Son of God. When he, the Spirit of truth is come, he shall convince the world of sin, because they believe not in me. If he that despised Moses' law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God!

This great sin of rejecting Jesus Christ as a Saviour, it must be remembered, is an often repeated and long continued sin. It is also one which is chargeable not on the openly wicked merely, but upon those whom the world calls moral. They too resist the claims of the Son of God; they too refuse his love and reject his offers. It was when all other messengers had failed, the Lord of the vineyard sent his Son to his disobedient servants, saying, They will reverence my Son. The guilt of thus rejecting Christ, will never be fully appreciated until the day when He shall sit on the throne and from his face the earth and heaven shall flee away and no place be found for them.

Besides these restraints from without, we resist the still more powerful influence of the Spirit of God. That Spirit strives with all men; suggesting truth and exciting conscience, expostulating and warning, and drawing men from sin to God. It is from Him that all good thoughts and right purposes do proceed. This spirit we quench; we

resist his gracious influences, not once or twice, but a thousand times. Though he will not always strive with men, he strives long, and returns after many insulting rejections, repeating the warnings and invitations of mercy. All men are sensible of this divine influence, though they may not be aware of its origin. They know not whence proceed the serious thoughts, the anxious forebodings, the convictions of truth, the sense of the emptiness of the world, the longing after security and peace of which they are conscious. God sends these admonitions even to those who are most contented with the world and most happy in their estrangement from himself. He leaves no man without a witness and a warning. These strivings of the Spirit are not only frequent, but often urgent. Almost every man can look back and see many instances in which an unseen hand was upon him, when a voice, not from man, has sounded in his ears, when feelings to which he was before a stranger were awakened in his breast, and when he felt the power of the world to come. The shadow of the Almighty has passed over him, and produced the conviction that God is, and that He is an avenger.

From a review of what has been said it is plain that the Scriptures teach not only that all men are sinners, but that their corruption is radical, seated in their hearts, and that it is exceedingly great.

The severity of the penalty which God has attached to transgression, the certainty of its infliction, the costliness of the sacrifice by which alone its pardon could be obtained, are all proofs of the evil of sin in the sight of God. The greatness of our personal guilt is plain from the excellence of the law which we have violated; from the authority and goodness of the Being whom we have offended, from the number of our sins, and from the powerful restraints which we have disregarded.

CHAPTER III.

CAUSES OF INDIFFERENCE TO THE CHARGE OF SIN.

SECTION I. Sin, want of consideration, striving against the Spirit.

THE charge of sin is brought so directly in the word of God against every human being, and is so fully sustained by observation and experience, that the general indifference of men under so weighty an accusation is a fact which needs explanation. Indifference is no proof of innocence, any more than insensibility to pain is a proof of health. In ordinary cases indeed, a man cannot be ill without knowing it, but his sensations are a very unsafe criterion of the nature or danger of his disease. He may be most free from pain, when most in peril. In like manner, the indifference of men to their own sinfulness affords no presumption that their guilt is not great in the sight of God. The absence of the immediate consciousness of guilt is no proof of innocence, unless attended by the joyful exercise of all right feelings. When accompanied by indif

ference to duty and the indulgence of sin, it is the evidence of the depth of our depravity. All men. assume this to be true in their judgments of those more wicked than themselves. To say of a man, he is a hardened wretch, is not the language of extenuation or apology. It is the language of aggravated condemnation. Those who feel thus keenly with regard to others, that indifference is an aggravation of guilt, strangely imagine it to be, in their own case, a proof of comparative innocence.

Sin

This insensibility of men, therefore, to the moral turpitude of their character in the sight of God, so far from being an indication of goodness, is the result and evidence of the extent of their corruption. As in bodily disease when the seat of life is attacked, the sensibilities are weakened, so in the disease of sin, insensibility is one of its symptoms, and increases with the increase of the evil. produces this effect both by blinding the mind and by hardening the heart. It obscures our apprehensions of the excellence of God and of his law, and it produces a callousness of feeling, so that what is seen is not regarded. Experience teaches us that a mere change in the state of the mind, produces an immediate and entire change in our apprehensions and feelings in reference to our own sins. The man who at one hour was indifferent as the most careless, at the next, is filled with astonishment and remorse. Others