excuse._ It is by the inconsistencies of professing Christians that such persons endeavour to shield themselves from censure and to silence their consciences. Hence Eph. v. 15; Col. iv. 5; 1 Thess. v. 22. FOOTNOTES: [1] Blind and ignorant consciences speak peace, or hold their peace, because they have not skill enough to find fault; they swallow many a fly, and digest all well enough. While the scales were upon Paul's eyes, he was alive and quiet; he thought concupiscence, the sin and breeder of all sin, to be no sin. Such consciences discern sin as we do stars in a dark night,--see only the great ones of the first magnitude, whereas a bright even discovers millions; or as we see a few motes in the dark houses, which sunlight shows to be infinite. Such think good meaning will serve the turn, that all religions will save, or a "Lord, have mercy on us," at the last gasp. The law which nature has engraven, they tread out with sins, as men do the engravings of tombs they walk on with foul shoes: they dare not look in the glass of God's law, which makes sin abound, lest the foolishness of their souls should affright them. A number of such sottish souls there be, whose consciences, if God opens, as He did the eyes of the prophet's servant, they shall see armies and legions of sins and devils in them.--_Ward,_ 1577-1639. CHEERING WORDS AND SOLEMN WARNINGS. iii. 10, 11. _Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him; for they shall eat of the fruit of their own doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with them; for the reward of his hands shall be given him._ Into these two orders, the righteous and the wicked, the Bible is accustomed to divide the whole population of the globe.--A crimson line runs between the righteous and the wicked, the line of atoning sacrifice: faith crosses that line, but nothing else can. There can be no righteousness where there is no faith.--This distinction is so sharp and definite, that no man can dwell in a borderland between the two conditions. A clear line of demarcation exists between life and death, and such a division is fixed by God between the righteous and the wicked. There are no monstrous nondescripts, who are neither sinners nor saints. This text ought, therefore, to lead to great searching of heart.