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another just and good Man; and wrung SERM. from him a Confeffion of what he felt, IV. by what he uttered on that Occafion. He said unto his Servants, This is John the Baptift! He is risen from the Dead! and therefore mighty Works do fhew forth themselves in him. There could not be a wilder Imagination than this, or which more betrayed the Agony and Confufion of Thought under which he laboured. He had often heard John the Baptift preach, and must have known that the Drift of all his Sermons was, to prepare the Jews for the Reception of a Prophet, mightier than him, and whose Shoes he was not worthy to bear. Upon the Arrival of that Prophet foon afterwards, Herod's frighted Confcience gives him no leisure to recollect what his Messenger had faid; but immediately suggests to him, That this was the murdered Baptift himself! Herod, as appears from History, was, though circumcifed, little better than an Heathen in his Principles, and Practices; or, if fincerely a Jew, was, at most, but of Vol. II.

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SER M. the Sect of the Sadducees, who faid, there IV. was no Refurrection; and yet, under the Mat. xxii. present Pangs and Terrors of his Guilt, he imagines that John was rifen from the Dead, on purpose to reprove him. It was the Baptift's diftinguishing CharaJoh x.41.&ter, that he did no Miracles, nor pretended to the Power of doing them; and yet even from hence the disturbed Mind of Herod concludes, that it must be he, because mighty Works did shew forth themselves in him. And fo great was his Confternation and Surprize, that it broke out before thofe, who fhould leaft have been Witnesses of it: For he whispers not his guilty Fears to a Bofom-Friend, to the Partner of his Crime and of his Bed; but forgets his high State and Character, and declares them to his very Servants. Surely nothing can be more just and apposite than the Allufion of the Prophet, in respect to this wicked Tetrarch, he is like the troubled Sea, when it cannot reft, whofe Waters caft up Mire and Dirt. And fuch is every one, that fins with an high

Hand, against the clear Light of his SERM. Confcience: Although he may refift IV. the Checks of it at firft, yet he will be fure to feel the Lafhes and Reproaches of it afterwards. The avenging Principle within us will certainly do its Duty, upon any eminent Breach of ours; and make every flagrant A&t of Wickedness, even in this Life a Punishment to its felf.

With this general Propofition, the particular Instance of the Text (duly opened and confidered) will furnish us; and this Propofition therefore I now purpose, by God's Bleffing, to handle and enforce; and, in Order to fix a due, lively and lasting Sense of it upon our Minds, I fhall, in what follows confider Confcience, not as a mere intellectual Light, or informing Faculty, a Dictate of the practical Understanding (as the Phrase of the Schools is) which directs, admonishes, and influences us, in what we are to do: But as it acts back upon the Soul, by a Reflection on what we have done; and is, by that means, the H 2

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SERM.Source and Cause of all that Joy, or IV. Dejection of Mind, of those internal Sensations (if I may so speak) of Pleafure or Pain, which attend the Practice of great Vertues or great Vices, and begin that Heaven and that Hell in us here, which will be our fure and eterProv. xx. nal Portion hereafter. The Spirit (or Confcience) of Man is the Candle of the Lord, which not only discovers to us, by its Light, wherein our Duty confifts; but revives alfo, and chears us with its bright Beams, when we do well; and, when we do ill, is as a burning Flame, to fcorch, and consume

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As fuch, I fhall confider it, in my present Discourse: Wherein,

I. I fhall endeavour to illuftrate this plain but weighty Truth (for indeed it needs Illuftration only, and not Proof) by fome Confiderations drawn from Scripture, Reason, and Experience.

II. I fhall account for a particular S E R M. and preffing Difficulty, that feems IV. to attend the Proof of it. And, III. Laftly, I fhall apply it to (the proper Object of All our Admonitions from the Pulpit, but most especially of this) the Hearts and Confciences of the Hearers.

I. I am to illustrate this Truth by some Confiderations drawn from Scripture, Reason, and Experience.

That Guilt and Anguish are infeparable, and that the Punishment of a Man's Sin begins always from himself, and from his own Reflections, is a Truth, every where fuppofed, appealed to and inculcated in Scripture. The Confequence of the firft Sin that was ever committed in the World is there faid to have been, that our offending Parents perceived their own Nakedness, and fled from the Prefence of God; that is, a conscious Shame and Fear fucceeded in the Room of loft Innocence; and the Prefages of their own Minds, H 3 those

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