A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

"And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord
God." These latter words are spoken, not to persuade us that men can
hide themselves from God, but that Adam and those that are his by
nature will seek to do it, because they do not know him aright.
These words therefore further show us what a bitter thing sin is to
the soul; it is only for hiding-work, sometimes under its
fig-leaves, sometimes among the trees of the garden. O what a
shaking, starting, timorous evil conscience is a sinful, guilty
conscience: especially when it is but a little awakened, it could
run its head into every hole, first by one fancy, then by another;
for the power and goodness of a man's own righteousness cannot
withstand or answer the demands of the justice of God and his holy
law.

There is yet another witness for the condemning transgressors of
these laws, and that is conscience: "Their consciences also bearing
witness," says the apostle. Conscience is a thousand witnesses.
Conscience! it will cry amen to every word that the great God doth
speak against thee. Conscience is a terrible accuser; it will hold
pace with the witness of God, as to the truth of evidence, to a
hair's breadth. The witness of conscience, it is of great authority;
it commands guilt and fastens it on every soul which it accuses.
Conscience will thunder and lighten at the day of judgment; even the
consciences of the most pagan sinners in the world will have
sufficient wherewith to accuse, to condemn, and to make paleness
appear in their faces and breaking in their loins, by reason of the
force of its conviction. O the mire and dirt that a guilty