Now, in no condition of the soul is there greater need of the agency of the Comforter (O well named the Comforter), than when all this latency is suddenly manifested to a man.  When this deluge of discovery comes in, all the billows of doubt, fear, terror, and despair roll over the soul, and it sinks in the deep waters.  The sense of guilt,—­that awful guilt, which the man has carried about with him for many long years, and which he has trifled with,—­now proves too great for him to control.  It seizes him like a strong-armed man.  If he could only believe that the blood of the Lamb of God expiates all this crime which is so appalling to his mind, he would be at peace instantaneously.  But he is unable to believe this.  His sin, which heretofore looked too small to be noticed, now appears too great to be forgiven.  Other men may be pardoned, but not he.  He despairs of mercy; and if he should be left to the natural workings of his own mind; if he should not be taught and assisted by the Holy Ghost, in this critical moment, to behold the Lamb of God; he would despair forever.  For this sense of ill-desert, this fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, with which he is wrestling, is organic to the conscience, and the human will has no more power over it than it has over the sympathetic nerve.  Only as he is taught by the Divine Spirit, is he able with perfect calmness to look up from this brink of despair, and say:  “There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.  The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.  Therefore, being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

In view of the truths which we have now considered, it is worthy of observation: 

1.  First, that the Holy Spirit constitutes the tie, and bond of connection, between man and God.  The third Person in the Godhead is very often regarded as more distant from the human soul, than either the Father or the Son.  In the history of the doctrine of the Trinity, the definition of the Holy Spirit, and the discrimination of His relations in the economy of the Godhead, was not settled until after the doctrine of the first and second Persons had been established.  Something analogous to this appears in the individual experience.  God the Father and God the Son are more in the thoughts of many believers, than God the Holy Ghost.  And yet, we have seen that in the economy of Redemption, and from the very nature of the case, the soul is brought as close to the Spirit, as to the Father and Son.  Nay, it is only through the inward operations of the former, that the latter are made real to the heart and mind of man.  Not until the third Person enlightens, are the second and first Persons beheld.  “No man,” says St. Paul, “can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”