Conscience is a most important part of our inward man, and pla}Ts a most prominent part in our spiritual history. It cannot save us. It never yet led any one to Christ. It is blind, and liable to be misled. It is lame and powerless, and cannot guide us to heaven. Yet conscience is not to be despised. It is 'the minister's best friend, when he stands up to rebuke sin from the pulpit. It is the mother's best friend, when she tries to restrain her children from evil and quicken them to good. It is the teacher's best friend, when he presses home on bo}rs and girls their moral duties. Happy is he who never stifles his conscience, but strives to keep it tender ! Still happier is he who prays to have it enlightened by the Holy Ghost, and sprinkled with Christ's blood.
We learn, for another thing, the nature of true repentance. When our Lord had said to the sinful woman, "Neither do I condemn thee," He dismissed her with the solemn words, " go and sin no more." He did not merely say, " go home and repent." He pointed out the chief thing which her case required, — the necessity of immediate breaking off from her sin.
Let us never forget this lesson. It is the very essence of genuine repentance, as the Church catechism well teaches, to " forsake sin." That repentance which consists in nothing more than feeling, talking^ professing, wishing, meaning, hoping, and resolving, is worthless in God's sight. Action is the very life of "repentance unto salva- tion not to be repented of." Till a man ceases to do evil and turns from his sins, he does not really repent. — Would we know whether we are truly converted to God, and know anything of godly sorrow for sin, and repentance such as causes " joy in heaven"? Let us search and see whether we forsake sin. Let us not rest till ive can say as in God's sight, " I hate all sin, and desire to sin no more."