By James Stalker
"A good conscience..." 1Ti 1:19
WE divide men according to the intellect. We say of this man that he is clever, and of that one that he is stupid; of one woman that she is brilliant, and of another that she is dull; and we esteem or disdain them accordingly. But there is a more discriminating distinction. Intellect is not the deepest thing in man: conscience is deeper. The greatest philosopher of modern times-one who knew well what is in man-said, that in the universe there were two things which, filled him with awe: one was the starry heaven at night, and the other the conscience in the human breast. At the day of judgment, when men will be separated from one another, that which will determine who are fit to survive as the select of the human race, and who are to be castaway, will not be the possession of intellect, but obedience to conscience.
I. What Conscience is.
The conscience is a faculty which discharges several important functions; let us discriminate them carefully, and observe how they supplement each other.
1. It is a sense whereby we distinguish between right and wrong. Just as by the sense of sight we distinguish black from white, and distinguish by the sense of touch what is cold from what is hot, so by this inner sense we distinguish what is right from what is wrong. When we are about to act, we see before us two ways, between which we have to choose. The one is right and the other wrong; and it is conscience that informs us which is which.
2. Conscience is an authority commanding us to choose the right and refuse the wrong. It not only declares, in the indicative mood, as we stand at the parting of the ways, that this is the right path and that the wrong, but it also tells us, in the imperative mood, to select the one and reject the other. It does so with supreme authority. There may be within us at the same moment other feelings roused by the same objects, and they may urge us to adopt the opposite course to that dictated by conscience; but, however numerous and loud their voices may be, that of conscience is sovereign above them all. For example, there may be lying before a man's eyes something that awakens in his nature a violent craving. Say, it is the intoxicating cup before a drunkard: it is a strong temptation; it awakens a perfect tempest of desire; yet above the tumult the still small voice of conscience is heard, and, whether it is obeyed or not, the man knows that he ought to do as it directs. Conscience sits on the throne and bears the sceptre; and the appetites and passions of the soul are its subjects. They may rebel against its sovereignty; but, if they do, they know that they are rebels. As Bishop Butler, the classical English writer on this subject, says, " had it strength as it has right, had it power as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world."
3. Conscience is a judge, approving and rewarding us if we do right, and condemning and punishing if we do wrong. Although conscience tells us, as we stand at the parting of the ways, that this is the right path and that the wrong, and commands us to choose the one path and avoid the other, it does not follow that in all cases its command is obeyed. It may be; or, on the contrary, sloth and selfishness may keep us back from doing what conscience is urging, or passion may take possession of us and hurry us along the path which conscience has forbidden. But, as soon as the decision is formed and the step taken one way or the other, conscience immediately performs a third function, either approving us if we have chosen according to its dictate or condemning us if we have not. Nor has it only the power of passing sentence, but it forthwith executes it as well, rewarding or punishing as the case may be.
Who does not know the glow of delight which overspreads the soul when duty has been done? To take a simple instance: suppose there is a piece of work you have been neglecting, say, the writing of a letter to a friend abroad, your conscience has been upbraiding you for the delay; but from week to week, and month to month, it has been put off for one excuse or another, till it has become a kind of haunting nightmare. At last, however, in obedience to the inward monitor, you take it in hand, stick to it, and finish it. Is there not then an exultant satisfaction as you exclaim, There, it is done at last? This is the reward which conscience gives for obedience to its commands. On the other hand, if the wrong decision is come to and the wrong step taken, conscience lashes the soul with the whip of retribution. For a time, indeed, the gratification of appetite may so occupy the soul that conscience is forgotten. But its turn comes. Who does not know the sweetness of the cup of sinful gratification and the sting of the adder which fastens on the lip at the dregs?
This is a strange and solemn power which conscience wields. In your secret soul you commit a sin: it is a mere passing thought perhaps; no human eye has seen it, no tongue will ever speak of it; yet even in the dark it makes you blush; you are degraded in your own eyes; you feel guilty and wretched. And this guilty wretchedness does not pass away; it may at any time revive. Conscience comes to us in lonely hours; it wakens us in the night; it stands at the side of the bed and says, Come, wake up and listen to me! And there it holds us with its remorseless eye; and our buried sins rise out of the grave of the past; they march by in melancholy procession; and we lie in terror looking at them. Nobody knows but ourselves. Next morning we go forth to business with a smiling face; but conscience has had its revenge.
