Common Convictions Distinguished from Saving or Special Convictions

APPLICATION.

I. Point out some effects and evidences of awakening.

I shall mention some effects which are produced by a common, and by a special awakening, though by the one, more slightly; by the other, more deeply.

1. To tame the soul as to its fierceness about the gratification of the bodily senses.

2. To check the wantonness of the imagination in reference to religion. No regard is then paid to fanciful whims.

3. To depreciate the things and the people of the world.

4. To cut off rest, in a secure ungodly way of living.

5. To silence murmuring and disputing at the word and works of God.

Those who feel not these things are not yet come the length of common conviction.

More decisive evidences, which distinguish a special work of conviction from that which is common.

1. The voluntariness of these convictions. The soul willingly yields to them. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning. Thou hast the dew of thy youth” (Ps. cx. 3). “If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land” (Is. i. 19). “I acknowledged my sin unto Thee and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and then forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Ps. xxxii. 5).

2. An intrinsic sweetness and glory felt in them; for the soul sees something of the amiable nature of God’s holiness, justice, and sovereignty.

3. An opening of the heart to the way of salvation by Christ, not merely from necessity but from some idea of the glorious nature of that way.

4. These special convictions are of an abiding, progressive, and boundless nature. The soul never is done with them. When it obtains relief by Christ, it doth not cast off these views (though the pain once attending them, goes away), but it mingles them with all the sweet truths of the gospel. “And that I also have walked contrary to them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and then they accept of the punishment of their iniquity. . . .” (Lev. xxvi. 41).—Dr. Love.