The Work of the Holy Spirit
The Work of the Holy Spirit, A Sermon by George Whitefield
"And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8).
These words contain part of a gracious promise which the blessed Jesus was pleased to make to His weeping and sorrowful disciples. The time was now drawing near in which the Son of Man was first to be lifted up upon the cross and afterwards to heaven. Kind, wondrously kind, had this merciful High Priest been to his disciples during the time of His tabernacling among them! He had compassion on their infirmities, answered for them when assaulted by their enemies, and set them right when out of the way either in principle or practice. He neither called or used them as servants, but as friends. He revealed His secrets to them from time to time. He opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures. He explained to them the hidden mysteries of the kingdom of God when He spoke to others in parables. He became the servant of them all and even condescended to wash their feet.
The thoughts of parting with so dear and loving a Master as this, especially for a long season, must needs affect them much. When on a certain occasion He intended to be absent from them only for a night, we are told He was obliged to constrain them to leave Him. No wonder then that when He now informed them He must entirely go away and that the Pharisees in His absence would put them out of their synagogues and excommunicate them; yea, that the time would come that whosoever killed them would think they did God service (a prophecy, one would imagine, in a special manner designed for the suffering ministers of this generation); no wonder, I say, considering all this, that we are told in verse six that sorrow had filled their hearts. "Because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your hearts." The expression is very emphatic: their hearts were so full of concern that they were ready to burst. In order, therefore, to reconcile them to this mournful dispensation, our dear and compassionate Redeemer shows them the necessity He lay under to leave them. "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away." It is as if He had said, "Think not, My dear disciples, that I leave you out of anger. No, it is for your sakes, for your profit that I go away. For if I go not away, if I die not upon the cross for your sins and rise not again for your justification and ascend not into heaven to make intercession and plead not My merits before My Father's throne, the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, will not, can not, come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." And that they might know what the Spirit would do, Jesus said, "When He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment."
The person referred to in the words of the text is plainly the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, and the promise was first made to our Lord's Apostles. But though it was primarily made to them and was literally and remarkably fulfilled at the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost came down as a rushing mighty wind and, also, when three thousand were pricked to the heart by Peter's preaching, yet, as the Apostles were the representatives of the whole body of believers, we must infer that this promise must be looked upon as spoken to us and to our children and to as many as the Lord our God shall call.
My design from these words is to show the manner in which the Holy Ghost generally works upon the hearts of those who, through grace, are made vessels of mercy and translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son.
I say, generally, for, as God is a Sovereign agent, His sacred Spirit blows not only on whom, but when and how it wills. Therefore, far be it from me to confine the Almighty to one way of acting or to say that all undergo an equal degree of conviction. No, there is a holy variety in God's methods of calling home His elect. But this we may affirm assuredly, that wherever there is a work of true conviction and conversion wrought upon a sinner's heart, the Holy Ghost, whether by a greater or lesser degree of inward soul-trouble, does that which our Lord Jesus told the disciples, in the words of the text, that He should do when He came.
If any of you ridicule inward religion or think there is no such thing as our feeling or receiving the Holy Ghost, I fear my preaching will be quite foolishness to you and that you will understand me no more than if I spoke to you in an unknown tongue. But, as the promise in the text is made to the world and, as I know it, will be fulfilling till time shall be no more, I shall proceed to explain the general way whereby the Holy Ghost works upon every converted sinner's heart. And I hope that the Lord, even while I am speaking, will be pleased to fulfill it in many of your hearts. "And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment."
The word which we translate "reprove" ought to be rendered "convince". In the original it implies a conviction by way of argumentation and a coming with a power upon the mind equal to a demonstration. A great many scoffers of these last days will ask those they term pretenders to the Spirit how they feel the Spirit and how they know the Spirit? They might as well ask how they know and how they feel the sun when it shines upon the body? For with equal power and demonstration does the Spirit of God work upon and convince the soul.
I. THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS OF SIN.
1. The conviction of actual sins. The Spirit convinces of sin, and generally of some enormous sin—the worst perhaps the convicted person ever was guilty of. Thus, when our Lord was conversing with the woman of Samaria, He convicted her first of her adultery, "Woman, go call thy husband." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said unto her, "Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband; in that saidst thou truly." With this, there went such a powerful conviction of all her other actual sins that soon after she "left her water pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, and see a man that told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?" (John 4:6-29).
