strengthen the things which remain and are ready to die :" think it, I say, a great and blessed thing, that God allows you, by even so much watchfulness, to keep and strengthen that little hold you have of him; do not give up: do not say, It is no use.

If you were a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock, you would not say, the hold you had of the rock was of no use to you; you would not let it go on purpose, because you had often slipped back before. No, you would cleave to the one remaining chance; you would exert yourself, every limb, to climb a little higher; you would know and feel that this one chance made all the difference to you, and that you could not be too thankful for it. When shall we learn something like this true sense of things, in matters which concern our everlasting life? When shall we begin to understand and lay it to heart, not merely to say over and over, that God is within us, that it is his voice, which we hear inwardly checking us in our sins: and that where his voice and word is, there is he ready and willing to save, even to the uttermost, those who have seemed to go nearest to throw themselves away? When shall we understand that it never can be altogether in vain to obey the misgivings of conscience? that it will by God's mercy lessen punishment, even though it come too late to ripen into perfect repentance?

Wherefore, endeavoring by God's grace to guard ourselves against all these abuses of his mercy; neither to be content with ourselves, because we are uncomfortable in our sins, nor to fall back in despair, because we have so often fallen back: let us, by the help of God's Holy Spirit, set ourselves these good rules, which will enable us to make the right use of his awful and glorious presence in our very hearts.

First, let us make it a strict law to ourselves, to notice the misgivings of our conscience; not to let them pass by as in a dream, as if they meant nothing, as if they were no more than the flashings which come before the eye, when we close it very hard, and try as it were to gaze on darkness. Yet even in such cases, the images

which we see are real, they are the remembrance of things which have actually passed before our eyes; and so when our own hearts smite us, no doubt it is a true and real thing, a touch as it were from the hand of him, in whose hands we are, body and soul. Let us notice and attend to it accordingly, not in a kind of distempered passionate way, simply to torment ourselves with it, like dumb creatures when they are in pain, but like reasonable beings, who are able by such throbs of pain to guess what this sickness is, and what they must do to be healed.

And to this end it will do us good not only to notice the misgivings of our conscience at the time, but also to recall them, put them together, compare one day's report of them with another's; just as physicians and nurses watch a disease; and to make out as we may our chief dangers, and what God would have us to do. Thus, if your own heart reprove you at any time for being too soon angry, you will do well to remember it, not only for a little while after, but to recall it in your prayers at night, and again also the next morning: if the same thing happen the next day then put both together, and try to have a double repentance, to pray to Almighty God twice as earnestly, to watch yourself twice as attentively, to punish yourself twice as severely.

This, if any, one may believe, must be the way to make the devil leave off tempting you, when he finds that his very temptations only make you the more obedient Christian; more humble, more wary, more afraid of your favorite sin, more distrustful of yourself, more diligent in seeking God's grace, more regular in prayer and in receiving the holy communion. And we must needs imagine, great must be the peace, and blessed even on earth the condition, of that soul which the devil has left off tempting, because he found it resolute in keeping God's commandments. Is it not worth all the care, and pains, and self-denial, if we can bring ourselves at last to anything so happy as this?

And the ready way so to do is, to train ourselves regularly, as children are trained, when we want to

teach them some hard lesson, or break them of some favorite ill custom. Must we not first watch them, and see what their weak points are, and bear those weak points in mind, and contrive perpetually guards and cautions against them? So must we do with ourselves: when our attention is called, by any pang of conscience, to some wrong disposition of our own, we must look to it, not once nor twice, but continually we must make a rule of so doing, and then we must, from time to time, put together the several hints and notices concerning ourselves, which providence so gives us. And thus we shall come to know ourselves so well, as to be quite certain, and actually to feel in our hearts, that we cannot stand a moment without some far better strength than our own: which truth, as things now are, we are for ever acknowledging in words, but the more we talk of it, the less, too often, do some of us appear practically to bear it about with them.

