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eafinefs: Whatever calm and repofe of mind they may feem for a feafon to enjoy, yet anon, a quick and pungent fense of guilt (awakened by fome accident) rifes like a whirlwind, ruffles and difquiets them throughout, and turns up to open view, from the very bottom of their confciences, all the filth and impurity which had settled itself there. A truth, of which there is not, perhaps, in the whole Book of God, a more apt and lively inftance, than that which the paffage I have read from the evangelift fets before us. The crying guilt of John the Baptift's blood fat but ill, no doubt, on the confcience of Herod, from the moment of his fpilling it. However, his inward anguifh and remorfe was ftifled and kept under for a time, by the fplendor and luxury in which he lived, till he "heard of the fame of Jefus ;" and then his heart fmote him at the remembrance of the inhuman treatment he had given to fuch another juft and good man; and wrung from him a confeffion of what he felt, by what he uttered on that occafion. "He faid unto his fervants, This is John the Baptift! He is rifen from the dead! and therefore mighty works do fhew forth themfelves in him." There could not be a wilder imagination than this, or which more betrayed the agony and confufion of thought, under which he laboured. He had often heard John the Baptift preach, and muft have known that the drift of all his fermons was, to prepare the Jews for the reception of a prophet, "mightier than him," and "whofe fhoes he was not worthy to bear." Upon the arrival of that prophet, foon afterwards, Herod's frighted confcience gives him no

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leifure

And

leifure to recollect what his meffenger had faid; but immediately fuggefts to him, That this was the murdered Baptift himfelf! Herod, as appears from history, was, though circumcifed, little better than an Heathen in his principles and practices; or, if fincerely a Jew, was, at most, but of the fect of the Sadducees, who faid, there was no refurrection: Matt. xxii. 23. and yet, under the prefent pangs and terrors of his guilt, he imagines, that John was rifen from the dead, on purpofe to reprove him. It was the Baptift's diftinguifh ing character, that he did no miracles, John x. 41. nor pretended to the power of doing them; and yet even from hence the disturbed mind of Herod concludes, that it must be be, becaufe "mighty works did fhew forth themfelves in him." fo great was his confternation and furprize, that it broke out before thofe, who fhould leaft have been witneffes of it: For he whifpers not his guilty fears to a bofom friend, to the partner of his crime, and of his bed; but forgets his high state and character, and declares them to his very fervants. Surely nothing can be more just and ap pofite than the allufion of the prophet, in refpect to this wicked tetrarch; He is like the troubled fea, when it cannot reft, whofe waters caft up mire and dirt." And fuch is every one, that fins with an high hand, against the clear light of his confcience: Although he may refift the checks of it at firft, yet he will be fure to feel the lafhes and reproaches of it afterwards. The avenging principle within us will certainly do its duty upon any eminent breach of ours; and make every fla

grant

grant act of wickedness, even in this life, a pu nifhment to itself.

With this general propofition the particular inftance of the text (duly opened and confidered) will furnifh us: And this propofition therefore Í how purpofe, by God's bleffing, to handle and enforce; and in order to fix a due, lively, and lasting sense of it upon our minds, I fhall, in what follows, confider confcience, not as a mere intellectual light, or informing faculty, a dictate of the practical understanding (as the phrafe of the fchools is), which directs, admonishes, and influences us, in what we are to do; but as it acts back upon the foul by a reflexion on what we have done; and is, by that means, the fource and caufe of all that joy, or dejection of mind, of thofe internal fenfations (if I may fo fpeak) of pleasure or pain, which attend the practice of great virtues or great vices; and begin that heaven, and that hell in us here, which will be our fure and eternal portion hereafter. "The fpirit' (or confcience)

of a man is the candle of the Lord," Prov. xx. 27. which not only difcovers to us, by its light, wherein our duty confifts; but revives alfo, and chears us with its bright beams, when we do well; and when we do ill, is as a burning flame, to fcorch, and confume us.

As fuch, I fhall confider it in my prefent dif courfe: Wherein,

First, I fhall endeavour to illuftrate this plain but weighty truth (for indeed it needs illuftration only, and not proof) by fome confiderations drawn from Scripture, reafon, and experience. II. Secondly,

I. Secondly, I fhall account for a particular and preffing difficulty, that feems to attend the proof of it. And,

III. Thirdly and lastly, I fhall apply it to (the proper object of all our admonitions from the pulpit, but moft efpecially of this) the hearts and confciences of the hearers.

I. First I am to illuftrate this truth by fome confiderations drawn from fcripture, reafon, and experience.

That guilt and anguish are inseparable, and that the punishment of a man's fin begins always from himself, and from his own reflexions, is a truth every where fuppofed, appealed to, and inculcated in fcripture. The confequence of the firft fin that was ever committed in the world, is there faid to have been, that our offending par rents perceived their own nakednefs, and fled from the presence of God: That is, a confcious fhame and fear fucceeded in the room of loft innocence; and the prefages of their own minds, thofe Auguria. Pœnæ futuræ (of which even the heathen moralifts fpeaks) anticipated the fentence of divine vengeance. In relation to this office of confcience it is, that the infpired writers fpeak of it (in terms borrowed from the awful folemnities of human judicatories) as "bearing witnefs" against us, as "Accufing, or excufing, judging, and condemning us," Rom. ii. 15. And the prophet therefore adds this woe to the other menaces, which he had denounced on a difobeVor. IV.

H

dient

2

dient and profligate people, that "their own wickednefs fhould correct them and their backfliding fhould reprove them:" Jer. ii. 19. A correction fo fevere and terrible, that Solomon, balancing the outward afflictions of life, and bodily pains, with the inward regrets and torments of a guilty mind, pronounces the former of these to be light and tolerable in comparison of the latter: "The fpirit of a man" (fays he)" will "fuftain his infirmities; but a wounded fpirit "who can bear?" Prov. xviii. 14. Ifaiah defcribes the difmal reflexions, and foreboding thoughts that harbour in fuch a breaft, after this manner: "The finners of Sion are afraid, Fear"fulness hath furprized the hypocrites: Whơ "fhall dwell with devouring flames? Who fhall "dwell with everlasting burnings?” If xxxiii. 14. But no part of feripture gives us fo lively an account of this inward fcene of dejection and horror, as the Pfalms of penitent David: In one of them, particularly, he thus complains: "Mine

I am

iniquities are gone over my head, as an heavy "burthen; they are too heavy for me "feeble and fore broken, I have roared, by rea"fon of the difquietnefs of my heart. I am trou"bled, I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning "all the day long. My heart panteth, my "ftrength faileth me; and as for the light of "mine eyes, it is also gone from me. For thine "arrows ftick faft in me, and thy hand preffeth "me fore: There is no foundnefs in my flesh, "because of thine anger; neither is there any "reft in my bones, because of my fin," Pf. xxxviii. This is the expreffive language of holy writ,

when

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