Thus our Lord dealt with the persecutor Saul; He convinced him first of the horrid sin of persecution, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Such a sense of all his other sins, probably at the same time, revived in his mind that immediately he died; that is, died to all his false confidences and was thrown into such an agony of soul that he continued three days and neither ate nor drank (Acts 9:1-16). This is the method the Spirit of God generally takes in dealing with sinners. He first convinces them of some heinous actual sin and at the same time brings all their other sins into remembrance, and as it were, sets them in battle-array before them. "When He is come, He will reprove the world of sin."
And was it ever thus with you, my dear hearers? For I must question you as I go along because I intend, by divine help, to preach not only to your heads but to your hearts. Did the Spirit of God ever bring all your sins thus to remembrance and make you cry out to God, "Thou writest bitter things against me?" (Job 13:26). Did your actual sins ever appear before you as though drawn in a map? If not, you have great reason to suspect that you are not convicted, much less converted, and the promise of the text was never yet fulfilled in your hearts.
2. The conviction of original sin. When the Comforter comes into a sinner's heart, though He generally convinces the sinner of his actual sins first, yet He leads him to see and bewail his original sin, the fountain from which all these polluted streams do flow.
Though everything in the earth (air and water and everything both without and within) concur to prove the truth of that assertion in the Scripture, "in Adam all die" (First Corinthians 15:22); yet most are so hardened through the deceitfulness of sin that although they may give an assent to the truth of the proposition in their heads, yet they have never felt it really in their hearts. Nay, some in words professedly deny it, though their works too plainly prove them to be degenerate sons of a degenerate father. But when the Comforter, the Spirit of God, arrests a sinner and convinces Him of sin, all carnal reasoning against original corruption, every proud and high imagination which exalts itself against that doctrine is immediately thrown down, and the convicted is made to cry out, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24). He now finds that concupiscence is sin, and he does not so much bewail his actual sins as the inward perverseness of his heart, which he now finds not only to be an enemy to, but also direct enmity against God.
And did the Comforter, my dear friends, ever come with such a convincing power as this into your hearts? Were you ever made to see and feel that in your flesh dwells no good thing; that you were conceived and born in sin; that you are by nature children of wrath; that God would be just if He damned you even though you never committed an actual sin in your lives? So often as you have been at church and sacrament, did you ever feelingly confess that there was no health in you; that the remembrance of your original and actual sins was grievous unto you and the burden of them intolerable? If not, you have been only offering to God vain oblations. You have never yet truly prayed in your whole lives. The Comforter has never yet come effectually into your souls. Consequently you are not in the faith properly so called. No, you are at present in a state of death and damnation.
3. The conviction of dead works. The Comforter, when He comes effectually to work upon a sinner, not only convinces him of the sin of his nature and the sin of his life, but also of the sin of his duties.
We are all naturally legalists, thinking to be justified by the works of the law. When somewhat awakened by the terrors of the Lord, we immediately, like the Pharisees of old, go about to establish our own righteousness, and we think we shall find acceptance with God if we seek it with tears. Finding ourselves damned by nature and by our actual sins, we then think to recommend ourselves to God by our duties and hope by our doings of one kind or another to inherit eternal life. But whenever the Comforter comes into the heart, He convinces the soul of these false rests and makes the sinner to see that all his righteousness is but as filthy rags. He proves that his best works are but so many splendid sins, and that, for the most pompous services, he deserves a doom no better than that of the unprofitable servant who is thrown into outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Was this degree of conviction ever wrought in any of your souls? Did the Comforter ever come into your hearts so as to make you sick of your duties as well as of your sins? Were you ever, with the great Apostle of the Gentiles, made to abhor your own righteousness which is by the law and to acknowledge that you deserve to be damned, even though you should give all your goods to feed the poor? Were you made to feel that your very repentance needed to be repented of and that everything in yourselves is but dung and dross? And that all the arguments you can fetch for mercy must be out of the heart and the pure unmerited love of God? Were you ever made to lie at the feet of sovereign grace and to say, "Lord, if you will, you may save me; if not, you may justly damn me; I have nothing to plead; I can in no wise justify myself in Thy sight; my best performances I see will condemn me; and all I have to depend upon is free grace?" What do you say? Was this ever, or is this now, the habitual language of your hearts? You have been frequently at the temple, but did you ever approach it in the temper of the poor publican and, after you have done all, acknowledge that you have done nothing; and upon a feeling, experimental sense of your own unworthiness and sinfulness in every way, smite upon your breasts and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner?" (Luke 18:13). If you never were thus minded, the Comforter never yet effectually came into your souls; you are out of Christ; and if God should require your souls in that condition, He would be no better to you than a consuming fire.
