the operation of that powerful principle? Did not your sins then rise up before you in sad remembrance? Has not the image of them pursued you into the house of God? And are not your minds now stung with some of that regret which followed upon the first commission ?

My brethren, there is no escaping from a guilty mind. You can avoid some evils, by mingling in society; you can avoid others, by retiring into solitude; but this enemy, this tormentor within, is never to be avoided. If thou retirest into solitude, it will meet thee there, and haunt thee like a ghost. If thou goest into society, it will go with thee; it will mar the entertainment, and dash the untasted cup from thy trembling hand. Whilst the sinner indulges his vain imagination; whilst he solaces himself with the prospect of pleasures rising upon pleasures never to have an end, and says to his soul be of good cheer, thou hast happiness laid up for many years, a voice comes to his heart that strikes him with a sudden fear, and turns the vision of joy to a scene of horror. Whilst the proud and impious Belshazzar enjoys the feast with his princes, his concubines, and his wives; whilst he carouses in the consecrated vessels of the sanctuary;-in a moment the scene changes; the hand writing on the wall turns the house of mirth into a house of mourning; the countenance of the king changes, and his knees smite one against another, whilst the Prophet, in awful accents, pronounces his doom, pronounces that his hour is come, and that his kingdom is departed from him.

It is in adversity that the pangs of conscience are most severely felt. When affliction humbles the native pride of the heart, and gives a man leisure to reflect upon his former ways, his past life rises up to view: having now no interest in the sins which he committed, they appear in all their native deformity, and fill his mind with anguish and remorse. Men date their misfortunes from their faults, and acknowledge their sin when they meet with the punishment. The sons of Jacob felt no remorse when they sold their brother to be a slave; they had delivered themselves from the foolish fear that he was one day to be greater than they; they congratulated themselves upon the mighty deliverance. But the very first misfortune which befel them, a little rough usage in a foreign land, awakened their guilty tears, and they said one to another, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that

we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear, therefore is this distress come upon us."

But that the prosperous sinner may not presume upon impunity from the lashes of a guilty mind, and to shew you that no situation, however exempted from adversity, and that no station, however exalted, is proof against the horrors of remorse, I shall adduce two remarkable instances of persons who felt all the horrors of a guilty mind, without meeting with any judgments to awaken them. The first is that of Cain, referred to in the text. When the offering of Abel ascended acceptable and well-pleasing to God, Cain was seized with envy: from that moment he meditated vengeance against him, and at last imbrued his hands in the blood of his brother. There was then no law against murder; and if antecedent to law there is no original ssnse of right and wrong implanted in the mind, if conscience, as some affirm, was not a natural, but an acquired power, the mind of Cain might have been at ease; he might have enjoyed the calm and serenity of innocence. But when he was brought to the tribunal of conscience, was his mind at ease? Did he enjoy the calm and serenity of innocence? No. He cried out in the bitterness of remorse," My punishment is greater than I can bear." What punishment did he complain of? There was then no punishment denounced against murder, and the Lord expressly secured him from corporal punishment. But he had that within, to which all external punishments are light. He was extended on the rack of reflection, and he lay upon the torture of the mind. Hell was kindled within him, and he felt the first gnawings of the worm that never dies.

Another remarkable instance of the dominion of conscience we have in the history of Herod. John the Baptist, the harbinger of our Lord, sojourned a while in the court of Herod. This faithful monitor spared not sin in the person of a king, but reproved him openly for his vices. Herod, although he disliked, yet he respected the prophet, and feared the multitude, who believed in his doctrines. But on Herod's birth-day, when the daughter of Herodias danced before him, he made a sudden vow, that he would grant her whatever she desired. Being instructed of her mother, she asked the head of John the Baptist. One of the common arts, by which we deceive our consciences, is

to set one duty against another. Hence sin is generally committed under the appearance of some virtue, and hence the greatest crimes, which have ever troubled the world, have been committed under the name, and under the show of religion. Such was the crime which we are now considering. The observance of an oath has, among all nations, been regarded as a religious act; and here a fair opportunity offered itself to one who only waited for such an opportunity, to make religion triumph at the expense of virtue. If Herod had no inclination to destroy the Prophet, and no interest in his death, his conscience would have told him that murder was an atrocious crime, which no consideration could alleviate, nor excuse; it would have told him that vows, which it is unlawful to make, it is also unlawful to keep; but Herod was already a party in the cause; he determined to get quit of his enemy; he satisfied his conscience with some vain pretences, and gave orders to behead the Baptist. But were all his anxieties and sorrows buried with the Prophet? No: the grave of the Prophet was the grave of his peace. Neither the splendour of majesty, nor the guards of state, nor the noise of battle, nor the shouts of victory, could drown the alarms of conscience. That mangled form was ever present to his eyes: the cry of blood was ever in his ears. Hence, when our Saviour appeared in a public character, and began to teach and to work miracles, Herod cried out in the horrors of a guilty mind, "It is John the Baptist whom I slew; he is risen from the dead."

