Real Guilt and Sinfulness

There is a good post on Tim Challies site titled: Real Guilt and Sinfulness

It discusses Jonathan Edwards' writings and a recent biography: oh-so-good biography of Edwards, by George Marsden.

It may be worth your time to read the entire article.
Edwards lived in the first half of the 1700's in America during the period leading up to the founding of our country.

If I ever finish my John Bunyan reading, I'd like to read some of his original work.

I quote a short conclusion:

The solution today is the same as it was in Edwards’ day. “People needed to be properly convinced of their real guilt and sinfulness, in the sight of God, and their deserving of his wrath.” Every Christian needs not only to own up to his sinful acts, but to admit that he is fundamentally a sinner who is deserving of God’s wrath. No one has properly apprehended God’s grace until he has understood his own sinfulness and knows that he fully deserves God’s just and holy punishment. The evangelical church of our day tends to be a wrathless church—a church that speaks often of God’s love and grace, but rarely of the deepest necessity of this love and grace. The church today needs an infusion of the gospel, the whole gospel, which speaks not only of God’s love, but first of our desperate need of reconciliation. The gospel portrays us as we really are—as sinners who sin because of our fundamental guilt, our deep-rooted hatred of God. Only when we see ourselves as sinners can we truly see Christ as Savior. Only when we have identified ourselves as fallen in Adam can we truly and properly identify ourselves as raised up and set apart in Christ.