4. The conviction of the reigning and damning sin. There is a sin of which the Comforter, when He comes, convinces the soul and which our Lord mentions as though it was the only sin worth mentioning, for indeed it is the root of all other sins whatsoever. It is the reigning as well as the damning sin of the world. And what now do you imagine that sin may be? It is that cursed sin, that root of all other evils; I mean the sin of unbelief: "Of sin because they believe not on Me."
But does the Christian world or any of you that hear me this day want the Holy Ghost to convince you of unbelief? Are there any infidels here? Yes, (oh, that I had not so great reason to think so) I fear most are such. Not indeed such infidels as professedly deny the Lord that bought us (though I fear too many even of such monsters are in every country), but I mean such unbelievers as have no more faith in Christ than the devils themselves. Perhaps you may think you believe because you repeat the creed or subscribe to a confession of faith, because you go to church or meeting, receive the sacrament, and are taken into full communion. These are blessed privileges, but all this may be done without our being true believers. And I know not how to detect your false hypocritical faith better than by putting to you this question: how long have you believed? Would not many of you say, "We never did disbelieve." Then this is a certain sign that you have no true faith at all, no, not so much as a grain of mustard seed; for if you believe now, you must know that there was a time in which you did not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost, if ever you received Him, convinced you of this. Eternal truth has declared "When He is come He will convince the world of sin, because they believe not on Me."
None of us believe by nature. We believe after the Holy Ghost has convinced us of our fallen natures, of the sin in our lives, of our failure in our true duties, of our utter inability to save ourselves, that we have no faith in and of ourselves, that we are absolutely dependent upon God for faith as we are for everything else, and that without faith it is impossible to please God or be saved. "Do you believe on the Son of God?" is the grand question which the Holy Ghost now puts to the soul. At the same time He works with such power and demonstrations that the soul sees and is obliged to confess that it has no faith.
This is a thing little thought of by most who call themselves believers. They dream they are Christians because they live in a Christian country. If they were born Turks they would believe on Mahomet, for what is that which men commonly call faith but an outward consent to the established religion? But do you not thus deceive your own selves? True faith is quite another thing. Ask yourselves, therefore, whether or not the Holy Ghost ever powerfully convinced you of the sin of unbelief? Perhaps you are so devout, you imagine, as to get a catalogue of sins which you look over and confess in a formal manner as often as you go to the holy sacrament. But among all your sins did you ever once confess and bewail that damning sin of unbelief? Were you ever made to cry out, "Lord, give me faith! Oh, that I could believe!" If you never were thus distressed, at least if you never saw and felt that you had no faith, it is a certain sign that the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, never came into and worked savingly in your soul.
But is it not odd that the Holy Ghost should be called a Comforter when it is plain by the experience of all God's children that this work of conviction is usually attended with sore inward conflicts and a great deal of soul trouble? I answer, the Holy Ghost may well be termed a Comforter even in this work because it is the only way to, and ends in, true solid comfort. Blessed are they that are thus convicted by Him for they shall be comforted. Nay, not only so, but there is present comfort even in the midst of these convictions. The soul secretly rejoices in the sight of its own misery, blesses God for bringing it out of darkness into light, and looks forward with a comfortable prospect of future deliverances, knowing, "though sorrow may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning."
Thus it is that the Holy Ghost convinces the soul of sin. And if so, how wretchedly are they mistaken that blend the light of the Spirit with the light of the conscience, as all those do who say that Christ lights every man that comes into the world, and that light, if improved, will bring us to Jesus Christ. If such doctrine be true, the promise in the text was needless; our Lord's Apostles already had that light; the world that was to be convinced thereafter already had that light; and if that was sufficient to bring them to Christ, why was it expedient that Christ should go away to heaven to send down the Holy Ghost to do this for them? Alas! All have not this Spirit! It is the special gift of God, and without this special gift we never can come to Christ.
