towards him, but must walk as persons false to their God and as traitors to their own eternal welfare. But the godly upright man shall have the light shine upon his ways, and he shall take his steps in butter and honey. The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance for ever. "If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God."
A TENDER CONSCIENCE.
A tender conscience is to some people like Solomon's brawling woman, a burthen to those that have it; but let it be to thee like those that invited David to go up to the house of the Lord.
A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.
"And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God." These latter words are spoken, not to persuade us that men can hide themselves from God, but that Adam and those that are his by nature will seek to do it, because they do not know him aright. These words therefore further show us what a bitter thing sin is to the soul; it is only for hiding-work, sometimes under its fig-leaves, sometimes among the trees of the garden. O what a shaking, starting, timorous evil conscience is a sinful, guilty conscience: especially when it is but a little awakened, it could run its head into every hole, first by one fancy, then by another; for the power and goodness of a man's own righteousness cannot withstand or answer the demands of the justice of God and his holy law.
There is yet another witness for the condemning transgressors of these laws, and that is conscience: "Their consciences also bearing witness," says the apostle. Conscience is a thousand witnesses. Conscience! it will cry amen to every word that the great God doth speak against thee. Conscience is a terrible accuser; it will hold pace with the witness of God, as to the truth of evidence, to a hair's breadth. The witness of conscience, it is of great authority; it commands guilt and fastens it on every soul which it accuses. Conscience will thunder and lighten at the day of judgment; even the consciences of the most pagan sinners in the world will have sufficient wherewith to accuse, to condemn, and to make paleness appear in their faces and breaking in their loins, by reason of the force of its conviction. O the mire and dirt that a guilty conscience, when it is forced to speak, will cast up and throw out before the judgment-seat. It must out; none can speak peace nor health to that man upon whom God has let loose his own conscience. Cain will now cry, "My punishment is greater than I can bear;" Judas will hang himself; and both Belshazzar and Felix will feel the joints of their loins to be loosened, and their knees to smite one against another, when conscience stirreth.
When conscience is once thoroughly awakened, as it shall be before the judgment-seat, God will need say no more to the sinner than Solomon said to filthy Shimei, "Thou knowest all the wickedness that thy heart is privy to." As who should say, "Thy conscience knows, and can well inform thee of all the evil and sin that thou art guilty of." To all which it answers even as face answers a face in a glass; or as an echo answers the man that speaks: as fast, I say, as God chargeth, conscience will cry out, "Guilty, guilty, Lord; guilty of all, of every whit; I remember clearly all the crimes thou layest before me." Thus will conscience be a witness against the soul in the day of God.
V. THE LAW.
ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS.
THE law is the chief and most pure resemblance of the justice and holiness of the heavenly Majesty, and doth hold forth to all men the sharpness and keenness of his wrath.
This is the rule and line and plummet whereby every act of every man shall be measured; and he whose righteousness is not found every way answerable to this law, which all will fall short of but they that have the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ, he must perish.
The law is spiritual, I am carnal. Therefore every requirement is rejected and rebelled against. Strike a steel against a flint, and the fire flies about you. Strike the law against a carnal heart, and sin appears, sin multiplies, sin rageth, sin is strengthened.
Sin seen in the glass of the law is a terrible thing; no man can behold it and live. "When the commandment came, sin revived and I died;" when it came from God to my conscience, as managed by an almighty arm, then it slew me. And now is the time to confess sin, because now a soul knows what it is, and sees what it is, both in the nature and consequence of it.
He that is under the law is under the edge of the axe.
The proper work of the law is to slay the soul, and leave it dead, in a helpless state.
The law has laid all men for dead as they come into the world; but all men do not see themselves dead, until they see the law that struck them dead striking in their souls and having struck them that fatal blow. As a man that is fast asleep in a house, and that on fire about his ears, and he not knowing it because he is asleep; even so because poor souls are asleep in sin, though the wrath of God, the curse of his law, and the flames of hell have beset them round about, yet they do not believe it because they are asleep in sin. Now, as he that is awakened and sees this, sees that through this he is a dead man, even so they that see their state by nature, being such a sad condition, do also see themselves by that law to be dead men naturally.
Take heed of fleshly wisdom. Reasoning suiteth much with the law: "I thought verily that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus," and so to have sought for life by the law. For thus reason will say, Here is a righteous law, the rule of life and death; besides, what can be better than to love God, and my neighbor as myself? Again, God has thus commanded, and his commands are just and good; therefore, doubtless, life must come by the law. Further, to love God and keep the law, are better than to sin and break it; and seeing men lost heaven by sin, how should they get it again but by working righteousness? Besides, God is righteous, and will therefore bless the righteous. O the holiness of the law! It mightily swayeth with reason when a man addicts himself to religion. The light of nature teaches that sin is not the way to heaven; and seeing no word doth more condemn sin, than the words of the ten commandments, it must needs be therefore the most perfect rule for holiness. Wherefore, says reason, the safest way to life and glory is to keep myself close to the law. But though the law indeed be holy, yet the mistake as to the matter in hand is as wide as the east from the west; for therefore the law can do thee no good, because it is holy and just; for what can he that has sinned expect from a law that is holy and just? Naught but condemnation. "There is one that accuseth you, even. Moses in whom ye trust."
Here is the poison; to set this law in the. room of a Mediator, as those do who seek to stand just before God thereby. And then nothing is so dishonorable to Christ, nor of so soul-destroying a nature as the law; for that, thus placed, has not only power when souls are deluded, but power to delude by its real holiness, the understanding, conscience, and reason of a man; and by giving the soul a semblance of heaven, to cause it to throw away Christ, grace, and faith.
Alas, he who boasteth himself in the works of the law, he doth not hear the law. When that speaks, it shakes mount Sinai, and writeth death upon all faces, and makes the church itself cry out, A Mediator! else we die.
The law out of Christ is terrible as a lion; the law in him is meek as a lamb.
FAITHFUL. "So I went on my way up the hill. Now when I had got about half-way up, I looked behind me and saw one coming after me swift as the wind; so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands.
"So soon as the man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow; for down he knocked me, and laid me for dead. But when I was a little come to myself again, I
