rable state,--we are
blind to the highest and truest glories, and dead to the most lively
and wonderful of all pleasures;--and no one can describe them to us.
None other than God the Holy Spirit can help us in this matter, by
enlightening and changing our hearts. So it is; and yet I will say one
thing, by way of suggesting to you how great and piercing the joys of
religion are. Think of this. Is there any one who does not know how
very painful the feeling of a bad conscience is? Do not you recollect,
my Brethren, some time or other, having done something you knew to be
wrong? and do you not remember afterwards what a piercing bitter
feeling came on you? Is not the feeling of a bad conscience different
from any other feeling, and more distressing than any other, till we
have accustomed ourselves to it? Persons do accustom themselves and
lose this feeling; but till we blunt our conscience, it is very
painful. And why? It is the feeling of God's displeasure, and
therefore it is so painful. Consider then: if God's displeasure is so
distressing to us, must not God's approval and favour be just the
reverse; like life from the dead, most exceedingly joyful and
transporting? And this is what it is to be holy and religious. It is
to have God's favour. And, as it is a great misery to be under God's
wrath, so it is a great and wonderful joy to be in God's favour, and
those who know what a misery the former is, may fancy, though they do
not know, how high a blessing the latter is. From what you know, then,
judge of what you do not know. From the miseries of guilt, which,
alas! you have experienced, conjecture the blessedness of holiness and
purity which you have not experienced. From the pain of a bad
conscience, believe in the unspeakable joy and gladness of a good
conscience.

I have been addressing those who do not know what religious peace and
Divine pleasures are, but there are those present, I hope, who in a
measure are not strangers to them. I know that none of us gain all the
pleasure from God's service which it might afford us; still some of us,
I hope, gain some pleasure. I hope there are some of those who hear
me, who take a pleasure in coming to Church, in saying their prayers,
in thinking of God, in singing Psalms, in blessing Him for the mercies
of the Gospel, and in celebrating Christ's death and resurrection, as
at this season of the year[12]. These persons have "tasted" and tried.
I trust they fi