The light of conscience will accuse or convince us of any common sin, but the light of natural conscience never did, never will, and never can convince us of unbelief. If it could, how does it come to pass that not one of the heathen, who improved the light of nature in such an eminent degree, was ever convinced of unbelief? No, natural conscience cannot effect this; it is the peculiar property of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. "When He is come, He will reprove (or convince) the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment."
We have heard how He convinces of sin. We come now to show that,
II. THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
What is the righteousness of which the Comforter convinces the world? By the word "righteousness" in some places of Scripture, we are to understand that common justice which we ought to practice between man and man, as when Paul is said to reason of temperance and righteousness before a trembling Felix. But here, as in a multitude of other places in holy writ, we are to understand by the word "righteous" the active and passive obedience of the dear Lord Jesus; even that perfect, personal, all-sufficient righteousness which He has wrought out for that world which the Spirit is to convince. "Of righteousness," says our Lord, "because I go to the Father, and ye see Me no more." This is one argument that the Holy Spirit makes use of to prove Christ's righteousness, because He is gone to the Father and we see Him no more. For had He not wrought out a sufficient righteousness, the Father would have sent Him back as not having done what He undertook, and we would have seen Him again.
Oh, the righteousness of Christ! It so comforts my soul that I must be excused if I mention it in almost all my discourses. I would not, if I could help it, have one sermon without it. However infidels may object, or others sophistically argue against an imputed righteousness, yet whoever knows themselves and God must acknowledge that Jesus "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness [and perfect justification in the sight of God] to every one that believeth" (Romans 10:4) and that we are to be made the righteousness of God in Him. This, and this only, a poor sinner can lay hold of as a sure anchor of his hope. Whatever other scheme of salvation men may lay, I acknowledge I can see no other foundation whereon to build my hopes of salvation but on the rock of Christ's personal righteousness imputed to my soul.
Many, I believe, have a rational conviction of and agree with me in this. But rational convictions, if rested in, avail but little. It is a spiritual, experimental conviction of the truth which is saving. And therefore our Lord says, when the Holy Ghost comes in the day of His power, He convinces of this righteousness—of the reality, completeness, and sufficiency of it to save the poor sinner.
We have seen how the Holy Ghost convinces the sinner of the sin of his nature, life, and duties and of the sin of unbelief. What then must the poor creature do? He must inevitably despair if there be no hope but in himself. When therefore the Spirit has hunted the sinner out of all his false rests and hiding places, taken off the pitiful fig-leaves of his own works, and driven him out of the trees of the garden (his outward reformations) and placed him naked before the bar of a sovereign, holy, just, and sin-avenging God, then it is when the soul, having the sentence of death within itself because of unbelief, has a sweet display of Christ's righteousness made to it by the Holy Spirit of God. Here it is that the Holy Ghost begins to act more immediately in the quality of a Comforter and to convince the soul so powerfully of the reality and all-sufficiency of Christ's righteousness, so that the soul is immediately set a hungering and thirsting after it. Now the sinner begins to see that although he has destroyed himself, yet in Christ is his help; that although he has no righteousness of His own to recommend him, there is a fullness of grace, a fullness of truth, a fullness of righteousness in the dear Lord Jesus, which if once imputed to him would make him happy forever and ever.
None but those happy souls who have experienced it can tell with what demonstrations of the Spirit this conviction comes. Oh, how amiable as well as all-sufficient does the blessed Jesus now appear! With what new eyes does the soul now see the Lord its righteousness! Brethren, it is unutterable. If you were never thus convinced of Christ's righteousness in your own souls, though you may believe it doctrinally, it will avail you nothing. If the Comforter never came savingly into your souls, then you are comfortless indeed. But what will this righteousness avail if the soul has it not in possession?
III. THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS OF JUDGMENT.
The next thing the Comforter does when He comes is to convince the soul of judgment. By the word "judgment" I understand that well-grounded peace, that settled judgment which the soul forms of itself when it is enabled by the Spirit of God to lay hold on Christ's righteousness, which I believe it always does when convinced in the manner before mentioned. "Of judgment" says our Lord, "because the prince of this world is judged." The soul, being enabled to lay hold on Christ's perfect righteousness by a lively faith, has a conviction wrought in it by the Holy Spirit that the "prince of this world is judged." The soul being now justified by faith has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and can triumphantly say, "It is Christ that justifies me, who is he that condemns me? The strong man armed is now cast out; my soul is in true peace. The prince of this world will come and accuse, but he has now no share in me. The blessed Spirit, which I have received and whereby I am enabled to apply Christ's righteousness to my poor soul, powerfully convinces me of this. Why should I fear or of what shall I be afraid since God's Spirit witnesses with my spirit that I am a child of God? (Romans 8:16). The Lord is ascended up on high. He has led captivity captive. He has given the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, that best of gifts for men, and that Comforter is come into my heart. He is faithful that has promised. I, even I, am powerfully, rationally, spiritually convinced of sin, righteousness and judgment. By this I know the prince of this world is judged."
Thus, I say, may we suppose that soul to triumph in which the promise of the text is happily fulfilled. And though at the beginning of this discourse I said most had never experienced anything of this and that therefore this preaching must be foolishness to such, yet I doubt not but there are some few happy souls who through grace have been enabled to follow me step by step. Notwithstanding the Holy Ghost might not directly work in the same order as I have described, and perhaps they cannot exactly say the time, yet they have a well grounded confidence that the work is done and that they have really been convinced of sin, righteousness and judgment in some way or at some time or another.
And now what shall I say to you? Oh, thank God, thank the Lord Jesus, thank the ever blessed Trinity for this unspeakable gift; for you would never have been thus highly favored had not He who first spoke darkness into light loved you with an everlasting love and enlightened you by His Holy Spirit and that, too, not on account of any good things foreseen in you, but for His own name's sake.
Be humble, therefore, Oh, believers, be humble. Look at the rock from whence you have been hewn. Extol free grace! Admire electing love which alone has made you to differ from the rest of your brethren. Has God brought you into light? Walk as becometh the children of light. Provoke not the Holy Spirit to depart from you; for though He has sealed you to the day of redemption, and you know that the prince of this world is judged, yet if you backslide, grow lukewarm, or forget your first love, the Lord will visit your offenses with the rod of affliction and your sin with spiritual scourges. Be not therefore high-minded but fear. Rejoice, but let it be with trembling. As the elect of God, put on, not only humbleness of mind, but bowels of compassion, and pray, oh, pray, for your unconverted brethren! Help me, help me now, Oh, children of God, and hold up my hands as Aaron and Hur once held up the hands of Moses. Pray while I am preaching that the Lord may enable me to say, "this day is the promise in the text fulfilled in some poor sinners' hearts." Cry mightily to God, and with cords of holy violence, pull down blessings on your neighbors' heads. Christ yet lives and reigns in heaven. The residue of the Spirit is yet in His hand, and a plentiful effusion of it is promised in the latter days of the church. And, oh, that the Holy Ghost, the blessed Comforter, would come down now and convince those that are Christless among you "of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment!" Oh, that you were once made willing to be convinced.
But perhaps you had rather be filled with wine than with the Spirit, and perhaps you are daily chasing the Holy Ghost from your souls. What shall I say to God for you? "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"? What shall I say from God to you? Why, "that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." Therefore "I beseech you as in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." Do not go away contradicting and blaspheming. I know Satan would have you begone. Many of you may be uneasy and are ready to cry out, "What a weariness this is!" But I will not let you go. I have wrestled with God for my hearers in private, and I must wrestle with you here in public. Though of myself I can do nothing, and you can no more by your own power come to and believe on Christ than Lazarus could come forth from the grave; yet who knows but God may beget some of you again to a lively hope by the foolishness of preaching or that some of you may be part of that world which the Comforter is to convince "of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment!" Poor Christless souls, do you know what a condition you are in? Why, you are lying in the wicked one, the devil. He rules in you. He walks and dwells in you unless you dwell in Christ and the Comforter is come into your hearts. And will you contentedly lie in that wicked one, the devil? What wages will he give you? Eternal death! Oh, that you would come to Christ! The free gift of God through Him is eternal life. He will accept you even now if you will believe in Him. The Comforter may yet come into your hearts, even yours. All that are now His living temples were once lying in the wicked one as well as you. This blessed gift, this Holy Ghost, the blessed Jesus received even for the rebellious.
