shall men be known." Thus, in a measure, may conscience be beguiled out of its inward watching place, to be content to look only at the outside.

Another observation is, that when conscience is seriously alarmed,-it may be quieted by delusive applications. There are painful emotions of guilt; the dreadful sound of the maledictions of the divine law; dread of the righteous inflictions of the Almighty. Oh, that faithful truth, and an invincible power of impression, might come on conscience at such a time!-But how often all this is rendered in vain!—And thus; "there will be time enough yet for repentance, reformation, and final escape." Or, sometimes, sophistical reasonings to invalidate every formidable idea of the divine justice. Sometimes these alarms are calmed and frustrated by treacherous presumptions as to the way of propitiating the Divine Justice; men may reconcile God by repentance ("I have only to be sorry and all will be set right"); satisfy his demands by a reformed conduct; secure final safety by a careful obedience, instead of a humble recourse exclusively to the all-sufficient work of the Redeemer. This last is a deadly treachery practised on conscience, for it is quieting its alarms exactly by inducing it to abjure that very law which is its appointed standard, and of which it is its very office to be the representative and sanction.

We have spoken of alarms of conscience; but another melancholy fact respecting conscience is, that it can be reduced to a state of habitual insensibility. There are men in the full vigour of life and activity, body and soul, in whom this sense is in a deep sleep, like death. If this appear desirable, it may be attained!-By means of,—a practice of tampering and equivocating with it; by a careful avoidance of all that might alarm it; continual neglect of its admonitions; a determined resistance and

repression; and habits of sin. The result of this will be a deep torpor and stupefaction of the conscience, so that the whole system that should be under its cognizance is left fatally free; a thousand things that ought to excite it, pass, and it hears not, sees not: the man might go into its retired apartment, and look upon it as an enemy dead! Think of his advantage and triumph, in looking at other men who are troubled by a wakeful, interfering conscience! But does this dead stillness of conscience appear an awful situation? Why does it so?-Because we foresee that it will awake! and with an intensity of life and power proportioned to this long sleep, as if it had been growing gigantic during its slumber. It will rise up with all that superiority of vigour with which the body will rise at the resurrection. It will awake!—probably in the last hours of life. But if not, it will nevertheless awake!-In the other world there is something which will certainly awake it,—at the last day!—If a man feels it going to slumber, he should just listen to it while it warns him that it will awake! Its last emotions that disturb him he should interpret as such a prediction. And let him consider that during its slumber, there will have been the more rapid accumulation of what it is to take account of.

We close with a word or two respecting the right treatment of conscience. It should be regarded with deep respect,-even its least intimations should be attended tonot slighted as scrupulous impertinences-blown away, &c. -We should diligently aim at a true judgment of things, because our judgment is the rule by which conscience will proceed. There must be much reflection, in the proper sense of the word, and retirement. We should recollect always that, on the whole, the most judicial conscience is less rigid and comprehensive than the divine law; less so than the judgment of God." If our heart condemn us,

184

THE USES AND PERVERSIONS OF CONSCIENCE.

God is greater than our heart." Therefore, in consulting conscience, we should endeavour to realize to ourselves the Divine presence. We should seek and implore, that our consciences may ever be in the Divine keeping rather than

our own.

Finally, as we often speak of improvements in the Christian life, improvements indispensable as evidence that any real progress is made,—be it remembered, that one of them is, an improvement in the discerning sensibility, and extent of jurisdiction of conscience. And, if this very improvement will have its evils,—as involving an increase of solicitudes, pains, penitential emotions, so much the more desirable will appear that better world where there is no possibility of sin, where the continued improvement of spiritual perception will be a continually augmented exquisiteness of the felicity.

October 28, 1822.

LECTURE XVIII.

THE HISTORY OF JONAH.

JONAH i.-iv.

"Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish," &c.

But

A PART of the history of the prophet Jonah has just been read. It should, surely, be very possible to raise from this narrative a few observations tending to instruction, while adapted, also, to introduce some variety into the course of our religious exercises and subjects. And the rather would we do this, from the consideration, that this piece of sacred history has been, to irreligious men of wit, and of no wit, a favourite resource for malicious jests and profane amusement. Nor are we the less disposed to do this from having observed, that some pretended Divines have betrayed something very like a feeling of being half-sorry and half-ashamed that there is such a history in the Bible; men who are anxious to be able to account for every strange thing by a natural cause, and terrified at the spectacle of a prodigious miracle ;-who would say, "Yes, we believe in miracles; we build upon them; but there are some things so startling, so very far from the natural course of things, that we almost wish we were not required to believe them.”

Jonah is justly no great favourite with us, though conspicuously a prophet of the Lord. Hardly one prophet's name is pronounced with so little respect. We should have been ready to presume, that the persons whom the

His

Almighty would have chosen for prophets, should have been men of the most eminent piety and excellence. And in fact, this does appear to have been the general rule. But there are recorded exceptions-such as Balaam, and the prophet who deceived the other prophet whom a lion destroyed, (1 Kings xiii.) Jonah is not an exception in the same degree. He was a real saint, with too much of the remaining elements of a sinner. In a former part of the Old Testament he is spoken of in terms which would not have applied to a man who had not somewhat of the true spirit in him; ("according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet," 2 Kings xiv. 25.) His first commission was to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, an immense city, and therefore a wicked one. conduct on receiving the commission does appear very strange. But for the mention of his having acted as a prophet before, we should have concluded that this must be the first time, and that he was surprised and amazed, as by some alarming and calamitous visitation. But the vocation was not new to him; he felt therefore no affright as at a portentous novelty. We might have attributed terror of another kind-the dread of attacking, singly, a great wicked city, like leaping into a gulf of destruction. Even in that case, however, was there less to be dreaded from disobeying God? We are reduced at last to accept, unwillingly, his own explanation, given in the beginning of ch. iv. "I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil;" which seems to amount to this,—he felt in danger of being disgraced as a prophet, the denunciation being to be uttered in positive, not conditional, terms.