The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption

The Spirit of God also brought us farther into bondage when he made us feel the assurance that punishment must follow upon sin, when he made us know that God can by no means clear the guilty, and that he was not playing with us when he said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." We were made to feel the sentence of death in ourselves, that we might not trust in ourselves. At that time we trembled on the brink of fate. We wondered that we were not already in hell. We were so convinced of sin that it was a matter of astonishment to us that the sentence did not immediately take place upon us. We were speechless before God, as to excuse or justification. We could not offer anything by which we could turn away the edge of justice, though we saw it like a glittering sword stripped of the scabbard of almighty patience.