134 Sermon Illustrations on Conviction of Sin

A young man under deep conviction was led to confess conversion before it occurred. His sinful habits still held sway over him; and the horrors of his soul were greater than ever. He said, "Those Christians who tried to help me meant well, and thought I was converted. But it was rushing me through. I knew there was a distance still between me and God.— something to come I had not found. And, oh! how much I suffered before I lifted from the depths of despair my cry, 'Jesus, help me!'"

A wise heathen said, "Every man carries two wallets with him hanging the one before and the other behind him. Into that before, he puts the faults of others; into that behind, he puts his own. By this means he never sees his own failings, while he has those of others always before him."

As, when the air is covered with clouds, and the sun darkened, tempests begin to arise, lightnings fly from heaven, rumblings are in the air, the clouds burst, and the thunder-crack comes, and rain falls, to be followed by sunshine and fair weather; so a man touched in conscience with sorrow for his sins, oppressed with their burden and vileness, complains to God, sighs, sobs, and groans like the thunder-crack, dares not look up to heaven for his wickedness, but condemns himself, and pours out tears like drops of rain. Straightway follows quietness of conscience, with wondering, and praising the unspeakable goodness of God, for his mercies and comforts in Christ. Cawdray.

As the bristle on the shoemaker's thread goes through the holy first, and draws the thread after it; so the fear of God's vengeance first goes before, breaking man's heart, and then follows the thread of God's mercies in Christ. Caudray.

At the Stafford assizes, one of the prisoners was indicted for a burglary and robbery, and, in spite of the remonstrances of counsel, pleaded guilty; nor could he be persuaded to offer any other plea until the judge threatened, in case he persisted, that he would order him for speedy execution. He then pleaded not guilty, and his trial proceeded; but, owing to defective evidence, he was very unexpectedly acquitted.

In the night, we cannot discern the spots on our own faces; but, when the light appears, we take a glass, and then they show themselves. So it is with the vices hidden in us: though Jeprous and deformed, we think ourselves beautiful till illuminated by the Holy Spirit. Caudray.

IMPRESSIONS, Erasure of Angelo Mario, a Jesuit librarian at the Vatican, made the discovery many years ago, that some of the ancient manuscripts had more than one layer of writing upon them. By certain chemical experiments, he succeeded in making legible the ancient writing. Archbishop Whately has suggested the theory, now generally admitted, that this was done on account of the expensiveness or scarcity of parchment in the middle ages. De Quincey, in his "Confessions," has given us a chapter on the subject, applying it to signify different layers of thought and emotion that have at different times passed upon the heart, and become apparently covered over completely with some other. So is it with the hardened sinner. How many a layer of conviction after conviction, and partial reformations, has he known; yet still how thick a case covers his hardened heart! Bowes.

Johnson observed, "that no honest man could be an atheist; for no man could be so after a fair examination of the proofs of Christianity." The name of Hume being mentioned to him, "No, sir," said he: "Hume owned to a clergyman of the bishopric of Durham, that he had never read the New Testament with attention."

Neglect of the. At a late communion, one of the seats was occupied by a lady with Willie her son, a boy about six years of age. She was not a member of the church; and the deacon, in distributing the bread, passed her, when the little boy called out, "You did not give mamma any." This remark was made an arrow of conviction in the lady's heart, from which she found no relief till she fled into the arms of the Redeemer.

It was the remark of John Newton, when his memory had almost completely gone, that he could never forget two things: 1. That he was a great sinner; 2. That Jesus Christ was a great and mighty Saviour.

George Whitefield stopped for several days at the house of a general, at Providence, R.I. The general, his wife, his son, and three daughters, were serious, but not decidedly religious. Whitefield departed from his usual custom, which was to address the residents in the house where he staid, individually, concerning the welfare of their souls. The last evening came, and the last night he was to spend there. He retired to rest; but the spirit of God came to him in the night, saying, "O man of God! if these people perish, their blood be on thy head." He listened; but the flesh said, "Do not speak to these people: they are so good and so kind, that you could not say a harsh thing to them." He rose and prayed. The sweat ran down his brow. He was in fear and anxiety. At last a happy thought struck him. He took his diamond ring from his finger, went up to the window, and wrote these words upon the glass: "One thing thou lackest." He could not summon courage to say a word to the inmates, but went his way. No sooner was he gone, than the general, who had a great veneration for him, went into the room he had occupied; and the first thing that struck his attention was the sentence upon the window: "One thing thou lackest." That was exactly his case. The Spirit of God blessed it to his heart.

