this bondage, and clothe itself with the wings of
faith, and mount through the pure region of right-
eousness, rejoicing in its freedom, to the foot of that
throne where Christ is sitting at the right hand of
God ? How comes it, — may I not ask, brethren, —
how comes it that, even among us who have been
baptized into the name of Christ, — among us who
meet together week after week and day after day to
worship the Father in His house, — among us who
have so often been called to have our souls refreshed
and strengthened by His blessed Body and Blood, —
how comes it that even among us there are so many,
who . . . start not at the word . . . yes, start, ye to
whom it may apply I and O that your hearts would
indeed start once for all out of their fleshly sockets I
. . . how comes it that even among us there are so
many, who do not believe in Christ, who have no
real, living, practical faith in Him, — so many there-
fore, who are still steeped in their sins, who are still
floundering helplessly abovit in the midst of their



128 THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

sins, even as though Christ had never come to re-
deem them ? The reason of all this is, that the
^vorld, — that we, — have turned away from the
Comforter, when He has come to convince us of the
sin of not believing in Christ. Our belief in Christ,
such as it is, has not been wrought in us by the
Spirit of God. We believe in Christ, because our
parents taught us to believe in Him, because it is
our national faith, because we have been bred up in
it from our childhood, because our understandings
have been persuaded of His divine power by the
wonderful miracles which He wrought. But what
is the value of such faith, if it be no more than this ?
Will it take away our sins ? will it clothe us in the
armor of righteousness ? This is a question we can
easily answer, at least if it be put to us in another
shape. Does it take away our sins ? does it soften
and fertilize our hearts, so that they bring forth the
fruits of righteousness ? Surely they who are con-
scious of having nothing beyond this traditional,
conventional, historical faith, must answer. No ; no
more than the water in a bucket will refresh the
whole country when parched with a long drouth.
The \vater which is to refresh a land parched with
drouth, must come from above. The faith which is
to refresh and renew^ a soul dry and parched through
a long continuance in sin, must come from above
also. Until we have been convinced of the sin of
unbelief by the Spirit, we shall never know the hal-
lowing power of faith. Until we are convinced of
sin, for not believing in Christ, we cannot be con-
vinced of righteousness, because Christ is gone to
the Father.



THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 129

As the sin, of which the Comforter came to con-
vince the world, is of a totally different kind from
every thing that the world calls sin, — as it is a sin
which the world, so long as it was left to itself, never
dreamt of as such, nor does any heart, left to itself,
so regard it, — while yet it is the one great all-in-all
of sin, the sin by w^hich men are cut off and utterly
estranged from God, the sin through which they
grow downward toward hell, instead of growing up-
ward toward heaven, — so on the other hand is the
righteousness, of which the Comforter came to con-
vince the world, totally different in kind from every
thing that the world accounts righteousness, — a
righteousness such as the world in the highest rap-
tures of its imagination never dreamt of, a righteous-
ness moreover by which the effect of sin is done
away, and man, hitherto cut off and estranged from
God, is reunited and set at one with Him. The
Comforter will convince the world of righteousness,
our Lord says, because I go to the Father^ and ye see
Me no more. In these words we perceive what is
the righteousness, of which the Comforter came to
convince the world. Not of its own righteousness :
one might as fitly convince a cavern at midnight of
light. The Comforter is the Spirit of Truth, and
can only convince of the truth. But the world's
righteousness is a lie, hollow as a whited sepulchre,
tawdry as a puppet in a show. Different opinions
have been maintained on the question, of whose
righteousness the Comforter was to convince the
world (av) ; but to my own mind the words which
follow seem to setde the point : He ivill convince the
ivorld of righteovsness, because I go to the Father.



130 THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Of whose righteousness ? Not of the world's as-
suredly. Christ's going to the Father could no way-
be a proof of the righteousness of the world. On
the contrary it was the fullest, completest, most
damnatory of all proofs of the world's unrighteous-
ness and iniquity. It was the proof, that Him, whom
the world condemned, God justified, — that the
Stone, which the builders rejected, God made the
Headstone of the corner, — that Him, whom the
world had lifted up on high on a cross of shame,
God lifted up on high to a throne of glory in the
heavens, — that Him, whom the world cast out, nail-
ing Him between two thieves, God took to Himself,
and set Him in the heavenly places far above all
principality and power, — yea, took Him up to Him-
self, into the Unity of His Eternal Godhead, between
Himself and his Holy Spirit. Never was the right-
eousness of the world so confounded and set at
nought, as when Christ went to the Father, when
He, to whom Barabbas was preferred, w^as thus
shown to be the beloved Son and the perfect Image
of the Allholy, Allrighteous God.

