When the Spirit of God hath sprung with a divine light into the understanding, then he makes his address to the conscience, and the act which passeth upon that is an act of conviction. He shall convince the world ... etc John xvi. 8. Now this conviction is nothing but a reflection of the light that is in the understanding upon the conscience, whereby the creature feels the weight and force of those truths he knows, so as to be brought into a deep sense of them. Light in a direct beam heats not, nor doth knowledge swimming in the brain affect. Most under the Gospel know that unbelief is a damning sin, and that there is no name to be saved by but Christ's, yet how few of those know this so as to apply it to their own consciences, and to be affected with their own deplored state. Who is a scriptural convinced sinner? He, who upon the clear evidence of the Word, brought against him by the Spirit, is found by his own conscience to be so. Speak now, poor creature, did ever such an act of the Spirit of God pass upon thee as this? which that thou mayest the better discern, try thyself by these few characters.
First, A sinner truly convinced, is not only convinced of this or that sin, but of the evil of all sin. It is an ill sign, when a person seems in a passion to cry out at one sin, and to be senseless of another. A parboiled conscience is not right; soft in one part, and hard in another: the Spirit of God is uniform in its work. ....
Christian in Complete Armour
Christian in Complete Armour