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you ever allow yourselves in any practice which knew to be unlawful, without feeling an inward struggle and strong reluctance of mind before the attempt, and bitter pangs of remorfe after the commiffion? Though no eye saw what you did; though you were fure that no mortal could difcover it, did not fhame and confufion fecretly lay hold of you? Was not your own confcience instead of a thousand witnesses? Did it not plead with you face to face, and upbraid you for your tranfgreffions? Have not fome of you perhaps, at this instant, a sensible experience of the truths which I am now preffing upon you? In these days of retirement and felf-examination, did you not feel the operation of that powerful principle? Did not your fins then rife up before you in fad remembrance? Has not the image of them purfued you into the house of God? And are not your minds now ftung with fome of that regret which followed upon the first commiffion?

My brethren, there is no efcaping from a guilty mind. You can avoid fome evils, by mingling in fociety; you can avoid others, by retiring into folitude; but this enemy, this tormentor within, is never to be avoided. If thou retirest into folitude, it will meet thee there, and haunt thee like a ghoft. If thou goeft into fociety, it will go with thee; it will mar the entertainment, and dafh the untafted cup from thy trembling hand. Whilft the finner indulges his vain imagination; whilft he folaces himself with the prof pect of pleasures rifing upon pleasures never to have an end, and fays to his foul, Be of good cheer, thou haft happiness laid up for many years, a voice comes to his heart that ftrikes him with fudden fear, and

turns the vifion of joy to a scene of horror. Whilst the proud and impious Balfhazzar enjoys the feast with his princes, his concubines, and his wives; whilft he caroufes in the confecrated veffels of the fanctuary; in a moment the fcene changes; the hand-writing on the wall turns the houfe of mirth into a house of mourning; the countenance of the king changes, and his knees fmite one against another, whilst the Prophet, in awful accents, pronounces his doom; pronounces that his hour is come, and that his kingdom is departed from him.

It is in adversity that the pangs of confcience are most severely felt. When affliction humbles the native pride of the heart, and gives a man leifure to reflect upon his former ways, his paft life rifes up to view; having now no intereft in the fins which he committed, they appear in all their native deformity, and fill his mind with anguifh and remorfe. Men date their misfortunes from their faults, and acknowledge their fin when they meet with the punishment. The fons of Jacob felt no remorse when they fold their brother to be a flave; they had delivered themselves from the foolish fear that he was one day to be greater than they; they congratulated themselves upon the mighty deliverance. But the very first misfortune which befel them, a little rough ufage in a foreign land, awakened their guilty fears, and they faid one to another, "We are verily guilty "concerning our brother, in that we faw the anguish "of his foul when he befought us, and we would not "hear, therefore is this diftrefs come upon us."

But that the profperous finner may not presume upon impunity from the lashes of a guilty mind, and

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to fhow you that no fituation, however exempted from adverfity, and that no station, however exalted, is proof against the horrors of remorfe, I fhall adduce two remarkable inftances of perfons who felt all the horrors of a guilty mind, without meeting with any judgments to awaken them. The first is that of Cain, referred to in the text. When the offering of Abel afcended acceptable and well-pleafing to God, Cain was feized with envy; from that moment he meditated vengeance against him, and at last imbrued his hands in the blood of his brother. was then no law against murder; and if antecedent to law there is no original fenfe of right and wrong implanted in the mind; if conscience, as fome affirm, was not a natural but an acquired power, the mind of Cain might have been at eafe; he might have enjoyed the calm and the ferenity of innocence. But when he was brought to the tribunal of confcience, was his mind at eafe? Did he enjoy the calm and the ferenity of innocence? No. He cried out in the bitterness of remorfe," My punishment is greater "than I can bear." What punishment did he complain of? There was then no punishment denounced against murder, and the Lord exprefsly fecured him from corporal punishment. But he had that within, to which all external punishments are light. He was extended on the rack of reflection, and he lay upon the torture of the mind. Hell was kindled within him, and he felt the first gnawings of the worm that never dies.

Another remarkable inftance of the dominion of confcience, we have in the hiftory of Herod. John the Baptist, the harbinger of our Lord, fojourned a

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while in the court of Herod. This faithful monitor fpared not fin in the perfon of a king, but reproved him openly for his vices. Herod, although he disliked, yet he refpected the Prophet, and feared the multitude, who believed in his doctrines. But on Herod's birth-day, when the daughter of Herodias danced before him, he made a fudden vow, that he would grant her whatever she defired. Being inftructed of her mother, she asked the head of John the Baptift. One of the common arts by which we deceive our confciences is to fet one duty against anoth

Hence fin is generally committed under the appearance of fome virtue, and hence the greatest crimes which have ever troubled the world, have been committed under the name, and under the fhow of religion. Such was the crime which we are now confidering. The obfervance of an oath has, among all nations, been regarded as a religious act; and here a fair opportunity offered itself to one who only waited for fuch an opportunity, to make religion triumph at the expence of virtue. If Herod had no inclination to destroy the Prophet, and no interest in his death, his confcience would have told him that murder was an atrocious crime, which no confideration could alleviate, nor excufe; it would have told him that vows, which it is unlawful to make, it is alfo unlawful to keep; but Herod was already a party in the cause; he determined to get rid of his enemy; he fatisfied his confcience with fome vain pretences, and gave orders to behead the Baptift. But were all his anxieties and forrows buried with the Prophet? No: the grave of the Prophet was the grave of his peace. Neither the fplendour of Majefty, nor the guards of

itate, nor the noise of battle, nor the fhouts of victo-. ry, could drown the alarms of conscience. That mangled form was ever present to his eyes; the cry of blood was ever in his ears. Hence, when our Saviour appeared in a public character, and began to teach and to work miracles, Herod cried out, in the horrors of a guilty mind, "It is John the Baptift "whom I flew; he is rifen from the dead."

How great, my brethren, is the power and dominion of confcience! The Almighty appointed it his vicegerent in the world; he invested it with his own authority, and faid, "Be thou a God unto man." Hence it has power over the courfe of time. It can recall the paft; it can anticipate the future. It reaches beyond the limits of this globe; it vifits the chambers of the grave; it reanimates the bodies of the dead; exerts a dominion over the invifible regions, and fummons the inhabitants of the eternal world to haunt the lumbers, and thake the hearts, of the wicked. Tremble then, O man! whofoever thou art, who art conscious to thyself of unrepented fins. Peace of mind thou fhalt never enjoy. Repose, like a falfe friend, fhall fly from thee. Thou shalt be driven from the prefence of the Lord like Adam when he finned, and be terrified when thou hearest his voice, as awful when it comes from within, as when it came from without. The fpirit of a man may fuftain his infirmity; but a spirit wounded by remorfe who can bear?

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The fecond thing propofed, was, to show you deliverance which the Gospel gives us from remorfe, by means of the "blood of fprinkling." This expreffion alludes to the ceremonial method of expia