"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
conscience, when it is forced to speak, will cast up and throw out
before the judgment-seat. It must out; none can speak peace nor
health to that man upon whom God has let loose his own conscience.
Cain will now cry, "My punishment is greater than I can bear;" Judas
will hang himself; and both Belshazzar and Felix will feel the
joints of their loins to be loosened, and their knees to smite one
against another, when conscience stirreth.
When conscience is once thoroughly awakened, as it shall be before
the judgment-seat, God will need say no more to the sinner than
Solomon said to filthy Shimei, "Thou knowest all the wickedness that
thy heart is privy to." As who should say, "Thy conscience knows,
and can well inform thee of all the evil and sin that thou art
guilty of." To all which it answers even as face answers a face in a
glass; or as an echo answers the man that speaks: as fast, I say, as
God chargeth, conscience will cry out, "Guilty, guilty, Lord; guilty
of all, of every whit; I remember clearly all the crimes thou layest
before me." Thus will conscience be a witness against the soul in
the day of God.