workings of a reprobate mind, that He has left them to "eat of the fruit of their own way, and to be filled with their own devices 1." For call to mind the names and the characters of those upon whom God's heaviest indignation is revealed in Scripture. It is not they who are chastised with sorrow, whose bones are brought down with weakness, whose hearts are troubled, and ready to sink for very fear, with the sense of their own unworthiness-for these trials of our nature, however sharp and painful, are evidences of a God of mercy still dealing with His wayward children, still forcing them from sin, still drawing them unto Himself : -but it is the men from whom He threatens to withdraw the sense of His presence. "Why should ye be stricken any more 2 ?" is the fearful question which He puts by Isaiah to the people who were "laden with iniquity." And again, "my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and be no more angry, 3," is the yet more fearful sentence which He pronounces by Ezekiel upon their rebellious descendants.

It is impossible to conceive a more frightful condition for man to be placed in, than that which these declarations of Scripture describe;-to add sin to sin, and yet to hear no voice of warning,—to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and yet to

1 Prov. i. 31.

3 Ezek. xvi. 42.

2 Isaiah i. 5.

feel no hand plucking us back,-to transgress God's laws, to reject God's promises, to mock at God's threatenings, and to find that the jealousy of God hath departed from us, that He is "quiet and no more angry;"-this is indeed to have our house left unto us desolate; to be deprived of strength, of hope, of remedy. Better to endure the most piercing agony of remorse, than, like the churlish Nabal, to have the heart thus dead within us1. Better to be humbled to the very dust before God's footstool, and to cry with bitter tears for pardon, than thus to walk on in the proud conceit that we need no pardon. Were not the sons of Israel nearer the reception of relief, when they confessed, in the anguish of their soul, that they had been "verily guilty concerning 2" that brother whom they had stripped, and bound, and sold into the hand of strangers, than when they had gone with calm and unblushing front to deceive the father that loved him, and had looked unmoved upon his misery? What, again, would have been the hope of David, if the picture had never been held up to his soul, of the man who had "spared to take of his own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb which he had bought and nourished up," which had grown "up together with him, and

1 1 Sam. xxv. 37.

2 Gen. xlii. 21.

with his children;" which had eaten "of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his own bosom, and had been unto him as a daughter 1?" Where would have been his refuge, I ask, if the veil which concealed his iniquity and his danger, had never been torn away, or the voice of conscience had never answered the words of Nathan, and said, "I have sinned against the Lord?" I know indeed that such deep utterance of the conscience-stricken soul may sometimes make itself heard, and yet, that the sound of it shall die away. And I see, in this fact, another and a cogent reason why we, like the Apostle, should be always engaged in the exercise which employed his prayers and watchings. I know that Ahab may shrink from the presence of Elijah, that enemy, as his guilty conscience confessed, who found him in the vineyard of the murdered Naboth 2; and yet that, afterwards, he may be found to fill up the measure of his guilt. I know that conscience could conjure up, to the mind of the adulterous Herod, the apparition of the stern and faithful preacher of righteousness, whose light he had been the first to quench 3. I know that the same power could make Felix tremble on his judgment-seat, as the Christian captive, who stood before him, reasoned of the mighty truths against which his spirit had rebelled.

1 2 Sam. xii. 1-4.

3 Matt. xiv. 2.

I know that all these

6

outbreaks of the oppressed authority of conscience, these efforts to shake off the usurpation of the tyrant sin, may be felt, and felt in vain; but surely none can look upon these unmoved: much less can any one dream, from the absence of such overwhelming condemnation in his own heart, that therefore it has nothing to condemn. There is no other difference,' says Bishop Taylor, in those sins where the conscience affrights, and in those in which she affrights not; there is no other difference, but that conscience is a clock, which, in one man, strikes aloud and gives warning; and in another, the hand points silently to the figures, but strikes not; but by this he may as surely see what the other hears, viz. that his hours pass away, and death hastens, and after death comes judgment '.'

What then shall we say to these things, my brethren? If conscience can be so oppressed, so defiled, so hardened, by the passions of evil which compass it on every side; if the lamp of the Lord can be forced to burn thus dimly, and become well nigh, though not entirely, extinguished by the noxious damps and vapours which hang around it 2; need I the word of exhortation to impress upon you

1 See Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, B. i. c. i. rule ii.

sect. 24.

2 Potest obumbrari, quia non est Deus: extingui non potest, quia a Deo est.' Tertullian, quoted by Jeremy Taylor, ut suprà,

rule i. sect. 5.

the fallacy of trusting to its strength alone, or the danger of neglecting those only means of grace by which it can be preserved "void of offence?" We know what Solomon hath said of him who "trusteth to his own heart ;" and the review of our defeated purposes and abortive aspirations, proves that his words are true. And so likewise, with regard to those means of grace which save us from the power of evil, we know that familiarity with them, as with any other blessings, may produce indifference for the gift, and forgetfulness of the giver. Bear with me then, whilst, with all earnestness and sincerity of soul, I entreat you to search into your own consciences, with respect to this very point. Were I to tell you that man is a sinner, and needs those means of grace which guide and purify and sustain the conscience,—were I to tell you that God is merciful, and giveth them,-that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer, and hath purchased them, that the Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier, and conveyeth them, -I should but repeat the truths with which all of you, I trust, are acquainted, and of which the lips of others have spoken better than my own. And yet, the bare knowledge of these truths, however clearly and comprehensively they may be embraced by the understanding, if it only abide there, and reach not, and control not, the energies and affec

1 Prov. xxviii. 26.