are written in this book, and all the terrors of a judgment to come, may fall upon ear, without awak

his

An un

ening any serious concern, until conscience is roused within, and responds to the voice of God. convinced conscience is utterly insensible: blinded by sin, it cannot see; and hardened by sin, it cannot feel. This deep insensibility-this stupid lethargy—this deadness of the conscience to all sense of fear and shame arises from ignorance of God's character and law, or from unbelief, which, in spite of all testimonies to the contrary, refuses to acknowledge God as a righteous Governor and Judge who will assuredly bring every sinner to judgment, and punish every sin; or self-delusion, by which many a sinner flatters himself, that however it may fare with others, he has no reason to fear; or some false persuasion in religion, which acts as an opiate to all conviction, such as the persuasion that God is too merciful to punish, or too great to mark the commission of sin,-or that an orthodox profession, a correct exterior, or a regular attendance on ordinances will secure his safety. Alas! how is many a conscience lulled to sleep by such mere delusions; and how often do these delusions serve, like so many shields, to ward off and repel the sharpest arrows of the Spirit! Under their fatal influence, the conscience may remain insensible till the sinner's dying hour; nay, death itself will not arouse it, nor will it feel its own guilt and danger, till the realities of eternity are disclosed. Hence you hear of the calm and unruffled indifference with which many a wicked man meets his death,—the apathy and uncon

cern with which he can look back on a life of sin, even when he stands on the brink of the grave; and you may often wonder at this, and be ready to exclaim, How comes it that "the wicked have no bands in their death," if there be a Judge above, and a living conscience within? I answer, that here in this very spectacle in this very insensibility-this deathlike apathy of the sinner's conscience at that solemn hour, you have just one of the most affecting manifestations of the righteous retribution of God,-the manifest effect of that great law of conscience, whereby it is ordained, that one who has long resisted the light shall be left in darkness; and that, by stifling his conscience, "he is given over to a reprobate mind." He has no sight of his own sin-no shame-no fear, just because his conscience has been blinded or stifled, or because he is deceiving himself with some false persuasion of his safety. Oh! let it not be said that a hardened conscience, which is insensible alike to the fear and the shame of guilt, is an enviable thing, or that it may not be the worst-the last stage of man's degeneracy. For, the loss of shame is the crowning proof of long-continued sin. Mark, I pray you, the course of a wicked man. Behold him first as an infant, clinging fondly to a mother's breast, and gladly returning a mother's smile; behold him as a boy, in all the buoyancy of youthful health, with a heart as yet unscathed by the habits of sin, and alive to every generous impulse, and so sensitive to praise or blame, that a word—a look, will elevate or deject them: follow him onwards for a few years, when, yielding to the

current of this world's wickedness, he plunges into its deadly waters: see him when he returns from the haunts of vice to his once happy hearth,—now, instead of being touched with a mother's love, or awed by a father's look, the sternest reproof falls unheeded on his ear, and his whole bearing shows that he is beyond the strongest of all influences-the influence of home. Still he is alive, it may be, to the opinion of others, and especially would he stand well in the estimation of his companions, if not for temperance, and chastity, and religion, yet for truth, and honour, and kindness of heart; but as he advances in the fatal path, truth and honour, and kindness of heart, are all sacrificed on the shrine of self-indulgence, he is separated by his own vices from the companionship of equals; and now, descending rapidly, he loses all regard for God and man, and becomes utterly reckless. And, when urged by want or passion, he commits some fatal crime, he feels perhaps less compunction for shedding the blood of man, than he felt in other days for a youthful folly; and when charged, convicted, and condemned, he may enter his cell, and walk to the gibbet, amidst crowds of awestruck spectators, with no other feeling than the mere shrinking of the flesh from suffering,-with neither shame, nor fear, nor self-condemnation in his heart of stone.

But when the sinner obtains a sight of the evil of sin, and especially of his own sinfulness, his convictions are attended with some suitable feelings or emotions, such as fear, shame, and self-condemnation. These feelings are the suitable, and, in one sense, the

When sin stands

natural attendants of conviction. disclosed, especially in the light of God's truth, it throws a dark shadow in upon the sinner's soul, which overawes, and agitates, and terrifies him. Conviction produces shame; for sin is seen to be a vile and loathsome thing; and the soul, which is covered with sin, is felt to be vile and loathsome too. Conviction produces fear; for a sense of guilt is inseparably connected, through conscience, with a sense of danger;— and conviction produces self-condemnation; for it is not in the reproof of another, not even the reproof of God himself, but such reproof so applied as to become his own decision upon his own case, that conviction for sin consists.

Now these feelings, in a greater or less degree, are the appropriate and natural concomitants of conviction, by whatever means the conscience may come to be convinced. Let the conscience, whether acting by its own energy, or as quickened by the Spirit of God, obtain a realizing conviction of sin, and forthwith it pronounces a condemning sentence, and awakens shame and fear; and that, too, when the sinner's personal habits, and his known opinions, and general circumstances in the world would seem to make such a visitation the most unlikely. Take a few familiar but striking illustrations from the Word of God.

Fear and shame were alike unknown in a state of conscious innocency; but our first parents sinned, and immediately conscience called forth into action those latent feelings of their souls,-"The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked;"

"And they

there was shame-the first-fruit of sin. heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself;" —there was shame mingled with fear.

The Scribes and Pharisees brought an adulterous woman to Christ, demanding to know what sentence should be pronounced against her. Jesus answered, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her;" and immediately they which heard it the self-righteous Pharisees-"being convicted by their own conscience, went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." Here we see conscience breaking through all the fences of self-righteous security, and compelling the guilty to retire in self-confusion from the

of the Lord.

presence

A lawyer came to Christ, and "stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered, "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" And when he had given his own account of the law and in his own words, Jesus said, "Thou hast answered right; this do and thou shalt live." But, it is added, he, willing to justify himself, was not content with this sentence of approbation-why, but that while Christ pronounced an