5:5-8: it makes the sinner's countenance to change, and his thoughts
one sin is a greater mercy than to win the whole world, Mat. 16:26;
and it is certain that he who does not outwardly reform, shall never
go to heaven, Job 22:23, 26. He who does not leave his sins, he can
never be happy here nor blessed hereafter. And yet it is possible for a
man, with Herod, to reform many things, and yet be a lost and
undone man forever, as he was, Mark 6:20. Judas was a very
reformed man, but he was never inwardly changed nor throughout
sanctified, Mat. 26:20-22; 1 Thes. 5:23. The scribes and Pharisees
were outwardly reformed, but they were not inwardly renewed. A
man may be another man than what once he was, and yet not be a
new man, a new creature.
When a sinner is sermon-sick, oh, then he will leave his sins; but
when that sickness is off, he returns with the dog to his vomit, and
with the sow to her wallowing in the mire, 2 Cor. 5:17; 2 Pet. 2:20,
22. Sometimes conscience is like the handwriting upon the wall, Dan.
5:5-8: it makes the sinner's countenance to change, and his thoughts
to be troubled, and the joints of his loins to be loosed, and his knees
to knock one against another. And now the sinner is all for
reforming, and turning over a new leaf; but when these agonies of
conscience are over, the sinner returns to his old courses again, and
oftentimes is twofold more a child of hell than before, Mat. 23:15.
There was a man in this city who was given up to the highest
wickednesses; on his sick-bed conscience made an arrest of him, and
he was filled with such amazing horror and terror, that he cried out
day and night that he was damned, he was damned, he was damned;