Proverbs 5:12

And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof.

Conscience as an instrument of punishment

These are supposed to be the words of a young man whose dissolute life had induced disease and want and infamy. He stands out upon the dim verge of life, a beacon light to all who live without God. Remorse, like a fierce vulture, had clutched upon his soul, and despair had cast the shadows of a cheerless night around him. It was from his moral reflections that his keenest anguish arose.

I. The natural authority of conscience, and its consequent power to inflict punishment.

1. If we would appreciate the capacity of the soul to suffer through the morbid action of the moral feelings, we must first understand its internal structure, its several faculties and powers. Man is endowed with various powers of reason, of sensibility, and of action. Of the principles of action, some are mechanical, as instinct and habit; some are animal, as the appetites and some of the desires and affections; and others rational, arising from a knowledge of his relations to other beings, and from a foresight of the proper consequences of his acts. He thus combines in his nature those laws which govern the brute creation with those which declare him to be made in the “image of God,” and suit him to a state of moral discipline. With this complex nature he is endowed with the power of self-government, which implies the due exercise of all the properties of his being, under the direction and control of one supreme authority. This authority is conscience, which God has enthroned in the human breast with all the attributes of sovereignty. The brute animal rushes on to the gratification of its desires without a thought beyond the immediate object in pursuit. Man brings under his eye the just relations of universal being, chooses and pursues.

2. Consider what a monitor conscience is. It teaches us to perform in good faith, as being right, that which we do; but it does not of itself supply an independent rule of right.

3. The government of conscience is not like that of the animal appetites. Its voice is gentle and persuasive, often drowned in the clamour of passion, or unheeded in the eager pursuit of forbidden pleasure.

4. If conscience is supreme, according to the original constitution of our nature, then, whatever may be the occasional, temporary abuse it may receive from the usurpation of the animal propensities, it must upon the whole, and taking all the range of our existence into the account, possess an ascendant power over man.

5. Go where you will, the natural dread of an accusing conscience will be found to have been the rod of terror to the guilty of all ages. No man will long abide the direct action of self-reproach. The restlessness of the soul, under the action of self-reproach, has displayed itself upon a wide scale in the cumbrous and often sanguinary superstitions of the heathen. We have seen the distress and anguish which a sense of guilt produces in the breast of the awakened sinner.

II. The nature and extent of the punitive action of conscience. In relation to God, a consciousness of guilt is accompanied--

1. With a sense of the loss of Divine favour and fellowship.

2. A sense of guilt is accompanied with an apprehension of punishment. In the breast of every man there exists a belief that this world is under a providential government, from the just awards of which he has something to hope or to fear in a future state of being. In relation to other moral beings, a sense of guilt is accompanied with--

(1) A loss of the confidence and esteem of the holy.

(2) A consciousness of guilt awakens remorse, a complex emotion, consisting of simple regret and moral disapprobation of one’s self; in other words, it is moral regret.

Practical considerations:

1. How delusive is that hope of future happiness which, though it is built upon the natural goodness of God, manifested through a Mediator, makes no necessary reckoning of a holy life. It is not in the province of Omnipotence to produce moral happiness in a polluted soul.

2. We here perceive the reasonableness as well as certainty of future punishment. (Freeborn C. Hibbard, M.A.)

Woman’s lamentation over a wasted life

Women outnumber men in the family, in the Church, in the State, A God-loving, God-fearing womanhood will make a God-loving, God-fearing nationality.

1. A young woman who omits her opportunity of making home happy.

2. A young woman who spends her whole life, or wastes her young womanhood, in selfish display.

3. A young woman who wastes her opportunity of doing good.

4. A young woman who loses her opportunity of personal salvation. Opportunity gone, is gone for ever. Privileges wasted, wasted for ever. The soul lost, lost for ever. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

Self-condemnations

I. Sensualists will be self-condemned in the end.

1. Because of the issue of sin in general, which must come to a self-condemnation.

2. Because of the strength of their sorrow arising out of their troubles.

3. Because of the force of truth, which will overcome all in the end.

4. Because of the power of conscience.

II. That which lies sorest upon the spirits of gross sinners in the end is, slighting instruction.

1. Because it is a great mercy for God to afford teachers.

2. Because not hearkening to instruction is the way to fall into sin, and not hearkening to reproof the way to abide in it.

III. Wicked men heartily hate instruction and slight reproof.

1. Because they are contrary to their corrupt affections and wicked lusts.

2. It appears that they heartily hate them by the malice they bear to the reprovers of their sins, which is vehement and deadly. Their lusts are so strong on them that they hate and slight all reproofs. (Francis Taylor, B.D.)