Spirit. The text saith plainly, 'The holy Ghost shall glorify me, &c.'
Now Christ is in the faithful (although they have and feel sins, do
confess the same, and with sorrow of heart do complain thereover);
therefore sins do not separate Christ from those that believe.

All in this page is true, and necessary to be preached. But O! what need
is there of holy prudence to preach it aright, that is, at right times
to the right ears! Now this is when the doctrine is necessary and thence
comfortable; but where it is not necessary, but only very comfortable,
in such cases it would be a narcotic poison, killing the soul by
infusing a stupor or counterfeit peace of conscience. Where there are no
sinkings of self-abasement, no griping sense of sin and worthlessness,
but perhaps the contrary, reckless confidence and self-valuing for good
qualities supposed an overbalance for the sins,--there it is not
necessary. In short, these are not the truths, that can be preached
[Greek: eukaírôs akaírôs], _in season and out of season_. In declining
life, or at any time in the hour of sincere humiliation, these truths
may be applied in reference to past sins collectively; but a Christian
must not, a true however infirm Christian will not, cannot, administer
them to himself immediately after sinning; least of all immediately
before. We ought fervently to pray thus:--"Most holy and most merciful
God! by the grace of thy holy Spirit make these promises profitable to
me, to preserve me from despairing of thy forgiveness through Christ my
Saviour! But O! save me from presumptuously perverting them into a
pillow for a stupified conscience! Give me grace so to contrast my sin
with thy transcendant goodness and long-suffering love, as to hate it
with an unfeigned hatred for its own exceeding sinfulness."


Ib. p. 219-20.