In many cases, I am afraid, it takes place so early in life, that the person can hardly be said to have ever known what the remonstrances and admonitions of conscience were. His conscience may be said to be dead born. He remembers not the time when he found any check concerning any action which he set himself to do. If there was any pleasure or gratification in view; if there was any thing to be got by the action; that was all he considered about it; its being right and its being wrong formed no part of his deliberation, nor was he put upon asking this question by any thing which he felt within him. This state of complete depravity is the effect of a totally neglected education, and of being at the same time thrown, when very young, amongst profligate examples.

Neither of these causes is sufficient to produce the effect by itself; but both causes, acting in conjunction, may produce it. If good principles have been early instilled by means of a virtuous, or any thing like a virtuous education, there will be some conscience left; there will be a conscience perceived, let the person so brought up fall into what society or amongst what examples he may. His conscience may not carry him safe through these dangers, may not have preserved him from vice and wickedness; that is a different question; but a conscience will be there, will be felt.

Again Let the education, that is, any precise and particular instruction, have been ever so much or so culpably neglected, yet let even that rude uninstructed mind come amongst examples of goodness, or even keep clear of dissolute and profligate examples, and conscience will be heard. Examples themselves are education; good and virtuous examples the best of all education; even innocent and harmless society will produce, or, however, suffer, the natural growth and production of conscience in minds the most ignorant. But when a mind, perfectly ignorant, uninstructed, and uneducated, falls at first nto debauched and profligate society, then it is possible that conscience may never spring up; its influence over the heart may never have a commencement. This cruel case can never happen but in the instance of parents who are wicked themselves, and undesignedly perhaps, but very effectually, communicate their wickedness betimes to their children, or in the instance of children deprived from the beginning of a parent's care, and not only so, but from the beginning also thrown into bad hands, and into bad society. It is of these instances we were speaking, when we said that there are many unhappy persons in the world, who never remember the time when they were

sensible of any feeling or compunction of conscience within them, of any distinction, indeed, between right and wrong.

But, secondly, I will now suppose a more general, and a more natural state; that of a conscience really formed in the breast, and in some degree at least, performing its office. This once living conscience may, by various means, be reduced back to a state of death and insensibility; nay, it often is so. Almost any course of sin will do it, as to that sin. Men always enter upon sinful courses under strong temptation; they may go on in them afterwards under less; but the temptation which first seduces them into vice is usually strong. There is a conscience at first repelling, remonstrating, rebuking; but then there is a violent temptation to be opposed. Conscience is overcome. It resists afterwards with less force, and is again overcome. Its remonstrances are now weaker; they are not heard; being heard, they are set aside. This takes place repeatedly and frequently, with a constant abatement and diminution of strength and force on the part of conscience. The sin, after this, is committed, and conscience is silent. This is the regular effect of any course of sin, as to that sin. Let any habitual sinner compare himself at one time with himself at another time; his former sensations, his remorse, his uneasiness, his scruples, his fears, when he first entered upon a course of sin, with his sensations, or rather, with his want of sensations, now that he has for some time been confirmed in it; let him make this comparison, and say whether the case be not with him as we have described it.

But the misfortune goes farther. Any course of sin whatever weakens the power of conscience, not only as to that sin, but as to all. Either the person reflects that it is to no purpose to guard against other sins, whilst he knowingly, constantly, and wilfully goes on in this; or else the principle itself of conscience, by being so often overpowered and beaten back in this instance, has lost its spring and energy in all instances. Almost all, even the greatest sinners, have begun with some particular vice. The first encroachment upon innocence and upon conscience, was made by some single species of offence to which they were tempted; but the rottenness spread. A general and complete depravity of character may grow, and often does grow, out of one species of transgression; because conscience, which has been put to silence, not by one or two oppositions, but by a course of opposition to its remonstrances, ceases to execute its office within that man's breast; so that a conscience which was once alive may be reduced to a state of death and insensibility.

There are passages of scripture which expressly relate to this state, and to a recovery and restoration from it, and which ought therefore to be remembered; and in the first place our text, and what follows it; And you hath he quickened, who were DEAD in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience; among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.' Eph. ii. 1. And the same idea is repeated, Col. iii. 3.

