owning their crime, or declaring their accomplices. And in like manne, the torments of a guilty confcience may fometimes be borne and diffembled. I observe.

2. That the diforders and reprehenfions of confcience are not a continued, but an intermitting disease; returning upon the mind by fits, and at particular feafons only; in the intervals of which the patient shall have feeming health, and real cafe. The eruptions of burning mountains are not perpetual, nor doth even the fmoke itfelfafcend always from the tops of them; but though the feeds of fire lodged in their caverns may be ftifled and fuppreffed for a time, yet anon they gather ftrength, and break out again, with a rage great in proportion to its difcontinuance. 'Tis by accidents and occafions chiefly that the power of this principle is called forth into act; by a fudden ill turn of fortune, or a fit of fickness, or our obfervation of fome remarkable inftance of divine vengeance, which hath overtaken other men in: like cafes. Even Herod was not always under the paroxyfm defcribed in the text, but furprized into it unawares, by his "hearing of the fame of JeJus" and then his heart smote him at the remembrance of the inhuman treatment he had given to fuch another juft and good perfon, and filled his mind anew with forgotten horrors. We cannot therefore, from a prefent calm of thought, know, either how it hath been with a man heretofore, or how it fhall be with him hereafter; but may eafily in fuch cafes, and do often judge wrong judgment; faying, "Peace, peace, where there is no peace," but a truce only; and where it will

appear

appear, that there was none, whenever affliction, ruffles a man's foul, or a death-bed rouzes him: Vera tum voces pectore ab ima

Erumpunt, atque eripitur perfona, manet res : Then (and fometimes not till then) all masks and difguifes are thrown off, and the mind appears naked and unguarded to itfelf and others.

Afk those who attend the fick, and help to prepare them for their paffage into another world; alk them, I fay, and they will tell you, how ma ny inftances. they have met with of men, who feem to have been given up to a spirit of insensi-. bility and flumber, and have accordingly slept on, for a long time, and taken their reft; and, yet have in their last moments. been all at once fufficiently awakened: What inexpreffible agonies and horrors they have found upon the minds of dying defpairing finners, who, thought themfelves fecure, against fuch attacks, and believed that the clamorous principle within them was wholly filenced; but upon the near profpect of another world, and which made no impreffion on them at a distance, have changed their fentiments, and dropped their falfe confi dence; have feen their guilt, and dreaded their danger, when it was too late perhaps to think of deploring the one, or efcaping the other...

*

After all, it must be owned,

3. That there are now and then inftances of men who have gone through, even this last trial unfhaken; and, after leading very diffolute lives, have yet died hard, as the phrafe is, without any feeming concern for for what was paffed, or dread of what was to follow. Whenever fuch

an

an effect happens, it is owing to one or more of thefe caufes; either to ill principles early and deeply imbibed, or to a certain obftinacy and fullennefs of teinper peculiar to fome men; or laftly, either to a natural or acquired ftupidity. If a man begins betimes with himself, and takes pains to vitiate his mind with lewd principles, and lives long in the profeffion of them, he may at laft root and rivet them fo faft, till fearée anty application' whatfoever is able to loofen them; and till the natural fentiments of his confcience are even choked and ftifled by the means of 'thein.

A falle firmness and refolution, joined with a Thame of unfaying and undoing all a man h th 'faid and done before, may poffibly carry him headlong on to his death, without owning, or perhaps even feeing, his danger. Grofs and heavy minds, unimproved by education and inftruction, have at length arrived at at fuch a degree of ftupidity, as to think of nothing beyond this world, nor of any thing in it, but what immediately affects their fenfes. And even f And even fpirits more refined' may, by a perpetual and total immerfion in bodily pleafures, arrive at laft at the fame degree of infenfibility. In fuch cafes, and by the help of fuch qualitics as thefe, it is poflible, I grant, and fometimes happens, that men have gone out of the world, as they lived in it, defying confcience, and the power of it, and deriding the flames of hell, "till they were in the midst of them. But thefe are rare inftances, and of no force' therefore, when oppofed to the general conviction and feeling of mankind upon the fame

9

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· occafions. They prove only that there are monfters in the moral, as well as the natural world, which make nothing against the fettled laws, and regular courfe of either. To argue against the innate and pungent reflections of confcience from fome mens want of them, is, as if one should attempt to prove, that man is not a reasonable creature, because fome men are born naturals, and others by too great intenfion of thought, or by brutal exceffes, have loft the use of their reafon. Nor if the light of reason may itself be extinguished, much more may the voice of confcience be drowned; which, being a practical principle, is perpetually warred upon by our lufts, and paffions, and finful habits; whereas the other, being a more fpeculative power, hath no contrary in the mind of man to ftruggle with. But I forbear, fince there remains yet the

III. Third and laft part of my talk, to apply what hath been faid to the proper object of all our admonitions from the pulpit (and particularly of this) the hearts and confciences of the hearers.

Since therefore the wife Author of our natures hath fo contrived them, that guilt is naturally and almoft neceffarily attended with trouble and uneafinefs, let us even from hence be perfuaded to preferve the purity, that we may preferve the peace and tranquillity of our minds. For pleasure's fake, let us abftain from all criminal pleasures and pollutions; because the racking pains of guilt, duly awakened, are really an overbalance to the greateft fenfual gratifications. The charms of vice (how tempting foever they may feem to be) are

by

A

by no means equivalent to the inward remorfe and trouble; and the tormenting reflections which at tend it; which always keep pace with our guilt, and are proportioned to the greatnefs and daringnefs of our crimes: For mighty finners (here as well as hereafter) fball be mightily tormented, Wifi vi 6. Sins of omiffion, infirmity, and furprize there will be; even the just man falls feven times a day by them, and rifes again from them with ftrength and chearfulness to his duty; but let us be fure carefully to guard against all fuch flagrant enormities, as do violence to the firft and plaineft dictates of our reason, and overbear the strongest impulfes of our confcience; for these will certainly leave a wound behind them, which we shall find it hard to bear, and harder, much harder, to cure. Let no temptation, no interest, no influence whatsoever, fway us to do any thing contrary to the fuggeftions of confcience in plain cafes, and points of moment. Let us no more, dare to do in private what that tells us ought not to be done, than if we were upon an open theatre; and the eyes of the whole creation were upon us: What fignifies it that we escape the view and obfervation of men, when the watchful witnefs with in fees and records all our faults, and will cer tainly one day reprove us, and set our misdeeds in order before us.

It hath been reckoned a good rule for an happy conduct of life, to be fure of keeping our domeftic concerns right, and of being eafy under our own roof, where we may find an agreeable retreat and fhelter from any difappointments we meet with in the great scene of vexation, the world; VOL. IV. K

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