Romans 2:15 Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness… Nothing has done so much to perplex men's speculations about conscience as certain fundamental mistakes respecting its proper nature and functions. 1. In the first place, conscience is not a law, but a faculty; not the decision pronounced in a particular case, but the faculty which pronounces the decision. 2. Again, this faculty is susceptible of instruction and improvement, like other faculties of the human mind; like the understanding, for example, or the taste. 3. There is also another important distinction to be made in respect to conscience. Its authority is sometimes said to be supreme and final. And so it is, in a certain sense; that is to say, it is supreme over every other kind of human motive and inducement; should a conflict arise, our sense of what is right ought to prevail, in all cases, over our sense of what is expedient or agreeable. But the authority of conscience is not final in such a sense as to forbid conscience itself from, if need be, reversing its own past decisions. I may appeal at any time from my conscience less instructed to my conscience more instructed, and under these circumstances what was right to me yesterday may become wrong to me today; and what is right to me today may become wrong to me tomorrow. 4. But if conscience itself is an Improvable faculty, and if, in its legitimate action today, it can revise and reverse its own decisions of yesterday, the question naturally arises, Is there anything in conscience which is fixed and absolute? I answer, Yes. The things which are fixed and absolute in conscience — that is to say, the things which are the same in all consciences, and the same in every conscience at all times — would seem to be these three. In the first place, all consciences make a distinction between actions as being right or wrong secondly, the notion of right, as such, or of wrong, as such, is identical to all minds; and, thirdly, all concur in the feeling that they ought to do what they believe to be right. Each man's conscience is a special development of our common moral nature; and each man's duty in respect to it is, to take care that this special development shall be more and more complete, and more and more effective; in short, that he may have a better conscience to obey, and obey it more faithfully. 5. It remains to consider the means by which this two-fold improvement in conscience and in conscientiousness may be promoted. The first condition is, a habit of attending to the moral aspects of things, and especially of our own dispositions and conduct; in one word, moral thoughtfulness. A second necessary condition of the moral progress required — of progress in both conscience and conscientiousness — is found in a determination to do right, cost what it may; in other words, to moral thoughtfulness we must add an invincible moral purpose. The progress insisted on in this discourse supposes another condition; namely, that we not only obey conscience, but obey it as an echo of the Divine will: in other words, to moral thoughtfulness and a moral purpose we must add a sense of the authority and sanctions of religion. One condition more. To make us more observant of conscience, and, at the same time, to make conscience what it ought to be, we must take our standard of righteousness from the New Testament. (James Walker.) Parallel Verses KJV: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) |
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