A little girl, after a Bible-class, said to her governess, "I want to say something to you," and seemed anxiously to watch her companions out of the room. The teacher felt wearied, and knew that she was wanted elsewhere. Nature said, "I have not a minute to spare: come to me, my dear, another time." Grace said, "Take up thy cross; work while it is called to-day: listen to this little child." Grace prevailed. The Spirit of God had convinced that child of sin. No sooner were they alone than she burst into a flood of tears. "What shall I do? I am so wicked! I cannot bear to think of death. I often wish I had died before I had ever sinned: do come and pray with me, do!" Good results followed the prayer; and the teacher was glad she did not say, "Wait till some other time."

A poor Hottentot in Southern Africa lived with a good Dutchman, who kept up family prayer daily. One day he read, "Two men went up into the temple to pray." The poor savage, whose heart was already awakened, looked earnestly at the reader, and whispered, "Now I'll learn how to pray." The Dutchman read on, "God, I thank thee I am not as other men."—"No, I am not; but I am worse," whispered the Hottentot. Again the Dutchman read, "I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess."—"I don't do that. I don't pray in that manner. What shall I do?" said the distressed savage. The good man read on until he came to the publican, who "would not lift so much as his eyes to heaven."—"That's me!" cried his hearer. "Stood afar off," read the other. "That's where I am," said the Hottentot. "But smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner."—"That's me: that's my prayer!" cried the poor creature, and, smiting on his dark breast, he prayed, "God be merciful to me a sinner," until, like the poor publican, he went down to his house a saved and happy man.

John Bunyan was so profane as to bring down upon himself the rebuke of a vile woman of the town. The thought that he was so wicked as to incur the reproof of one so vile as she cut him to the heart, and led to his conversion.

Remorse not only turns God and his creation against us, but turns us against ourselves; makes the soul act like the serpent, which stings itself to death. "Think not," says Cicero, "that guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Frauds, crimes, remembrances of the past, terrors of the future, — these are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious."

— Dr. Thomas

A minister in Illinois offered to give any impenitent man ten dollars who would read one chapter of the Bible on his knees every morning for three months, commencing with the prayer, "O God! send thy Holy Spirit to convict me of sin, and to lead me in the way of truth." It was accepted by a boastful infidel who attempted to do his part. He got on well for a few day; but then conviction fastened heavily upon him; then despair seized him; when he sent for the minister to pray for him, and, after a night's pleading, he found peace.

St. Augustine, in his youth, was in the habit of praying against lust and uncleanness, and secretly desired that God would not hear him. How many, now-a-days, like him, pray against sin, but desire not to be heard because of the inward secret love which they have to some particular habituated sins!

Where are the heroes "who resist unto blood, striving against sin"? Should we weep, or laugh, at the foolishness of mankind, childishly spending their indignation and force against petty evils, and maintaining a friendly peace with the fell and mighty principle of destruction? It is just as if men of professed courage, employed to go and find and destroy a tiger or a crocodile that has spread alarm or havoc, on being asked at their return, "Have you done the deed?" should reply, "We have not indeed destroyed the tiger or crocodile; but yet we have acted heroically: we have achieved something great, — we have killed a wasp." Or like men engaged to exterminate a den of murderers, who being asked at their return, "Have you accomplished the vengeance?" should say, "We have not destroyed any of the murderers; we did not deem it worth while to attempt it: but we have tamed one of their dogs." J. Foster.