But while Christ's going to the Father was a proof
of the unrighteousness and desperate wickedness of
the world, it was also a proof of righteousness,
namely of His own pure and perfect and spotless
righteousness. It was a proof that He was the Holy
One who could not see corruption. It was a proof
that He could not possibly be holden by death, any
more than it would be possible to hold the sun by a
chain of darkness ; and therefore that, as Death, the
ghastly shadow which ever follows inseparably at
the heels of Sin, fled from His presence. He must



THE CONVICTION OF RIGUTEOUSNESS. 131

needs be also without sin. It was a proof that, while
the world desired a murderer to be granled to them,
He whom they denied was the Holy One and the
Just. The effect of sin from the beginning, the effect
which it always had wrought and always must work,
was to cut man off from God, to throw a great gulf
between man and God, which no man, continuing
in the weakness and under the bondage of sin, can
ever pass over. It had made man blind to the sight
of God, and deaf to the voice of God. It had
driven him out from the garden of Eden, that is,
from the presence of God : for none but the pure in
heart can see God ; none but the righteous can dwell
with God. Therefore, when Christ went to His
Father, when He was taken up into heaven to live in
the bosom of God, this of itself was a proof that
He, who was thus exalted, must have fulfilled all
righteousness ; that His righteousness was not like
the righteousness of men, speckled and spotted and
covered with scratches and rents, like a sheet of old
blotting-paper, but pure, and without stain or spot.
This then was the righteousness, of which the Com-
forter came to convince the world, the righteousness
of Him in whom the world would not believe, of
Him whom the world had crucified. Pilate had found
no fault in Him ; yet Pilate had delivered Him up to
be crucified. The Jews had been unable to charge
Him with any fault : yet the Jews had crucified Him.
They saw nothing but the hideous mists and phan-
toms of their own passions, of their own envy and
hatred and malice ; they clothed Jesus in the dark
hues of those passions ; and then they nailed Him to
the cross. Not knowing what righteousness was,



132 THE CONVICTIOX OP RIGHTEOUSNESS.

they could not recognize it \vhen it came and stood
in a visible form before them. Loving unrighteous-
ness rather than righteousness, they tried to quench
the light of righteousness, and could not find rest
until they trusted they had built up a thick firma-
ment of darkness around them, and extinguished the
heavenly ray which God had sent through the dark-
ness to scatter it.

Hence, because the w^orld thus obstinately refused
to believe in the righteousness of Christ, was it need-
ful that the Comforter should come to convince the
world thereof; so that He might he declared ivith
pou'cr to be the Son of God, according' to the Spirit of
Holiness, which was thus manifested to be in Him,
by His resurrection from the dead; and that this de-
claration might be made known to all nations, to
bring them to the obedience of faith in His name.
Here however the same question crosses us, which
crossed us at the end of the last sermon : how could
He, who came to convince the world of the righteous-
ness of Christ, be rightly called the Comforter, at
least with reference to this portion of His work ? At
other times, when exercising His power for other
purposes. He might show Himself to be a Comforter.
But what comfort could there be in His convincing
the world of that, which was the sure judicial proof
of the unutterable crime it had been guilty of? At
first thought it would seem as if the conviction of
Christ's righteousness could only bring shame and
confusion on those by whom He was crucified. And
even to us, — although w^e were not present in the
body at His crucifixion, and so far were not guilty
of it, — although we did not fift up our voices and



