In the fact, then, that man’s experience of sin is so liable to be defective upon the side of guilt, we find another necessity for the teaching of the Holy Spirit; for a spiritual agency that cannot be deceived, which pierces to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the real intent and feeling of the heart.

II.  In the second place, man needs the influences of the Holy Spirit, in order that he may actually appropriate Christ’s atonement for sin.

The feeling of ill-desert, of which we have spoken, requires an expiation, in order to its extinction, precisely as the burning sensation of thirst needs the cup of cold water, in order that it may be allayed, the sense of guilt is awakened in its pure and genuine form, by the Holy Spirit’s operation, the soul craves the atonement,—­it wants the dying Lamb of God.  We often speak of a believer’s longings after purity, after peace, after joy.  There is an appetency for them.  In like manner, there is in the illuminated and guilt-smitten conscience an appetency for the piacular work of Christ, as that which alone can give it pacification.  Contemplated from this point of view, there is not a more rational doctrine within the whole Christian system, than that of the Atonement.  Anything that ministers to a distinct and legitimate craving in man is reasonable, and necessary.  That theorist, therefore, who would evince the unreasonableness of the atoning work of the Redeemer, must first evince the unreasonableness of the consciousness of guilt, and of the judicial craving of the conscience.  He must show the groundlessness of that fundamental and organic feeling which imparts such a blood-red color to all the religions of the globe; be they Pagan, Jewish, or Christian.  Whenever, therefore, this sensation of ill-desert is elicited, and the soul feels consciously criminal before the Everlasting Judge, the difficulties that beset the doctrine of the Cross all vanish in the craving, in the appetency, of the conscience, for acquittal through the substituted sufferings of the Son of God.  He who has been taught by the Spirit respecting the iniquity of sin, and views it in its relations to the Divine holiness, has no wish to be pardoned at the expense of justice.  His conscience is now jealous for the majesty of God, and the dignity of His government.  He now experimentally understands that great truth which has its foundation in the nature of guilt, and consequently in the method of Redemption,—­the great ethical truth, that after an accountable agent has stained himself with crime, there is from the necessity of the case no remission without the satisfaction of law.