cognised as a memorial in man of the being of God, and an indication of his supremacy, and of his moral attributes, and of his offended justice; and also of our own state of condemnation before him.

But this is not all. Conscience represents man not only as criminal but as fallen: that is, not only as guilty in individual cases, but as prone to vice by nature or disposition. I ask you, and if I were speaking to an assembly of martyrs and confessors, I should ask the same, Whether there is not, in your self-gratulation arising from the performance of a good deed, a feeling of triumph, of successful enterprize, which can arise only from the perception of an opposition within you, against what is excellent; giving something of the character of conquest to every good action? Or, if there are some whose conscience has become too nearly obliterated, to afford the grounds of any such reasoning from their present feelings, them I would refer to the days of their childhood and greater moral susceptibility; I would bid them remember what they have felt, when once and again they have experienced the delight of doing a kind or good action at the expense of some self-gratification; or when, perhaps, they have incurred punishment rather than forfeit their integrity; or even when they have purchased, with less self-denial or moral courage, the delight of luxuriating in the sense of goodness, of honour, of benevolence, of justice. Whatever there may be now, was there not then a contest of something evil, against the plain, imperative demands of the mo

God within us; for then we should expect it to harmonize with the acknowledged dealings of God with men, or with such dealings as would be worthy of the Most High. And we know that God does, and we can understand the principle on which he does, leave the worship and remembrance of him, and obedience to him, so far free at least, as that it shall not be forcibly exacted by a constant perception of his presence and power; retaining, however, a medium of communication open, and reminding us, by a mysterious agency, from time to time, of his claims upon us, and of the sanctions by which they are enforced. And this method of God's dealing with us we can understand to be best adapted to our state of probation, and most worthy of his sovereign but mysterious rule.

But conscience has not answered its full purpose, until it has told us more than of the being of God; it has also to tell us of his moral attributes, of our relation to him as our supreme governor, and of our condition in that relative situation. For, if conscience itself cannot be accounted for without referring it to God, neither can its moral verdicts be accounted for without referring them to the moral attributes of God, and to our duty to him; and its terrors cannot be accounted for without referring them to our breach of duty and allegiance, to the offended majesty of the Most High, and to our consequent liability to punishment. Conscience, then, unless by some other means we can account for its voice, and for the particular tone of its dictates, must be re

cognised as a memorial in man of the being of God, and an indication of his supremacy, and of his moral attributes, and of his offended justice; and also of our own state of condemnation before him.

But this is not all. Conscience represents man not only as criminal but as fallen: that is, not only as guilty in individual cases, but as prone to vice by nature or disposition. I ask you, and if I were speaking to an assembly of martyrs and confessors, I should ask the same, Whether there is not, in your self-gratulation arising from the performance of a good deed, a feeling of triumph, of successful enterprize, which can arise only from the perception of an opposition within you, against what is excellent; giving something of the character of conquest to every good action? Or, if there are some whose conscience has become too nearly obliterated, to afford the grounds of any such reasoning from their present feelings, them I would refer to the days of their childhood and greater moral susceptibility; I would bid them remember what they have felt, when once and again they have experienced the delight of doing a kind or good action at the expense of some self-gratification; or when, perhaps, they have incurred punishment rather than forfeit their integrity; or even when they have purchased, with less self-denial or moral courage, the delight of luxuriating in the sense of goodness, of honour, of benevolence, of justice. Whatever there may be now, was there not then a contest of something evil, against the plain, imperative demands of the mo

ral sense? Or, at least, was there not a character in the approval of conscience, which can be accounted for on no other supposition? Now, all this, although we have not taken our stand before a dark part of the picture, tells us of a nature far gone from righteousness; a nature in which a spirit of evil works against the dictates of God. And we must be aware, on a review of the whole matter, that we are not such as to be rewarded according to the principles of natural religion, and of abstract justice.

Yet there is a natural and irrepressible conviction in our minds (or if we are less ready to listen to the suasions of hope than to the bodings of despair, there is in Natural Theology sufficient proof) that God is a merciful God, "who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live." And, corresponding with this notion of God, there is an instinctive desire of the human soul for some other and better joys than this world affords, -for an immortality and an eternity of such happiness and moral perfection as is worthy to be called life: nay, we are not without even an implanted appetency of union with the Deity. But if these feelings are instinctive, they must be divinely implanted; and if they be divinely implanted, they must respect some real object,—an object which shall not for ever and from all men be withheld; for "it is an axiom

* HOOKER (Ecc. Pol. I. 11.) has ascribed to man this desire of union with God, on precisely such grounds of metaphysical reasoning as might have found a place in this sermon.

of Nature, that natural desire cannot utterly be frustrate."

On the one hand, then, conscience tells us that we are criminal and fallen; on the other hand, we have intimations which we need not hush, and aspirations which we cannot repress, after a state not lower and worse, but higher and better, than that in which we dwell. But it is self-evident that we cannot attain to such a state, without becoming, morally speaking, other than we are; without some means by which our guilt may be remitted, and our original purity and uprightness restored.

But, from the dictates of natural religion alone, it is not possible to gather any intimation of such a mean of elevation to eternal life. To revelation, then, we must look for the clearing up of the great mystery of evil and of good and of a revelation all that we can require is, that it shall be consistent with those previous truths on which it is to be superinduced; for that it should absolutely spring out of them would be to make it a part of natural religion, discoverable by man, and therefore no more needing to be revealed than any mathematical truth which is deducible by due degrees from axioms and adequate definitions.

Now in that revelation which we have received in Jesus Christ, we find all these truths of natural religion duly recognised, or rather loudly proclaimed; and all of mystery entirely consistent with them, and with other dictates of right reason. We find man's

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