There is also another remarkable text in the same epistle, v. 14, which has relation to the same subject; 'Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' The place in which this text is found, and the subject concerning which St Paul is in that place discoursing, show sufficiently that the sleep here meant was the sleep of the conscience. Awake thou that sleepest; rouse thyself from that state of moral and religious insensibility in which thou liest; arise from the dead, from being dead in sin and trespasses; so deeply sunk in evil courses as to have become altogether without perception or consciousness of their guilt or danger, which is being dead in this respect.

Speaking of a particular case in his epistle to Timothy, St Paul saith,' She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth;' that is to say, is going on without taking heed to that living principle of conscience which forms our spiritual life. This is very true; and it is more general than St Paul bere has occasion to state it. He that liveth in pleasure, engrossed and taken up with the thoughts and pursuits of pleasure, is dead whilst he liveth; has no time, no inclination, no disposition for listening to any dictates of religion or of conscience. With respect to these, therefore, he is dead; his conscience is dead within him; his neglected, opposed, unavailing, rejected conscience, speaks no more; no more renews efforts which have now been long and totally disregarded. It is silent, and it is the silence of death.

Now this is a state of the soul, which of all others, perhaps, most requires the assistance of God's holy spirit. This, in some measure, is intimated by the very term, and metaphor, and comparison which are made use of; that of death. A dead man

cannot raise himself to life again; it must be by an energy from without; by the help and power of some other than himself, that life is recovered, if it be recovered at all. In like manner, the voluntary powers, without being aided and strengthened by the holy influence of God's spirit, may be entirely unable to restore a dead conscience to its office in the human breast.

What is intimated by the language and manner of speaking on the subject in scripture, is confirmed by our own consciousness, and by our experience. Nothing is so hard to be accomplished as reformation; nothing so difficult as to change the heart; nothing in this world so arduous as to rouse a dead and sleeping conscience, to bring back lost principles, to rectify depraved affections, to break vicious habits; more especially, vicious habits of mind and thought. Vicious habits of action, though difficult, are more easy to be managed than vicious habits of mind and thought. In proportion to the difficulty is the necessity for help. In proportion to the difficulty, must we have recourse to His all powerful help, with whom all things are possible, all things are easy. 'Who then shall be saved?' was the apostle's question. With God all things are possible,' was our Lord's answer.

What then is the practical use of these reflections? What are the fit sentiments to entertain, the fit conduct to pursue?

We know that conscience may be silent and dead. Is it silent and dead in us? We know that it may be so weak and feeble, that in point of fact, it does not govern our lives at all. Is this our case? If it be, we have a great work to go through, before we can be in a state to form any reasonable hopes of salvation; namely, the restoring conscience to its office and its energy. The first thing to be done towards it, is to sue earnestly for the help of God Almighty's spirit; that is the first thing. Our prayers obtaining, and our endeavours sincerely cooperating with that help, will carry us through the work; nothing else will.

Secondly, when we find the whisperings of conscience renewed; when we find sensations of religion, after a long absence and forgetfulness, returning; when we find spiritual emotions, unfound and unfelt before, or, if formerly felt, long disused; when we find the quickening and stirring of good principles and good thoughts within us, then may we be assured that the work is begun. We may then take comfort; we have much cause for rejoicing; we are in the hands of God; we experience the first sign, at least, of a renewed, regenerated soul. It is our business to rejoice in it, to cherish it most carefully.

The first sign, I said; but it must still depend upon ourselves. From what we perceive, we have good reason to hope that power is given us from above, if we will use it. Whilst we were without all thought, all concern, all fear, all anxiety about our religious state, we were in the worst of all possible conditions; we were in the condition which the scripture calls being dead in sin. That is not our condition now. We trust that we are quickened, that we are raised again to a spiritual life by the operation of God's spirit.

But what is the duty belonging to this situation, supposing us to be right in our judgment? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do.' This is the text for us to meditate deeply upon; this text describes our duty. St Paul, who wrote it, so far from thinking that any promise, any assurance, any perception of the assistance of God's spirit, was a reason for negligence, remissness, want of firmness, and care and perseverance on our part, makes it the very ground of his exhortation to exert ourselves to the uttermost. We are not only to work, but to work out, that is, to persist to the end in working, our salvation; and why? why particularly? Even because it is God that worketh in us.' For this is the argument; spare no efforts, no endeavours on your part, that you may not lose, that you may not forfeit, that you may not miss of the incalculable benefit of that spiritual succor which God in his mercy is now vouchsafing unto you; of that regeneration which is now beginning.