SERMON LIV.

THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE.

MARK, vi. 16.

"But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John whom I beheaded, he is risen from the dead."

IN tracing the windings of the human heart as well in the vicious as in the virtuous, we shall always find much to instruct, and much to astonish. The history of men is a school, in which these two maxims are ever illustrated and defended, that man is a moral being, and that devotion to God is the only way to peace and joy. Oft in this school we may learn to acknowledge an invisible providence governing the world, and to adore in the issue of events the principle of his administration. Come, then, ye friends to virtue, give me your attention. What I have to say will strengthen your attachment to her cause. Come, too, ye companions of vice and folly—it will show the anguish which awaits those who travel in their paths.

The Baptist dead, Christ, whose forerunner he was, came forward more publicly, and avowedly as the Messiah. His stupendous credentials he produced in Judea-works to attest his office and authority. The lame are made to leap, the deaf to hear, the blind receive their sight and the tongue of the dumb is loosed, the sick are healed, and the dead are raised. At such tokens of divine power the multitude were amazed. Conjecture moved upon her busy wing. What manner of man is

every one inquired. His incontrovertible miracles gained

him at once the character of a messenger from heaven-some thought he was Elias-others that he was a great prophet. After awhile, (for the worldly great are not the first to listen to the tidings of religion,) after awhile, Herod heard his fame, and what, think you, was his opinion? John, the murdered John, rose in his mind. He had come for vengeance. Already in the mighty works he seemed to the guilty king to be approaching his palace. "When Herod heard thereof, he said, it is John whom I beheaded; he is risen from the dead." Dreadful, distracting thoughts of a guilty mind! But Herod, what was there to suggest this thought to thy heart? In the character and works of Christ there was nothing like the Baptist. Nay, if there had been, why does thy face turn pale, and thy knee tremble when thou, a Sadducee, dost not believe a resurrection! See here, my friends, the power of conscience, and the manner in which it goads the wicked, beginning their hell in their own bosoms.

There is a principle implanted in every human breast, styled by Solomon, "the candle of the Lord." This principle in every one, comparing his own actions or intentions with the law of God, either natural or revealed, pronounces them right or wrong. Its decision, when the comparison is made, is absolute. It is accompanied with pain or pleasure as it approves or blames; and if unheard, because of the turbulence of passions and lusts, is reserved to be enforced in the moments of reflection. In pure bosoms, unaccustomed to wilful vice, its voice may be heard distinctly. There, true as the needle to its pole, it flies abhorrent from vice, and points to truth. In them its guidance is unequivocal; it reproves with friendly monition the slightest deviation from right, and, in difficult cases, is the best casuist. But in the hardened sinner, this friendly monitor becomes a severe judge; her voice is often stifled, or the voice of some seductive passion mistaken for it. In the riot of the heart, when lust, and vanity, and folly have their heyday, it silent marks each act, and notes it deep in memory's tablet, though seeming to sleep. When the delusion is over, in the

sorrows.

moments when the mind left alone thinks of itself, the providence of God, by some strange event awakens consideration ; conscience speaks, terrible as the winds, which having gathered strength in an awful calm, bring on the hurricane with all its It sets before the man his crimes in all their blackness, and dooms him to endure a scourge of scorpions. Imagination, appalled at its judgment, sees foes in the clouds, hears vengeance in the winds, and converts everything into cause of fear. The sound of the harp and viol, and the voice of melody cannot compose the haunted mind to peace. The festive board, the mirthful circle, and all the apparatus of hilarity serve only to perplex the darkened heart. The sinner, oppressed with his burden, is sometimes impelled to disclose his guilt for relief, or else, while the wounds of conscience gnaw upon his vitals, he fears where no fear is, and has that which makes a hell of hell in his own bosom. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth," the sound of a shaken leaf chaseth him; he is "like a troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt."

