lives will not burn long enough for a true repentance; but the Spirit never acquaints the soul with any such news; for this is against the nature of the gospel, this is to bely the terms and tenor of it, for he always proposeth the gospel in its true terms of faith and repentance. He shews sin in its ugly colours, as an object of justice, while it is cherished, and the sinner as an object of mercy in the gospel, when repenting. The Spirit presseth it as a duty to believe, Satan presseth it upon their consciences that they ought not to believe, that swine must not meddle with pearls, nor dogs with jewels, that to believe is to presume, that they provoke God in closing with mercy, before they have a fitness for it. Such things are the language of many under troubles, when Satan puts his finger into them, and by this means keeps men off in a sight of sin, from closing with the promise. If a promise appears, Satan darkens it; if the soul cometh to close with it,
Satan endeavours to beat off their fingers, and tells them they have not, nor are ever like to have, qualifications for the promise; but the Spirit is sent on the same errand that Christ came on, to manifest the name of God, the freeness of his mercy, and that the gospel is as large in blessings to penitents and believers, as the law is in curses to impenitents and infidels, and clears up the things which are freely given us of God, gospel grace and favour, gospel promises. These are
'the things freely given us of God,' 1 Cor. 2:12. But if the soul, like Joshua, doth look towards the angel of the Lord, Satan will be at hand to turn away his eyes from him, Zech. 3:1.
(5.) The devil always, in setting sin before the soul, endeavours to drive it to despair, the Spirit to encourage it to faith; the one to sink it in despair of pardon, the other to excite it to a mourning for sin.
Satan would drive it to blasphemy, like those, Rev. 16:11, that 'blasphemed the God of heaven by reason of their pains, and repented not of their deeds.' But the Spirit instructs with the conviction, teaching us to justify God, and condemn ourselves, to quell our murmurings, and justify God's procedure, and make us submissive to God's righteous judgment. Satan discovers sin, to drive the soul to a worse sin than that which he hath discovered, and set the soul more at variance with God. Satan is an evil spirit, and is 'a roaring lion, going about to devour,' 1 Pet. 5:8. The Spirit seeks to support, and discovers sin, to make men humble before God, and to have good thoughts of God's tenderness. The language of the Spirit is, thy case is desperate in itself, but there is balm in Gilead, there is eye-salve. The language of the devil is, God hath forsaken thee, as to Saul, who thereupon slew himself on his own sword; as he spurred
Judas to sin after self-conviction, so he hurried him as fast to the halter, thence to hell. Thus ho endeavoured to engage Job in an open hostility against God, and spared no way to gall him, and move him to so cursed a rebellion. When such motions are found by any persons lying under a sense of sin, and wrath due to it, they may conclude them not to be any touches of the Holy Spirit, who, being a Spirit of holiness, can never stir up such sinful motions. Satan hath a great advantage to this end, to drive to despair, from the guilt of our consciences; and an advantage to accuse us, from the darkness and ignorance of our hearts, and unacquainted-ness with the largeness and extent of the gospel. He is also skilful in all the terrible threatenings of God in the word; he hath read them all over, and draws what darts out of that quiver he pleases to answer that end. He can open the fountain below, the spring of our sin, the window above, the streaming of justice, and cause a deluge of despair; and, being a perfect hater of God, he endeavours to imprint upon men the same disposition. Whereas, the Spirit being love, and acts of love principally ascribed to him, aims at the drawing the soul to such a frame of love, and opens our sin to make us despair in ourselves, and