Hardshells Make The Spirit A Liar

In chapters 54-56 of my book "The Hardshell Baptist Cult," I deal with the Hardshell view on the Spirit's work of conviction of sin. The Hardshells believe that conviction of sin is what results from regeneration or the new birth, but I show how this is an error. One of my arguments is one that the Hardshells never choose to deal with, but ignore it because they cannot overcome it. If a sinner under conviction is being witnessed to by the Holy Spirit and that witness is to convict the sinner of his condemned state, then the Spirit is lying to that sinner if that sinner is really already saved and justified. The fact that the Spirit bears witness to a sinner that he is lost and ruined, and on his way to Hell, is proof that conviction of sin is no proof of a gracious state. When the Spirit thus testifies, he is bearing witness to the true condition of the sinner. Our Old Baptist forefathers understood this and is why they taught that mere conviction of sin was no evidence of regeneration, but was rather, in many cases, a preparation for regeneration.