Unbelief and despair have great power over a
guilt-stricken mind; and were it not for that Spirit who "takes of the
things of Christ and shows them to the soul," sinful man would in every
instance succumb under their awful paralysis. For, if the truth and Spirit
of God should merely convince the sinner of his guilt, but never apply the
atoning blood of the Redeemer, hell would be in him and he would be in
hell. If God, coming forth as He justly might only in His judicial
character, should confine Himself to a convicting operation in the
conscience,--should make the transgressor feel his guilt, and then leave
him to the feeling and with the feeling, forevermore,--this would be
eternal death. And if, as any man shall lie down upon his death-bed, he
shall find that owing to his past quenching of the Spirit the
illuminating energy of God is searching him, and revealing him to
himself, but does not assist him to look up to the Saviour of sinners;
and if, in the day of judgment, as he draws near the bar of an eternal
doom, he shall discover that the sense of guilt grows deeper and deeper,
while the atoning blood is not applied,--if this shall be the experience
of any one upon his death-bed, and in the day of judgment, will he need
to be told what he is and whither he is going?

Now it is with reference to these disclosures that come in like a deluge
upon him, that man needs the aids and operation of the Holy Spirit.
Ordinarily, nearly the whole of his guilt is latent within him. He is,
commonly, undisturbed by conscience; but it would be a fatal error to
infer that therefore he has a clear and innocent conscience. There is a
vast amount of undeveloped guilt within every impenitent soul. It is
slumbering there, as surely as magnetism is in the magnet, and the
electric fluid is in the piled-up thunder-cloud. For there are moments
when the sinful soul feels this hidden criminality, as there are moments
when the magnet shows its power, and the thunder-cloud darts its nimble
and forked lightnings. Else, why do these pangs and fears shoot and flash
through it, every now and then? Why does the drowning man instinctively
ask for God's mercy? Were his conscience pure and clear from guilt, like
that of the angel or the seraph,--were there no latent crime within
him,--he would sink into the unfathomed depths of the sea, without the
thought of such a cry. When the traveller in South America sees the smoke
and flame of the volcano, here a