It is often said it is no matter what a man believes if he is only sincere. This is true of all minor truths, and false of all truths whose nature it is to fashion a man's life. It will make no difference in a man's harvest whether he think turnips have more saccharine matter than potatoes, whether corn is better than wheat. But let the man sincerely believe that seed planted without ploughing is as good as with, that January is as favorable for seed-sowing as April, and that cockle-seed will produce as good a harvest as wheat, and will it make no difference? A child might as well think he could reverse that ponderous marine engine which night and day, in calm and storm, ploughs its way across the deep, by sincerely taking hold of the paddle-wheel, as a man might think he could reverse the action of the elements of God's moral government through a misguided sincerity. They will roll over such a one, and whelm him in endless ruin.

— Beecher

A good, true, honorable, and noble moral man was reduced by severe sickness, and sent for a friend. The friend says, "Near his last, I sat down upon the bedside, and tried to talk to him. He was all attention; but, when I had finished what I had to say, he fixed his eyes upon me, and then upon his wife and children, and said, 'I am dying, and am going to hell! Too late, too late! — lost and forever!' If ever I saw horror and gloom, and a countenance from which the last ray of hope had faded away into the blackness of despair, it was there. We were stupefied: the house was bathed in tears. Many a poor man and woman that he had assisted was there; but their cries and petitions could not save him. His words as to dying were true; and turning over, as if to hide his face from us, in a violent convulsion he burst a blood-vessel, and was a dead man."

There is a story of a Quaker lady, who was addicted to smoking tobacco. She had indulged in the habit until it had increased so much upon her, that she not only smoked her pipe a large portion of the day, but frequently sat up for this purpose in the night. After one of these nocturnal entertainments, she fell asleep, and dreamed that she died, and approached heaven. Meeting an angel, she asked him if her name was written in the book of life. He disappeared, but replied, upon returning, that he could not find it. "Oh!" said she, "do look again: it must be there." He examined again, but returned with sorrowful face, saying, "It is not there."—"Oh!" she said in agony, "it must be there! I have the assurance it is there! Do look again!" The angel was moved to tears by her entreaties, and again left her to renew his search. After a long absence, he came back, his face radiant with joy, and exclaimed, "I have found it; but it was so clouded with tobacco-smoke that it could hardly be seen." The woman, upon waking, immediately threw her pipe away, and never indulged in smoking again.

As Whitefield was one day preaching in Plymouth, a ship-builder named Henry Tanner, who was working at a distance, heard his voice, and resolved, with some of his companions, to go and drive him from the place where he stood. For this purpose, they filled their pockets with stones. When, however, he heard Mr. Whitefield earnestly inviting sinners to Christ, he was filled with astonishment; his resolution failed him; and he went home with his mind deeply impressed. On the following evening, he again attended, and heard Mr. Whitefield on the sin of those who crucified the Redeemer. After he had forcibly illustrated their guilt, he appeared to look earnestly at Mr. Tanner, as he exclaimed with great energy, "Thou art the man!" These words powerfully impressed him; and, in the agony of his soul, he cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" The preacher then proceeded to proclaim the free and abundant grace of the Lord Jesus. A gleam of hope entered the heart of the penitent; and he surrendered himself to Christ. Mr. Tanner afterward became a minister of the gospel, and labored with great success for many years at Exeter.

G219. WRATH, Sabdoed. The wrath of man shall praise God. I believe the last song of the redeemed, when they shall ultimately triumph, will celebrate in heavenly stanzas the wrath of man overcome by God. Sometimes, after great battles, monuments are raised to the memory of the fight; and of what are they composed? They are composed of weapons of death and of instruments of war which have been taken from the enemy. Now, to use that illustration, as I think it may be properly used, the day is coming when fury and wrath and hatred and strife shall all be woven into a song; and the weapons of our enemies, when taken from them, shall serve to make monuments to the praise of God. Rail on, rail on, blasphemer! Smite on, smite on, tyrant! Lift thy heavy hand, O despot! Crush the truth, which thou canst not crush; knock from his head the crown, — the crown that is far above thy reach, poor puny, impotent mortal as thou art! Go on, go on! But all thou doest shall but increase his glories. For aught we care, we bid you still proceed with all your wrath and malice. Though it shall be worse for you, it shall be more glorious for our Master: the greater your preparations for war, the more splendid shall be his triumphal chariot when he shall ride through the streets of heaven in pompous array. The more mighty your preparations for battle, the more rich the spoil which he shall divide with the strong, O Christian, fear not the foe! Remember, the harder his blows, the sweeter thy song; the greater his wrath, the more splendid thy triumph; the more he rages, the more shall Christ be honored in the day of his appearing.