I see many of you affected; but are your passions only a little wrought upon, or are your souls really touched with a lively sense of the heinousness of your sins, your want of faith, and the preciousness of the righteousness of Jesus Christ? If so, I hope the Lord Jesus has been gracious and that the Comforter is coming into your hearts. Oh, do not stifle these convictions! Do not go away and straightway forget what manner of doctrine you have heard and thereby show that these are only common workings of a few transient convictions, floating upon the surface of your hearts. Beg of God that you may be sincere, for He alone can make you so, and that you may indeed desire the promise of the text to be fulfilled in your souls. Who knows but the Lord may be gracious?
Remember you have no pleas but sovereign mercy. But for your encouragement also remember it is the world, such as you are, to whom the Comforter is come and whom He is to convince. Wait therefore at wisdom's gates. The bare probability of having a door of mercy opened is enough to keep you striving. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, the chief of them. You know not but what He came to save you. Do not go and quarrel with God's decrees and say, if I am reprobate I shall be damned; if I am elected I shall be saved; and therefore I will do nothing. What have you to do with God's decrees? Secret things belong to Him. It is your business to give all diligence to make your calling and election sure. If there are but few who find the way that leads to life, then you strive to be among them. You know not but what you may be in the number of those few and that your striving may be the means which God intends to bless to give you an entrance into His kingdom. If you do not act thus, you are not sincere; and if you do, who knows but what you may find mercy? For though after you have done all that you can, God may justly cut you off, yet never was a single person damned who did all that he could. Though therefore your hands are withered, stretch them out; though you are impotent, sick and lame, come lie at the pool. Who knows but by and by the Lord Jesus may have compassion on you and send you the Comforter to convince you of sin, righteousness and of judgment? He is a God full of compassion and long suffering, otherwise you and I would have been long since lifting up our eyes in torments. But still He is patient with us!
O Christless sinners, you are alive, and who knows but God intends to bring you to repentance? Could my prayers or tears affect it, you should have volleys of the one and floods of the other. My heart is touched with a sense of your condition. May our merciful High Priest now send down the Comforter and make you sensible of it also! Oh, the love of Christ! It constrains me to beseech you to come to Him. What do you reject if you reject Christ? Why, you reject the Lord of glory! Sinners, give the dear Redeemer a lodging in your souls. Do not be Bethshemites; give Christ your hearts, your whole hearts. Indeed He is worthy. He made you and not you yourselves. You are not your own. Give Christ then your bodies and souls which are His! Is it not enough to melt you down to think that the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity should condescend to invite you by His ministers? How soon He can frown you to hell! And how do you know but He may this very instant if you do not hear His voice? Did any yet harden their hearts against Christ and prosper? Come then, do not send me sorrowfully away. Do not let me have reason to cry out, "Oh, my leanness, my leanness!" Do not let me go weeping into my closet and say, "Lord, they will not believe my report. Lord, I have called them and they will not answer. I am unto them as a very pleasant song, and as one that plays upon a pleasant instrument; but their hearts are running after the lusts of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life." Would you be willing that I should give such an account of you or make such a prayer before God? And yet I must not only do so here but appear in judgment against you hereafter, unless you will come to Christ. Once more, therefore, I entreat you to come. What objections have you to make? Behold, I stand here in the name of God to answer all that you can offer. But I know no one can come unless the Father draw him. I will therefore address me to my God and intercede with Him to send the Comforter into your hearts.
O blessed Jesus, who art a God whose compassions fail not and in whom all the promises are yea and amen, Thou that sittest between the cherubim, show Thyself amongst us. Let us now see Thy outgoings! Oh, let us now taste that Thou art gracious and reveal Thy mighty arm! Get Thyself the victory in these poor sinners' hearts. Let not the word spoken prove like water spilt upon the ground. Send down, send down, O great High Priest, the Holy Spirit, to convince the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. So will we give thanks and praise to Thee, O Father, to Thee, O Son, and to Thee, O blessed Spirit; to whom as three Persons, but one God, be ascribed by angels and archangels, by cherubim and seraphim and all the heavenly hosts, all possible power, might, majesty and dominion, now and for evermore. Amen, Amen, Amen.