For indeed this truth, the need of God's continual help, is of all truths most certain to degenerate into mere words, unless it be really acted on; that is, unless those who acknowledge it really take care to behave as persons who hope God is with them, and would not for the world forfeit his aid. It follows, that in order to deal wisely with ourselves, and not to throw away God's gracious warning, we must not only notice them at the time, and put them together, and use them as means to know ourselves by; but chiefly and above all, we must practically obey them: doing things and leaving them undone, as our conscience warns us at the time.

And let us use ourselves to take very slight warnings; for they are not the less real, they are not the less from God, because they touch us but softly and gently. It is not only the thunder which comes from him, and the mighty rushing wind, but also the still small voice.

More particularly is it necessary for those who are beginning to repent, to force themselves to attend to the very faintest scruples which they really feel within them; for their hearts and minds are in some measure

seared, by the evil or careless ways in which they have been living, and it may be that a great transgression, in their case, may awaken but a very slight feeling of remorse. They are like persons set to watch, who know that their hearing is imperfect, and who, therefore, ought the more wakefully to listen after the slightest sound. A man who has been used to take liberties with the property of others: his master's, his employer's, his neighbor's, or any one else; to take things without leave; to manage a bargain too much for his own advantage :-such persons as these, it is likely, will find their consciences but very slightly galled by any single act of that kind; but they ought to account it God's warning just the same; and if they humbly and steadily set themselves to obey it, and really turn from the sin once, there is good hope that the second time the hint from above may be more distinct, and their feeling of their duty keener; and the third time still more; and and so in course of years, perhaps of months, God may give them such grace, as to feel a real horror and loathing of things, which at first they could hardly understand to be wrong.

It is just the same in leaving undone what the will of God is that we should do. In going to church, for instance, who does not see how different one man's conscience is from another's? One man is vexed, and blames himself, if a single Sunday pass without his coming here; another is quite at his ease if he come when it is fine weather; one or two perhaps may be found so truly convinced of Christ's presence here, that they are more or less disquieted, if the bell ever call them to church without their answering it: others, on the contrary, feel no particular remorse, though months, and half-years pass away, and they continue absent. Well, it is a sad thing that any should be so unfeeling as these last; but at least, at whatsoever point they do begin to feel a little, let them pay regard to their own feeling. If the voice within do but slightly whisper, on a Sunday morning, "You ought to go," do not let it pass; do not turn away from it; let no call of pleasure,

however loud, drown that low but grave admonition : for depend upon it, it is from above, and no one can say what infinite consequences, whether for good or for evil, may arise from your obeying or stifling it.

And it is just the same with all other duties, which any one of us has hitherto unfortunately neglected. Let us be quite sure that on such things, when our own heart does begin to break silence, a very moderate condemnation from it may be taken as an earnest of a very severe one from God: and that the only chance we have of ever really conforming our wills to his in those matters, and so becoming fit for his everlasting mercy, is steadily obeying that first slight whisper, and the next to it, and the next; till the stony heart by degrees be taken away, and he have given us a heart of flesh.

Observe, I have been speaking throughout of those cases, in which our conscience calls to us, however gently, yet distinctly cases in which we have no real doubt what the Holy Spirit would have us do. There may be such a thing as a doubting conscience, when a person's mind misgives him, that on some accounts he is wrong, in doing or not doing so and so, yet he cannot quite settle the matter, putting it ever so fairly to himself. How are we to act in such a case? Surely we must look and see on which side is most humility, most real self-denial: and if we take our part on that side, we can hardly be very wrong. Thus, when there is authority on one side, the authority of the church, or the king, or our parents, and only some fancy of our own on the other, there humility tells us plainly on which side she will be found. Again, if in all other respects a matter seem fairly balanced, between doing a thing and not doing it, it is a good rule of Christian discipline to take that side which is least pleasant to you; dealing rather rudely with your natural self, and bringing it by all means into subjection. It is safer and better on the whole to decline some enjoyments which might perhaps be taken innocently, than to venture too near those which, when they are conceived, bring forth sin, and when they are finished bring forth death. VOL. II.-27