Pause and consult with con

edifying to the conscience. If the mind expends its strength on questions rather curious than useful, conscience will become fastidious rather than wise; scrupulous rather than honest; fearful and morbid rather than tender. It may concern itself needlessly about trifles, and remain quite insensible to affairs of eternal moment. Hence the practical advice arising out of these considerations is: Store your mind with useful knowledge, with sound principles, with divine wisdom and understanding. Bring your hearts to the truth, which shall both illuminate and purify them. "Search the scriptures." Apply what you read to your own state. science as you read. Ask yourselves, 'Have I obeyed this precept? Have I believed this doctrine? Have I feared this threat? Have I em

braced this promise?' The reason why so many go through the scriptures without profit is, that they do not call upon conscience to accompany them in their course. And in the same way, we account for much of the inefficiency of public teaching. Many attend the house of God, as if they had left conscience behind them. There is no self-application, no attempt to select from the words spoken what may reprove, convince or instruct their own souls. They put aside the strongest appeals as quite unnecessary for them; they listen for others and forget themselves. They imagine the preacher unwarrantably severe, and impute his earnestness to some peculiarity of

temperament, in which they can only wish he would not indulge. Thus they contrive to keep conscience asleep, by withholding all fixed attention, and all serious consideration of the use they ought to make of what they hear. This is dealing alike dishonestly with conscience, with God and with divine truth. And so long as such a course is persisted in, men will remain under all the evil consequences of following a fallacious guide; and at last, they will discover, that they have their own negligence to blame for all the sad effects of so fatal a delusion.

We further owe to conscience, a constant vigilance and tender care. Our lower faculties acquire all the strength they ought to have, and often much more, without any peculiar attention and solicitude. The weeds of nature grow rank and spread wide, by their own native luxuriance ; and what cultivation has to do in reference to them, is not to cherish, but to limit and restrain their growth. Our moral powers however, require the opposite treatment. They are easily injured, and the injury is not easily repaired. A great part, therefore, of true wisdom, consists in the strict, watchful superintendence of our thoughts, our habits, and our principles. If thought is permitted to wander without restraint, the mind will become habitually negligent, and ungovernable. The want of discipline will be severely felt in the consequences which follow; lax notions will prevail, and conscience will scarcely be able to con

trol any of the wayward movements of the soul. But let the habit of vigilant attention to conscience be attained, and the effect will be quickly perceptible in the correctness of our judgments, in the promptitude of our decisions on the side of truth, and in the heart-felt satisfaction flowing from the conviction of being influenced by right motives. Yet so long as this duty is neglected, we ought not to be surprised that conscience should often speak incoherently and uncertainly. The fault does not lie in any necessary defect of the faculty, but in our want of due attention to its culture.

Still more, however, is necessary to preserve us from a deceived conscience. We have seen that this faculty directly refers the mind to God as the source whence all its own authority is derived, and as the final judge by whom all its own decisions are to be confirmed or set aside. How natural, then, is the inference, that we ought earnestly to implore spiritual illumination, wisdom, and counsel from "the God of the spirits of all flesh," who is the "Father of lights," and, from whom cometh every good and every perfect gift.” He who requires us to pray for the supply of our daily food, still more emphatically commands us to ask at his hands, the enlightening influences of his Holy Spirit. They, therefore, who in following the dictates of conscience, neglect the duty of prayer, place themselves under the direction of a guide who is to lead them through dangerous and

intricate paths, in midnight darkness; and how can they avoid the most fatal mistakes, or be preserved from the most dangerous delusions!

The conclusion to be drawn from these remarks, will it is hoped, be deemed unquestionable; that though conscience may be deceived, yet it is not on that account to be deprived of its office, but rather to be instructed, strengthened, fortified and improved, so as to be duly fitted for functions, which no other faculty of the mind can possibly discharge.

CHAPTER X.

ON A DEFILED, A SEARED, AND A TORMENTING CONSCIENCE.

The progressive tendency of evil-from ignorance to defilement, from defilement to impenitence, from impenitence to wretchedness. A defiled conscience worse than a deceived one. It implies the indulgence of sinful lusts.-David's fall-he could judge correctly of the sins of others, while he remained blind to his own.-Felix trembled under the conviction of conscience, but preferred his sins to repentance evaded, rather than boldly resisted his internal monitor.— The transition from a polluted to a seared conscience, how effected. -Examples, Cain, Abel, Judas.-The insensibility of a seared conscience is not the absence of all feeling, but only of all right feeling on moral subjects.--Susceptibility of suffering rather increased than diminished.-Hence a seared conscience will become a tormenting one.-Former examples referred to, especially that of Judas.-Tiberius Cæsar.-Inferences respecting the agonies of an accusing conscience in a future state of existence.

IN describing conscience as liable to deception, we are yet far from having stated the full amount of that evil with which it is justly chargeable. Not only ignorance, and even sinful ignorance, spreads its torpor over the soul; but impurity reigns in that bosom which ought to be the temple of the living God, and harder than adamant is that heart