How great, my brethren, is the power and dominion of conscience! The Almighty appointed it his vicegerent in the world; he invested it with his own authority, and said,

Be thou as a God unto man.' Hence it has power over the course of time. It can recal the past; it can anticipate the future. It reaches beyond the limits of this globe; it visits the chambers of the grave; it reanimates the bodies of the dead; exerts a dominion over the invisible regions, and summons the inhabitants of the eternal world to haunt the slumbers, and shake the hearts of the wicked, Tremble then, O man! whosoever thou art, who are conscious to thyself of unrepented sins. Peace of mind thou thalt never enjoy. Repose, like a false friend, shall fly from thee. Thou shalt be driven from the presence of the Lord like Adam when he sinned, and be terrified when thou hearest his voice, as awful when it comes from within, as

when it came from without. The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmity; but a spirit wounded by remorse who can bear?

II. I proposed to shew you the deliverance which the Gospel gives us from remorse, by means of the "blood of sprinkling." This expression alludes to the ceremonial method of expiating sin under the Old Testament, by offering sacrifices, and sprinkling the blood of the victim upon the altar. But, as this was in itself only typical of Christ, how welcome to the soul is the glad tidings of the Messiah, who did, what these sacrifices could not do,--actually save his people from their sins! By the atonement and blood of Christ the sins of men have been completely expiated. It is the voice of the Gospel of Peace, "Take, eat, and live for ever." What relief will it give to the wounded mind, to hear of the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel! The Gospel being published to the world, and the offers of mercy through a Redeemer being made to all men, the sincere penitent accepts these offers, and flies for refuge to the hope set before him. Then Jesus saves his people from their sin, he heals the mind which was wounded by remorse, and bestows that peace which the world cannot give, and cannot take away. There is joy in heaven, we are told, over a sinner that repenteth, and the joy of the heavens is communicated to the returning penitent.When he beholds God reconciled to him in the face of his Son; when he hears, in secret, the blessed Jesus whispering in sweet strains to his heart, "Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee," he is filled with peace and. with joy ;-with peace, which passeth all understanding; -with joy, which is unspeakable and glorious. His sins being forgiven, he is accepted in the Beloved. He is an heir of immortality, and his name is written in heaven; to him is opened the fountain of life. He has a title to all the pleasures which are at God's right hand; to the treasures of heaven, and to the joys of eternity. He looks forward with a well grounded hope, to that happy day, when he shall take possession of the inheritance on high; he anticipates the delights of the world to come; and breaks forth into strains of exultation, similar to those transports of assurance uttered by the Apostle: "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ

that died, yea, rather that is risen again, and who now sitteth and intercedeth for us at God's right hand."

SERMON XIV.

MARK Viii. 30.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

THERE is not a person in this assembly, but who assents immediately to the truth of the maxim implied in the text. You all agree, that religion is the one thing needful, and that above all things you ought to seek the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof. But there is a wide difference between the assent of the mind to the truth of this principle, and that deep conviction of its importance, which, in Scripture, obtains the name of faith; sufficient to influence the heart, and to determine the life. A great part of mankind seem to have no steady belief that they are endowed with souls which are immortal. An eternity to come is with them merely a matter of speculation, and their faith in a future world has little more influence upon their lives, than their idea of a distant country, which they are never to see. Hence spiritual and eternal things are heard with little emotion or concern, while they are delivered in the house of God.Some can give themselves up to listlessness; and others soon lose all remembrance of what they have heard, in the next amusement, or in the news of the day. Even He, who spake as never man spake, and while he discoursed on points of such importance as the loss of the soul, had occasion often to take up the complaint, that in vain he stretched out his hands all day long to a disobedient people.

To call your contemplation, then, to these subjects, (for they need no more but to be considered aright, in order to be felt,) I shall endeavour to shew you the value of the soul,-from its native dignity,-from its capacity of improvement,-from its immortality,-and from its unal terable state at death.