HOW THE SPIRIT CONVINCES OF SIN. 597 " because thou has sold thyself to word wickedness be- fore the Lord, therefore will I. brim evil upon thee : "' thus the soul to sin, when convince by the Spirit, '" T' " have found thee, Q, my enemy, becaùse thouBast been " the lurking evil in my soul, and the occasion of the " contention between. God and me, and I will thrust thee " out." The soul does not till then coudenìn itself as it ought before God. So Ephraim, when God corrected him, discovered his guilt, (Jeremiah xxxi. IS.). Here' was chastisement, but that would not do of itself, there- fore there was need of God's Spirit to turn the heart and to rnake him repent ofhis sin. When he was instructed, he " mourned, and smote upon his thigh," and humbled himself before God. Has God discovered sin to our souls under any sorrows and rebukes of his providence? Let us humble ourselves before God and be ashamed to think there should be any thing in our bosoms that God hates, and for which he contendswith us. When the Spirit of God discovers sin it makes the soul wait at the foot of God for pardon, for peace, and for' deliverance. The soul that is not humble under the hand ofGod has just ground to fear that he has not yet discovered the reason why God's hand is lifted ùp against him. If.God strikes us by his providence, we are stub=. born creatures in ourselves and ready, like the church of old, " to go on frowardly in the way of our own heart :" this is the tendency of nature ; but when God by his Spirit, lays sin in all its dreadful colours open to our view, he shews how much evil there is in sin, and we see what wretched worthless worms we are ; then we cannot help throwing ourselves clown at the foot of God, and abasing ourselves in the dust before him. Look back upon what you have felt under such providences, when God has frowned upon you by sickness, and laid you under a load of trouble, and at the sanie time con- vinced you of the sin that occasioned it. Have you not been ready to sink into nothing, and wonder that God should have so much compassion as to correct you for' sin ? Then you waited at the foot of the mercy-seat for comfort, and every word of hope, every whisper of the Spirit you have attended to. how sweet has it bead to you, if hope has been set before you ! You have thought it worth while to wait Iona upon God for a word q
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