of this part of our subject at the present moment would not only be anticipated, but would lead us into too wide a field of discussion, and divert our thoughts from that immediate application of the subject to our own hearts which, by God's blessing, I am now anxious to make.

In offering the observations which I have done, I have been anxious only to advert, in general terms, to those evidences for the supremacy of conscience, which lie upon the very threshold of all enquiry into the subject. And this truth being fully and freely admitted, the question which I propose to consider is, the practical result of such an admission; to see whether we are truly mindful of the nature of that obligation, whose authority we acknowledge in the abstract; and whether we are

6

evidence in the passage which I have already quoted above; where he speaks of the voice of conscience, anticipating a higher and more effectual sentence, which shall hereafter second and affirm its own.' But he says, at the same time, that it was beyond his design explicitly to consider that part of the office of conscience. The consideration of it, however, came directly within the limits of Chalmers's design, in the work referred to, and is admirably wrought out. 'The felt presence,' (he maintains,) of a judge, within the breast, powerfully and immediately suggests the notion of a Supreme Judge and Sovereign, who placed it there. Upon this question, the mind does not stop short at mere abstraction; but, passing at once from the abstract to the concrete, from the law to the heart, it makes the rapid inference of a law-giver.'-Vol. i. p. 90.

alive to the dangers which neglect, or contempt, or wilful resistance against its dominion must produce. For, indeed, there are errors, great and serious errors, which sometimes accompany the reception of this truth; errors too, not merely of harmless speculation, but of direct and dangerous offence to God and men. It were impossible to think that conscience could be urged, as we know that it is so often, in defence of practices and opinions, directly and confessedly repugnant to each other, were there not some fallacy at work in the hearts of those who maintain the plea. They hold it to be the sole law which is to regulate their conduct; and herein is their first error. Conscience is not the sole law; it is not the highest law, which controls man. It may be his accuser, his witness, his judge; but the law, by which that accusation is preferred, that testimony recorded, that sentence pronounced, is the law, not independently ordained of conscience, but mediately of God. "The spirit of man," (saith Solomon,) "is the candle of the Lord." It is a light derived from Him in creation; it is a light sustained and increased by Him in revelation. To Him, therefore, must that which is called the law of conscience be referred; and by Him must its dictates be controlled.

It is not for man then to say that he has satisfied his conscience, when there is a superior tribunal,

1 Prov. xx. 27.

1

whose claims have not been satisfied; nor to insist upon the authority of conscience as final, when it is only an authority delegated by, and subordinate to another. It may be, and we have already admitted that it is, the supreme faculty in the creature; for, as the Apostle asks elsewhere, "what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him1?" but the Creator has made that spirit subject to Himself; and whatsoever be its supremacy, it is but the supremacy of a fallen being; a supremacy more of right than of power; against which our prejudices and passions, our hopes and fears are for ever struggling, and over which they ofttimes obtain the mastery. The senses, we know full well, strong and diversified as they are, cannot always discern the character of those objects about which they are conversant, nor determine their exact proportions. The reason, mighty and ennobling as it is, cannot always overcome the difficulties which lie within the immediate compass of its observation. The affections, warm and earnest as they are, cannot always secure the enjoyment to which they aspire. Everything within us and around us proves that we are "of the earth, earthy2." How then can conscience be expected to be the only faculty within us, whose high prerogatives shall remain undisturbed and unchanged, amid the evils that beset us? If the eye, when clouded, can

1 1 Cor. ii. 11.

2 Ibid. xv. 47.

no longer see; or the ear, when closed up, can no longer hear; if the vitiated palate be unable to taste what we eat, or what we drink, and the paralyzed or disturbed limb fail to perform its proper function, think we that there are no difficulties which encumber the operation of conscience, or that, when so encumbered, its authority is not degraded, and its energy not enfeebled? Surely it were impossible to think so. And yet the perfect complacency with which so many men rest upon the guidance of conscience as the sole and ultimate standard of what is right; the calmness with which they confide in its commands, as if it were self-existent, infallible, impregnable, would seem as if they did indeed regard it as the single faculty that was saved, in all its native majesty, from the wreck of man's happiness, -the sole portion of his frame that was exempted from the curse of sin, and misery, and death.

Not so thought the Apostle. The appeal which he made, in the presence of Felix, was not that he had "a conscience void of offence" towards itself, but "void of offence toward God and toward men." He exercised himself, he saith, always to have this. The exercise was not limited to time, or place, or person, but always, at all times and under all circumstances, to be maintained. Neither was it a work which demanded only a formal and a lazy acquiescence in its necessity, a mere outward acknowledgment of its importance; but he exercised

himself to have it. The word, in the original implies the strongest possible exertion which can be made by the watchful and self-denying spirit :-it is in fact, that from which our English word ascetic is derived1. And, observe further, this moral exercise, this subjugation of the affections, this keeping under his body, as the Apostle expresses it elsewhere 2, was not carried on in his own strength or wisdom. It was not conscience appealing to conscience, the judge to the witness, or the witness to the judge; but "herein," he saith, he exercised himself, in this, (as we find in the original) 3, i. e. in the very hope which, in the preceding verse, he declared he had towards God; and by the strength of which, he confessed that, after the way which his enemies called heresy, so worshipped he the God of his fathers, "believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets." This hope was at once the ground and guide of the exercise which the Apostle laboured to carry on; and the end and object of this exercise was that he might have always" a conscience void of offence towards God

3

1 αὐτὸς ἀσκῶ.

2

1 Cor. ix. 27.

Ev TOUT. It certainly must be admitted that this expression is capable of being applied to some other object, and hence several expositors have interpreted it as signifying v TOUT Xpóvy, in the meantime, &c. ; but it is no less certain that it may be understood with reference to the former verse, and that, viewed in this sense, its signification is much more emphatic. -See Grotius, Whitby, and Doddridge, in loc.