TIIE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 133

join in the murderous cry of the Jews, — still, if the
righteousness of Christ w^ere nothing more than His
own righteousness, the contemplation of such a per-
fect pattern of all that is excellent and pure and holy
would rather seem fitted to cast us down in utter
hopelessness, than to comfort us, at least at the mo-
ment when the conviction of our own exceedinsr sin-
fulness has just been brought home in full force to
our souls. It might rather tempt us to exclaim with
Peter, Depart from ns ; for ice are sinfvl men, O
Lord. Nevertheless, as our Lord tells us, it is indeed
the Comforter, — nor is the name used here without
its appropriate force, — who convinces us of the
righteousness of Christ. For ^\diy ? Christ's right-
eousness is also our righteousness, if we will cast
away the sin of not believing in Him, and receive
His righteousness as our own by faith. He is the
Lord our Righteousness. He did not come down to
earth to lead a holy and righteous life for His own
sake. He was all Holiness and all Righteousness
from the beginning, yea, from all eternity, dwelling
in the bosom of the Father, full of grace and truth.
But He came down to earth to lead a holy and
righteous life for our sakes, in order that we might
become sharers in His Righteousness, and that so He
might raise us along with himself to His Father and
ours. It was for us that He was born : for us He
went about doing good patiently and unweariedly in
spite of hatred and scorn and persecution : for us He
bore all the hardships and crosses of life : it was for
us that He bowed His all-holy neck, and entered
through the gates of time and space into the form of
weak and frail humanity : for us He submitted to be
12



134 THE COXVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

tempted : for us He overcame sin : for us He allowed
the shadow of death to flit over His eternal spmt :
for us He biu'st the bonds of death, and rose again
from the grave, for our justification, for our righteous-
ness, that we might believe in Him, and might be-
come righteous thereby : it was for us too that He
went up openly to His Father, and sent His Holy
Spirit to convince us of His righteousness : for us
also does He ever sit, the Sun of Righteousness, in
the heavens. When the sun rises to convince the
^vorld of light, he does not keep his light to himself:
he does not journey through the sky merely to con-
vince the world that he himself is light. He sheds
his lisfht abroad on all that will unfold themselves to
receive it : he pours it into them, that they may have
it in themselves, and manifest it to each other, and
behold it in each other. So too does the Sun of
Righteousness. His Righteousness spreads from the
east to the west : it fills the heavens, and covers the
earth. On all who will open their hearts to receive
it, He sheds it. For their sakes He gained it ; and
He pours it out abundantly upon them.

Therefore is the Spirit, who convinces the world
of the righteousness of Christ, most truly caUed the
Comforter. In convincing us of sin, we saw, He
convinces us that we are dead in trespasses and sins,
— dead, so that we lie in them as in a grave, utterly
unable to raise ovirselves out of them, — so that our
souls, were they left to themselves, would rot and
cnimble and fall to pieces. Hence this conviction,
if it stood alone, would be full of sorrow and dis-
may. If the Spirit merely convinced us of our sin-
ful acts, of our vices, of our crimes, He would not



THE CONVICTIOX OF RIGIITEOUSXESS. 135

be the Comforter. For they have so coiled round
every part of our being, and mixed themselves up
with om* very heart's blood, that we cannot shake
them, or strip them, or even flay them off. But in
convincing us that our prime sin, the root and spring
of all om- sins, is want of faith, He lets in a gleam
of light ; He enables us to perceive an outlet ; He
kindles a hope in us that, if we can but believe, the
sinfulness of our nature may be subdued. We are
no longer doomed to a vain struggle between a
conscience muttering more and more faintly, Sin not,
and a carnal heart shouting more and more imperi-
ously, / ivill sin. We are taught that there is One
who will help us through this struggle, if we will
but believe in Him, even the Onlybegotten Son of
God, who dwelt upon earth for the very purpose of
breathing a new life of faith into us, of setting a liv-
ing Object of faith before us ; so that in every need
and peril, whithersoever the chances of the ^vorld
may waft us, we shall see God, not afar off in the
heavens, in the clouds of speculation, or the dim
twilight of tradition, but close by our side, as our
Example, our Guide, our Friend, our Brother, our
Saviour and Redeemer ; that we shall know God,
not merely as a Lawgiver, commanding us to over-
come sin, but as a Pattern showing us that it can be
overcome, and how, and as a mighty Helper ever
ready to enable us to overcome it. In like manner,
if the conviction of righteousness which the Spirit
works in us were merely the conviction of God's
righteousness, or of Christ's, we could only fall to
the ground with awestruck, palsied hearts : we could
no more ventm-e to look upon Christ, than the naked