G220. WRATH OF GOD, Averting the. I met to-day with a picture of what we must do in order to be saved. There was a large regiment of soldiers in India who did not receive their pay for six months, getting only their rations. The men suspected the commanding officer had kept back the money; he being a notorious gambler. They met together, and determined, next day, when called out, they would not obey orders, but they would all march in a body to the general's house, some six miles distant, and present a complaint against their commanding officer of having robbed them of their pay. The day came. The officer gave his orders as usual: the officers and non-commissioned officers did their duty; but the men stood still. He ordered every tenth man to be locked up: it was done, no resistance being made. The drum played, and the rest marched away in good order, and filed off to the general's house. They presented their petition, and reported against their commanding officer. The general thought, "Well, if we let them do this, all discipline will be broken. We must put this down. They ought to have had their pay; but they must not disobey orders." Next morning, to their great surprise, they saw a black army of Sepoys, with field-pieces in front, and cavalry, all ready for action. They formed into a line, and saluted the general. The black men got ready, and so did the regiment: they fixed their pieces ready for the charge; when the commanding officer said, "Twenty-third, obey me! Handle arms! Ground arms!" Then he ordered the Sepoys to charge them, and drive them from their weapons, and gave further command that they should be stripped of all their accoutrements. Then, having disarmed and dishonored them, he said, "I will forgive you." I think that is just what God would have us do. We have revolted and rebelled against him. "Ground arms!" saith he. "Put your sins away; put your drunkenness, your self-righteousness, away. Ground arms!" And when sin is renounced, and we are ready to perish, and we think that the law is ready to blow us in pieces, then he says, "I will forgive you." Spurgeon.

A young lady, of high family, was called by grace, under the ministry of a pious clergyman of the church of England. The change upon her heart soon became visible. In every good work she was actively engaged. Bible Societies, Missionary Societies, visiting and relieving the sick, teaching a large Sunday School, which her exertions had raised, constituted her constant employment. The floating money she possessed, which had before this been appropriated to dress and worldly amusements, was now consecrated to God, and devoted to carry forward the objects her piety had formed. She was humble, zealous, modest; and lived in the admiration of all who knew her. Henry and Scott were her favorite commentators, and the Bible her constant companion: in every part of Biblical knowledge she made considerable progress. But mark the deadly effects of error upon her mind! Some clergymen, for whom she possessed a high esteem, and to whom she looked with implicit confidence, ran from one error to another; and she as implicitly followed them, and soon became entirely imbued with the Antinomian leaven. Her spirituality of mind, tenderness of conscience, and every truly pious feeling, rapidly de- On being told by one who did not know his previous opinions, that he certainly should exist; and that the future being of men was indicated by nature, and made sure by Scriptural evidence, an aspect of still greater horror settled on his countenance; and, after a pause of a minute, he replied: "If those Scriptures are true, eternity will be more dreadful to me than the loss of being. I will not believe them; yet how dreadful the idea of sinking into eternal, thoughtless night!" He soon opened his eyes on the realities of another world.

# ONIANISM.

clined; and her exertions to promote the cause of God, and the welfare of her fellow-creatures gradually declined also. No books could she read, but such as were of the Antinomian cast; and no preachers could she hear, either of the established church or dissenters, but those of the strongest Antinomian sentiments. In this state she called on a dissenting minister, for whom, in her better days, she had felt a great veneration. He affectionately inquired after the state of her mind, and what were the advantages she had derived from the sentiments she had embraced. She replied, with all the confidence and positiveness that conceit could inspire, "That she was as safe, as to her eternal state, as a saint in heaven." "But," said he, "madam, do you feel yourself as happy and as spiritual in your devotional exercises, as you used to do?" She replied, "I have learned to live without them." "But do you not pray in your closet?" "Pray," said she, "What can I pray for?" Shocked at her reply, he rejoined, "Do you not pray to be favored with a sense of pardoning mercy, and for grace to resist sin?" "Such prayers," answered she, "in my view, would be perfectly absurd; for my sins were imputed to Christ, and pardoned from all eternity; and as to my being kept from sin, I am sure God never designed that I should. I am complete in Christ, and there I rest: all is finished."

