work upon men by force and natural neceffity, but by moral perfuafion, which fets good and evil before them,-fo that if men have power to do the evil and chufe the good,— and will abuse it,this cannot be avoided. Religion even implies a freedom of choice, and all the beings in the world which have it, were created free to ftand and free to fall; and therefore men who will not be perfuaded by this way of address, must expect, and be contented to be reckoned with according to the talents they have received,

SERMON XXVII.

THE ABUSES OF CONSCIENCE

CONSIDERED.

HEBREWS, XIII. 18.

-For we trust we have a good Conscience.

TRUST!-Truft we have a good Confcience!-Surely you will fay, if there is any thing in this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which he is capable of arriving upon the moft indifputable evidence, it must be this very thing,--Whether he has a good Confcience,

or no.

If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a ftranger to the true ftate of this account: -He must be privy to his own thoughts and defires-He muft remember his past pursuits, and know certainly the true fprings and motives, which, in general, have governed the actions of his life.

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In other matters we may be deceived by falfe appearances; and as the wife man complains, "Hardly do we guefs aright at the things that are upon the earth, and with "labour do we find the things that are before "us:"-but here the mind has all the evidence and facts within herfelf:-is confcious of the web fhe has wove:-knows its texture and

and fineness; and the exact fhare which every paffion has had in working upon the feveral defigns, which virtue or vice has plann'd before her.

Now, as Confcience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind has within itself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or cenfure, which it unavoidably makes upon the fucceffive actions of our lives, 'tis plain, you will fay, from the very terms of the propofition, whenever this inward teftimony goes against a man, and he ftands felf-accufed,-that he must neceffarily be a guilty man. And, on the contrary, when the report is favourable on his fide, and his heart condemns him not,-that it is not a matter of truft, as the Apoftle intimates, but a matter of certainty and fact, that the Confcience is good," and that the man muft be good alfo.

At first fight, this may feem to be a true ftate of the cafe; and I make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is fo truly imprefs'd upon the mind of man; that did no fuch thing ever happen, as that the Conscience of a man, by long habits of fin, might (as the Scripture affures us it may) infenfibly become hard; and like fome tender parts of his body, by much stress, and continual hard ufage, lofe by degrees that nice fenfe and perception with which God and nature endowed it: Did this never happen :--or was it certain that felf-love could never hang the leaft bias upon the judgment:-or that the

little interefts below could rife up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness:-could no fuch thing as favour and affection enter this facred court:-did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it, or was afhamed to fhew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment:-or, laftly, were we affured that Intereft ftood always unconcerned whilft the caufe was hearing,-and that Paffion never got into the judgment-feat, and pronounced fentence in the ftead of Reafon, which is fuppofed always to prefide and determine upon the cafe-was this truly fo, as the objection muft fuppofe, no doubt, then, the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself efteemed it; and the guilt or innocence of every man's life could be known, in general, by no better meafure, than the degrees of his own approbation or cenfure.

I own, in one cafe, whenever a man's Confcience does accufe him (as it feldom errs on that fide) that he is guilty; and, unless in melancholy and hypochondriac cafes, we may fafely pronounce that there is always fufficient grounds for the accufation.

But, the converfe of the propofition will not hold true, namely, That wherever there is guilt, the Confcience muft accufe; and, if it does not, that a man is therefore innocent.

This is not fact:-fo that the common confolation which fome good Christian or other is hourly adminiftering to himfelf,-That he

thanks

thanks God his mind does not mifgive him; and that confequently, he has a good Confcience, because he has a quiet one.-As current as the inference is, and as infallible as the rule appears at firft fight, yet, when you look nearer to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts, you find it liable to fo much error, from a falfe application of it:-the principle on which it goes fo often perverted: -the whole force of it loft, and fometimes fo vilely caft away, that it is painful to produce the common examples from human life, which confirm this account.

A man fhall be vicious and utterly debauched in his principles; exceptionable in his conduct to the world: fhall live fhamelefs, in the open commiffion of a fin which no reafon or pretence can justify;—a fin, by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity within, he fhall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;-rob her of her beft dowry; and not only cover her own head with difhonour, but involve a whole virtuous family in thame and forrow for her fake. Surely, you'll think, Confcience muft lead fuch a man a troublesome life:he can have no rest night or day from its reproaches.

Alas! Confcience had fomething elfe to do all this time than break in upon him: as Elijah reproached the god Baal, this domeftic god was either "talking, or purfuing, "or was in a journey, or, peradventure, he “flept, and could not be awoke." Perhaps

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