136 THE COXVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

eye can look upon the sun. But when we are
thoroughly convinced that Christ's righteousness is
our righteousness, the righteousness which He pur-
poses to besto^v upon mankind, — that He came to
fulfil all righteousness, not for His own sake, but for
ours, in order that He might give us all that we lack
out of his exceeding abundance, — then indeed a
bright ray of joy and comfort darts through the
heart, startling the frostbound waters out of their
yearlong sleep. Then the soul, which before was as
a wilderness and a solitary place, solitary, because
Ood was far from it, — yea, the barren desert of the
heart rejoices and blossoms like the rose. All its
hidden powers, all its suppressed feelings, so long
smothered by the unresisted blasts of the world,
unfold like the roseleaves before the Sun of Right-
eousness ; and each and all are filled and transpierced
with his gladdening, beautifying light.

In order however that this may be fulfilled in us,
ihe conviction of Christ's righteousness must indeed
be A\Tought in us by the Spirit of God. We must
be thoroughly convinced that He is our Righteous-
ness, our only Righteousness. It is not enough to
believe that He was a very good and holy man.
We believe that many men have been good and
holy, that Noah was so, that Abraham was so, that
Joseph was so, that St. John was so, that St. Paul
was so. But their righteousness is of no avail to
us : it cannot help us out of our sins. Therefore
our conviction of Christ's righteousness must be of a
wholly different kind from our belief in the righteous-
ness of any other man. On the other hand it must
be of a different kind from our conviction of the



THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 137

righteousness or justice of God : for this, coming
upon the conviction of our sins, would merely affix
the death-warrant to the condemnation which our
conscience pronounces against us. Whereas the
belief in the righteousness of Christ is the means
by which we are to be raised out of our sins, and to
receive justification in the sight of God. Hence
these two works of the Comforter, the conviction of
our own sins, and the conviction of Christ's right-
eousness, go one along with the other, and cannot be
divorced or parted, neither being accomplishable
without the other. For it is by the contrast of
Christ's righteousness that we are enabled most
clearly to discern our own ail-pervading sinfulness ;
and it is by the conviction of our own sinfulness
that we are brought to recognize the divine perfec-
tion, and our own need, of the righteousness of
Christ. In some souls one work may seem to be
prior, in others the other. According as we tm-n our
eyes, the light may seem to rush upon the darkness,
or the darkness to fly before the light ; while the
tsvo operations are in fact coinstantaneous. But
whichever conviction may have been, or have come
forward into consciousness as the earliest in any
particular case, each must be continually enlivening
and strengthening the other. There are those who
are sinking like Luther under a crushing sense of
sin, before the assurance of the forgiveness obtained
by the righteousness of Christ dawns upon them.
There are those to whom Christ will manifest Him-
self in the first instance, as He did to St. Paul, in
His heavenly glory. But in either case, where the
work is the work of the Comforter, the second con-
12*



138 THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

viction will follow close upon the first. The convic-
tion of sin will be followed by the conviction of the
forgiveness which our Allrighteous Saviour has pro-
cured for us ; which latter conviction alone turns the
former into a wholesome discipline of humility : and
w^hen Christ vouchsafes to arouse us by manifesting
Himself in His glory, it is still as He whom we have
perseculed by our sins. The . conviction of Christ's
righteousness will ever be one of the chief means
employed by the Comforter to bring us to a con-
viction of our sinfulness ; while on the other hand it
is absolutely necessary that we should be brought to
this conviction of our sinfulness, before we can dis-
cern our need of a righteousness, which is not our
own, but is to descend upon us from above. So
long as a man is not convinced of sin, of his own
sinfulness, irremediable by any efforts of his own, —
so long as he is not convinced that he has no real
righteousness in himself, that he is not what he
ought to be, nay, that he is totally unlike what he
ought to be, — so long as he is content to live the
common, amphibious, half and half life of the world,
Avhich is neither one thing nor the other, a miserable
border-land between good and evil — so long as he
goes on staggering to and fro between opposite sins,
neither hot nor cold, believing with his lips, and
unbelieving in his heart, doing right for the sake of
the world, wearing the garb of outward decency and
a self-satisfied honesty or honorableness, — so long he
can never be really convinced of the righteousness of
Christ. We must feel that without Him we can do
nothing; that through our sins we have cast our-
selves out from the presence of God ; and that of



THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 139

ourselves we can no more return into His presence,
than we can fly up and bathe in the fountains of
light which are ever welling from the heart of the
sun: we must feel that the Law^ is placed, like the
flaming sword at the East of the Garden of Eden,
turning every ivay, writing its sentence of condemna-
tion against every deed and word that issues from
the heart of man, and thus keeping the way of the
Tree of Life : ^ve must feel that we neither have
nor can have any righteousness of ourselves to jus-
tify ourselves : then alone shall we be brought to
yearn for, then alone shall we indeed be convinced
by the Comforter of the righteousness of Christ.

And how are we to become partakers of that
righteousness ? Christ is ready, is desirous to be-
stow it upon all ; but how are we to receive it ?
Even as ^ve receive every other heavenly gift, by
faith. The Comforter shall convince the ivorld of
righteousness^ says our Lord, because I go to the
Father, and ye see Me no more. In that He went to
the Father, He gave the most certain demonstration
of His righteousness. In that we see Him no more.
He renders it easier for us to make His righteous-
ness ours. Were He still living upon earth, were
He walking about before our eyes, it would not be
so. It was not so with His brethren : they did not
believe in Him. It was not so with His chosen
apostles : so long as He continued present with
them in the body, they did not receive Him into
their souls ; they did not put on His righteousness.
Therefore was it expedient for them, as we have
already seen, that He should go away. For, so long



140 THE CONVICTION OF IlIGHTEOUSNESS.

as he continued with them, they lived by sight,
rather than by faith ; and sight disturbs faith, and
shakes it, and weakens it. Sight, as belonging to
the Avorld of sense, partakes ils frailties and imper-
fections. To put forth all its power, faith must be
purely and wholly faith. It is so even with the
human objects of our faith and love. So long as
they continue in the flesh, our faith in them, our
love for them is imperfect. The infirmities of the
flesh cleave to it. Their corruption must put on
incorruption, — they must be transfigured by death,
— they must pass away from this world of sight, —
we must see them no more : — then may our faith
and love toward them become pure and holy and
heavenly and imperishable. When our love springs
from the root of faith, th« n alone may it hope to blos-
som through eternity. In like manner, when our
righteousness springs from the root of faith, then
will it flourish in the courts of the temple of God.
For w^hat is our righteousness, wdien it comes to
us through faith ? It is not ours, but Christ's : and
every thing that is Christ's is well pleasing in the
eyes of God. By faith we pass out of this world of
sense. By faith we put off our carnal nature, and
put on a new spiritual nature, through which we
shall not be found naked. By faith we receive the
power to cast away our sins, and to live a life of
holiness and love. Through faith, giving ear to the
voice of the Comforter, the evil spirit is driven out
of us, as he was driven by the harp of David out of
Saul. Through faith we are lifted out of ourselves.
Through faith we cease to be specks of foam, dashed



THE CONVICTION- OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 141

along the furrows of the homeless wave. Through
faith we become members of the everlasting body
of Christ ; the Spirit of Christ passes into us ; and
thus in the fulness of time we too shall go with Him
to His Father.



SEEM ox lY.



THE CONVICTION OF JUDGMENT.

When the comforter is come, he will convince the world of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of judgment,

BECAUSE THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD IS JUDGED. — John xvi. 8, 11.

We have considered the first two parts of the
threefold work of the Comforter, — the conviction of
sin, which He was to produce in a world lying
blindly and recldessly in sin, — and the conviction of
righteousness, which He was to awaken, by opening
the eyes of that world to behold the righteousness of
the Lord it had crucified, — the conviction of the
world's sin, and of Christ's righteousness. These
two acts, we have seen, as wTOUght in the M^orld, are
essentially coincident ; the conviction of sin being
the instantaneous result from the manifestation of
the righteousness of Christ, even as the rising of the
liarht manifests the darkness. Were there no dark-
ness, the light would only manifest itself: but, as the