Every argument used, elicited similar replies. She proceeded on in this course from bad to worse, and retaining her creed, plunged again into the gayeties of the world. In this state of professing religion without religion, she remained some years, until God laid her upon the bed of severe affliction. Light broke in again upon her mind; she saw she was destitute of every pious feeling; the errors of her creed appeared in all their fallacy, nor could she derive from it one ray of hope, nor discover one Scriptural evidence of her interest in Christ. The injury she had done to others, by the dissemination of error, the prejudice that had been excited by her conduct against religion, both in the members of her family and others, bore with terrific weight upon her conscience. But the Lord spared her life, and mercifully delivered her from the appalling delusion. In this state, she wrote a most affecting penitential letter to the minister already referred to, saying she could never

# 24. ANI

ROOM.—A most interesting work of grace once occur red in the Houston-street Presbyterian church, of the city of New-York. Many anxiously inquired what they should do to be saved. And many made choice of that good part which shall never be taken from them. Among the number who sought the instruction and prayers of the people of God, was the young lady who is the subject of the following sketch.

She listened to the voice of truth, and was troubled. Conscience spoke within her, and would not be utterly silenced. She felt that the claims of God must be met, that she must not delay the work of her salvation. Personally and solemnly was she urged to settle the controversy, to renounce the pleasures of sin, and trust in the merits of a crucified Savior. She knew her duty, but she did it not. The next night the "Boz Ball" was to be held, and from this scene of awful solemnity, away she hurries to the chamber of mirth, and joins in the giddy dance. By the sound of the viol and the voice of melody she aims to drown the admonitions of conscience, and she may have succeeded for the moment. Amid the display of fashion, the glare of lights, and the intoxication of the scene, conscience may have slumbered at her post, and suffered the gay transgressor to revel undisturbed in forbidden pleasure. But she only seemed to sleep. The voice of admonition and warning came—it came, though the voice of the living preacher was silent. Again she felt, and again is she seen in the meeting for conversation and prayer. Her heart is the seat of ten thousand painful and conflicting emotions. The claims of truth and duty are urged. She would yield, she would follow Jesus, but the world—the theatre—the ball-room—her gay companions—how can she give them up? Unfortunately she was solicited to attend another ball. Satan, as an angel of light, sheds a deceptive radiance over that scene, and suggests that such amusements are innocent, that her seriousness is melancholy, that there is time enough yet. She triumphed over conscience, yielded to the temptation, and went.

She was permitted to return to her dwelling, but only to die; to die, too, as she had lived, without God or hope.

Mark the facts that fill the last page of her history. On one evening she is in the meeting for inquiry, the next in the ball-room, gayest among the gay, and almost the next in her coffin! One week, with a heart as light as air, she goes to a store to purchase trimmings for a ball dress; on the next, her friends go to the same store to purchase her shroud!

Thus ended the career of one who loved pleasure more than she loved God. There was no hope in her death! No light to cheer her in the last sad hour!

I was made acquainted, says a writer in the Fathers' Magazine, with one case that strongly affected me, of a man who had been many weeks under the awakening influences of the Holy Spirit, and at length, when pressed to give up his heart he propounded to his pastor this of her voice that utterly astonished us all, 'Doctor, Doctor, there is a difference between a life of amusement and a life of prayer. O, it is hard to die without an interest in Christ.' She closed her eyes, her hand fell, and all was silent. And, my soul, what a silence was that! Soon the earthly anguish of the sufferer was ended—she spoke not again."

# RUPTCY.

question: If one had been involved and had failed, and paid his debts by means of the insolvent act, would he, on becoming pious, feel constrained to pay up all he owed? He was answered, as he should be, in the affirmative. But it was perceived from that moment that the man was more than ever troubled, till, after a conflict of several days, he threw off his care about his soul, and has never been disturbed since. And there was not a doubt with any who intimately knew him, but that those dreadful days secured his speedy and fearful damnation. He has probably gone to give in his account.