Chapter 20: The Last Step

Impenitent sinners need to be convinced of their dependence on a power beyond their own. They need this especially. It is an essential point. Such a conviction will tend to drive them off from their miserable self-reliances. It will never put them at rest, but lead them to work, to prayer. Aside from such a conviction, they will be ignorant of the extent of their depravity; their seriousness will lack depth; and their seeking lack earnestness. The just sense of the amount of their criminality for continuing in their impenitence cannot be brought home to their hearts, unless the doctrine of their dependence helps to bring it there.The Holy Spirit is their offered aid; and surely that aid is enough.They should know, and feel it to their heart's core, that they are now, on the spot, today, under the most solemn obligations to repent, not only because sin is wrong, but because God offers them the aids of the Holy Spirit: "In me is thy help." Their impenitence not only tramples under foot the blood of the covenant but also does despite to the Spirit of Grace.