Conscience Like the Eye or the Stomach

“The least dust, if if get into the eye, will pai7i it; so will conscience at first smite us for lesser failings and excesses; but afterwards wheit you make bold with it, it is like the stomach of the ostrich, which digesteth iron; or like a part or member of the body which is seared with a hot iro?t, it hath no feeling, (i Tim. iv. 2); or, like freezing water, which at fij-st will not bear a pin, but afterwards it freezeth, and freezeth, till it bear a cayt-load. Some men lose their tender sense of si7i by frequency of If our offending against right did us no worse turn than this it would be bad enough, for to lose sensitiveness of conscience is to lose the excellence of our being. What is the eye worth when it can no longer feel pain, or the hand when its touch is gone, or the head when sensation has departed? As well take away from the goldsmith all his tests as from man his conscience. What is the use of a watchman who is in a dead sleep? How far any one of us may be proceeding in this direction it will be prudent for us to know at once, that by repentance we may arrest the process, and by faith may put ourselves into the hands of the Lord Jesus, that he may give back to us the heart of flesh. Let us entreat the Holy Spirit to continue his softening operations even to the end. “Sin has been hammering my heart Unto a hardness void of love: Let suppling grace to cross its art Drop from above.”