For evidence of this conscience in man, and of its dreadful resentments on the guilty, I might point you to the first transgressor, trembling at the sound of that voice which, before guilt, was the harbinger of pleasure, and seeking to hide himself among the trees of the garden from his God, whose presence was once delightful. I might point to Felix, the haughty yet profligate Felix, trembling at St. Paul's discourse upon those topics which are calculated to fill the virtuous bosom with joy. But the scene which the text opens before us is incomparably strong; it needs no addition. In Herod, as we here see him, we behold the reality of conscience, and its tormenting power upon the guilty. We behold in him the reality of its existence. Let those who doubt of conscience, tell us why Herod said, "It is John, whom I beheaded." It was the most. improbable supposition he could have made. John did no miracles. John's life was austere, and he had warned his hearers of a mighty character to come after him. It was the Sav

iour's works that spread his fame; his life was liberal, and there was no one thing in his deportment to have originated the suspicion of Herod. It is true the doctrine of the transmigration was at that time received by some few of the most ignorant of the people. But Christ was born and a man grown, before the Baptist suffered death, and, therefore, this doctrine could not have caused the king's thoughts, had he been one of its believers. He, however, was most probably of the sect which said "there was no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit;" and we must believe that natural apprehension of a retribution, as is often the case, surprised the infidel, making him fear what he disbelieved. His own heart accused him of having violated the laws of rectitude. Conscience had sounded in his ears that he had murdered an innocent man, that the pretences under which he had cloaked his crime were false, and that the blood of the prophet would cry to heaven for vengeance.

When the fame of Christ reached him, this conscience set all its terrors loose upon the king. And can any situation be more dreadful? What misery can be greater than that with which conscience repays the guilty? The murdered man is in all his thoughts; every tiding of the works of the gracious Saviour fills him with dismay: "It is John, he is risen." Herodias, she can only aggravate his terrors. His flatterers, they can only witness his destruction. He sees, he hears, he thinks of nothing but the Baptist's ghost, come from the grave to avenge his blood. Oh, dreadful anguish of a guilty mind! He himself now feels his wretchedness. Gladly, I am persuaded, he would give his kingdom to recal his former conduct; but it is too late. The evangelist closes this affecting drama by leaving him a prey to distracting apprehensions. And who, as the cur tain falls, does not hear the weighty truth his life has displayed and his misery now utters, "There is no peace to the wicked?”

As unconnected with his purpose, the evangelist does not tell us of the fate of this iniquitous king and his associate. But you would, doubtless, like to know how lives of so much

wickedness terminated. I the more readily give it you from a profane historian, because there seemed even a temporal retribution in their fates. The daughter of Herodias was taken away by a shocking and unnatural death. Herod, by discarding his first wife for his brother's, was involved in a war with her father, a mighty prince, in which he was defeated, with loss of wealth, of friends, and honour. As if destined to be his ruin, the mad, ambitious Herodias instigated Herod to take a ridiculous journey to Rome, and request of the emperor the title and power which she beheld with, unnatural jealousy an own brother enjoying. The characters and crimes of the vicious will eventually obtain publicity. The knowledge of the scandalous lives of these two persons had reached the emperor. Instead of returning from Rome, they were deprived of their authority, and banished destitute to Lyons, where, needing the mercy they had refused, and mutually aggravating each other's remorse, they lived inglorious, and died miserable.

Thus, we have completed our attention to this very instructive portion of the gospel history. Let us remember, that the end of all preaching is the improvement of the hearers. Have we seen, that terrible is the anguish with which awakened conscience distracts a guilty mind? Oh, let us by tenderness and respect to this monitor preserve it our friend; and if we have wounded it, make our peace by repentance, before the fame and wonders of Christ's second coming fill us with dismay. However it may now sleep, conscience at that awful period will awake. Before every man it will unfold his guilt. If it have been washed with repentance in the fountain set open by Christ, though his sins were as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. But if, like Herod, immersed in the pomps, the pleasures, and the vanities of life, our vices sit easy upon us, and we neglect to repent of our sins, the tidings of our Judge will overtake us with terrors, and conscience in our bosoms, sharpening remorse, and spreading fear, will be terrible as the "worm which dieth not," and the "fire which is not quenched."