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questions, their moral feelings were misdirected, and so their consciences were stained and wounded by acts iu which a man of more enlightened con- science saw no harm. Similarly, when a conscience is said to be ' good ' or ' pure ' or ' void of offence,' the reference is to the sense of peace and moral harmony with God and man which comes to one who has loyally obeyed the dictates of the Moral Law ; while an uncleansed or evil conscience is one on which there rests the burden and pain of sin tliat is unatoned for and unforgiven. A 'seared' or 'branded' conscience, again, may point to the case of those in whom abuse of the moral nature has led to a perversion of the moral judgment and a deadening of the moral sentiments. Compare what St. Paul says of those whose understanding is darkened, whose hearts are hardened, and who are now 'past feeling' (Eph 4'*).
(4) The education of conscience. — Someintuitional- ists have held that conscience, being an infallible oracle, is incapable of education ; and Kant's famous utterance, ' An erring conscience is a chimera '.(o/?. cit. p. 206), has often been quoted in this connexion. But it is only in a theoretical and ideal sense that the truth of the saying can be admitted — only when the word of conscience is taken to be nothing less and nothing more than the voice of God, and its light to be in very reality His ' revealing and appealing look ' (J. Martineau, Seat of Authority in Eeligion^, London, 1891, p. 71). In the NT, however, as in general usage, ' conscience ' is not restricted to the intuitive discernment of the difference between right and wrong, but is applied to the whole moral nature of man ; and when understood in this way there can be no question that it shares in the general weakness of human nature, and that it is both capable of education and constantly in need of an educative discipline. The distinction made by the NT writers between a good and an evil conscience implies the need of education ; their moral precepts imply its possi- bility. St. Paul says that he ' exercised himself ' to have a conscience void of offence toward God and men (Ac 24'*) ; the author of Heb. speaks of those who ' by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil ' (5'^).
In various aspects the necessity for this exercise or training of the moral faculty comes before us. Even as a power of intuition or vision by which the Moral Law is discerned, conscience is capable of improvement. Ignorance darkens it (Eph 4'"), sin defiles it (Tit 1") ; and only an eye that is purged and enlightened can see clearly. ' My conscience is nott so,' said Queen Mary to Knox. 'Conscience, Madam,' he replied, 'requyres know- ledge ; and I fear that rycht knowledge ye have none' (Knox, Works, ed. Laing, Edinburgh, 1864, ii. 283). But conscience is also a faculty of moral judgment, and in moral matters, as in other matters, human judgments go astray. The ' weak ' conscience is the natural accompaniment of the weak and narrow mind (1 Co 8^) ; a selfish and im- pure heart usually compounds with its conscience for the sins to which it is inclined, and a conscience that accepts hush-money is apt to grow dumb until contact with another conscience stronger and purer than itself makes it vocal once more (Ac 24-^). Moral sentiments, again, gather around a false judgment as readily as around a true. Christ's apostles Avere killed by men who thought that they were thereby doing God service (Jn 16'^), and St. Paul himself once believed it to be his duty ' to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth ' (Ac 26^). In such cases persecution to the death carried no self-reproach with it, but a sense of moral complacency.
Granting, then, that conscience needs to be edu- cated, how, according to the NT, is the work to
242 COA^SECEATE, CONSECRATION
CONSECRATE, CONSECRATION
be done ? Three ways are especially suggested — the ways of knowledge, obedience, and love ; in other words, the way of the mind, the way of the will, and the way of the heart, (a) Knox said to Queen Mary that conscience requires knoiolcdge ; and that is what St. Paul also taught (1 Co 8^. Before the man of God can be ' furnished completely unto every good work ' he has need of ' instruction in righteousness' (2 Ti S^*-"). Education of this kind can be obtained from many masters, but the best teachers of all are Scriptures inspired of God [ib. ). St. Paul's own Epistles are full of instruction as rega/ds both the broad principles of Christian ethics and their application under varying circum- stances to all the details of personal, family, and social life. And in the teaching of Christ Himself, above all in that Sermon on the Mount whose echoes are heard so frequently in the Epistle of James, enlightenment comes to the human con- science through the revelation of the fundamental laws of the Divine Kingdom.
(b) Conscience is educated, in the next place, by obedience to the Divine law when that law is recog- nized. It is the use of knowledge already possessed that exercises the senses to keener moral discern- ment (He 5^^) ; it is the man who is willing to do God's will who comes to know the Divine voice when- ever he hears it (Jn 7'^). The ethics of the NT are not the ingenious elaboration of a beautiful but ab- stract moral scheme ; they are practical tiirough and through. Christians are called upon to acknow- ledge not the right of conscience only, but its might ; they are commanded everywhere to bring their dis- positions, desires, passions, and habits into captivity to its obedience. To follow Christ is to have the light of life ( Jn 8'-) ; while to hate one's brother is to walk in darkness with blinded eyes, and so to lose the knowledge of the way ( 1 Jn 2^^ ; cf. Jn 12^^). Obedience, in short, is the organ of spiritual know- ledge (cf. F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 2nd ser., new ed., London, 1875, no. viii.). A good conscience goes with a pure heart ( 1 Ti P). But sin so perverts and blinds the inward eye that the very light that is in us is darkness (Mt 6-^).