Your blinded reasons may urge a thousand questions which God has not answered, and which man cannot answer, about this heavenly system; and you may be persuaded to say, I cannot accept it because I cannot understand it. This is no fair remedy for evil. Go with a deep conviction that you are guilty, and deserve condemnation; that you are ruined, and have no help. Go with a penitent and sorrowful spirit, in remembrance of your sin…Go with the language of unfeigned humiliation, with a sincere desire to obtain pardon and peace in the relation between your soul and God. Go thus to the feet of Jesus, and ask for the remedy which he bestows. If, then, you are sent back empty, if you find that the gospel can do nothing for you, that your load of guilt is unremoved, and your souls have no peace with God, then may you, with much greater show of reason, pronounce upon the unfitness of the gospel to answer your need [of salvation]. But until you have tried and found the trial vain, you cannot with the least propriety, urge a single objection to the terms and operation of the gospel.
Are you willing to make this trial? Are you ready to test, by experience, the sufficiency of Christ? He invites you; he advises you; he warns you; he encourages you; he intreats you all, to submit your wills, your desires, your characters, to him; and by his Spirit he will enable you to know and understand the things which are freely given you of God; and this acceptance of the gospel shall furnish you a salvation that can be obtained by no other instrument or method.
~ Stephen Tyng, Lectures of the Law & the Gospel
The Spirit of God produces this threefold conviction, of guilt, of wrath, and of hopeless despair by the ‘things which the law saith.’ Until this conviction has been produced, the preaching of Christ is ineffectual upon the sinner’s soul. He will never turn to Jesus with a godly sorrow for sin, and embrace the blessed offers of mercy which his Gospel presents, until he has been thoroughly awakened to perceive, and to acknowledge, the facts of which the law convinces hi, He will still wrap himself in his own carnal confidence, and see no need of looking after any other righteousness than his own. He will think of himself whole, and will therefore refuse the divine Physician. He will be ignorant of his danger, and will still reject the proposal of salvation. This work of the law is therefore indispensable for man’s spiritual security. When the hammer of God hath broken his stony heart, the blessing of the Gospel comes to him, as the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”
Abide in Christ 