This punishment is sometimes of the most terrible description. It was set forth by the ancients under the figure of three sisters of awful aspect. They were called the Eurnenides or Furies, Tall in stature, they were draped in black; serpents twined in their hair, and blood dropped from their eyes. Their step was noiseless, swift and unrelenting. They pursued the guilty, especially those who had sinned against the aged or their own parents, and those who had committed perjury or murder. No prayers, no sacrifices, no tears could move them. Cain was fleeing from them, as he wandered like a vagabond over the earth. Herod was hunted by them when, on hearing of the preaching of Jesus, he cried, It is John the Baptist, whom I beheaded, risen from the dead! Judas, the betrayer, was fleeing from them when he rushed into the jaws of death rather than abide the touch of their fingers. This was what Shakespeare meant when he made the ghost of Banquo sit at Macbeth's table, and the spectres of those whom Richard III had murdered defile before him in his tent, on the night before the battle in which he lost his life, and claim revenge. These are extreme cases; but this pain is one which everyone has felt in his own degree. It is among the secrets known to all. There are hidden chambers in every soul, the keys of which are never given away, and one of these is a torture chamber, where conscience plies its scourge and rack.
4. Another function of conscience is to pass judgment on the conduct of others. When we see our fellowmen acting around us, we cannot help judging whether they are doing right or wrong, and approving or condemning them accordingly; and they do the same towards us. Here, indeed, the judgments of conscience are less reliable, as they are passed upon imperfect information; and sometimes it is a stern duty to check them. Yet the judgments passed by others on our conduct are often perfectly just, and they are intended by the Author of our being to play an important part in our moral education. They are meant to stimulate our own conscience, A friend may be to us a second conscience; because the thought of his judgment may make us pause to consider how acts will look to him which our own conscience would hardly check. It sometimes happens that a man's own conscience has punished him insufficiently for a hidden sin, or at all events the punishment is past and forgotten; but by-and-bye his sin is found out; the public conscience condemns him; and only then is the full guilt of his conduct brought home to himself. This is to be the principle of the last judgment. The good deeds and bad deeds for which mortals have been rewarded or punished by conscience in secret are to be made known to a public vast as humanity; and in the mirror of the universal conscience each man is to sec the image of his life.
5. Conscience speaks to us of the sentence of a still more august Judge, and the award of a still higher tribunal. The word Conscience has been supposed by many of the foremost thinkers to mean " knowledge along with another." Who is this other, who knows everything along with ourselves? It is God. When, for example, you awake in the night, and conscience is dealing with you, are you not aware of another Eye that is surveying the whole interior of your soul, and judging it? Inquire in your own breast, and say if there is anything in the world you are surer of than this ? Many regard this as the strongest and most direct proof of the Divine existence. And it proves not only the existence of God, but His character as holy and righteous. Nor will His sentences, thus made known to us, remain without effect. There is no instinct in the soul of man more undeniable than the anticipation of something after death of a tribunal at which the whole of life will be revised, and retribution awarded with perfect justice. It is this which imparts to death its solemnity. We instinctively know that we are going to our account. And such great natural instincts cannot be false.
Thus conscience is an internal mirror in which the image of the eternal world is reflected; it is a revelation of God Himself; and no more can be needed to show how august a faculty it is, and how careful attention it is entitled to.
II. What a Good Conscience is. All the faculties of man require cultivation. And that the conscience is no exception to this rule is clearly indicated in the Bible, which speaks of " an evil conscience," designating thereby a condition into which this faculty may sink, if its training is neglected, while, on the other hand, it speaks of " a good conscience " as something which requires to be earnestly sought and jealously retained. Perhaps I ought to speak both of what an evil conscience is and what a good conscience is. But what an evil conscience is may be sufficiently indicated if I describe the marks of a good conscience. These, I think, are three:
1. It is an enlightened conscience.
The prime function of conscience, as we saw, is to tell us which of two ways of acting is right and which wrong. But there has been much debate among philosophers as to whether, in performing this function, it is infallible. Can it, at the critical point, make mistakes, pronouncing that to be right which is wrong and that to be wrong which is right? We are bound to follow the guidance of conscience whenever its voice is distinctly heard; but can this voice mislead?
Much may be said on both sides. On the one hand, everyone must feel how high and noble would be a life invariably ruled by conscience. Let any plain man, be he Christian or heathen, go into solitude, and inquire what is his duty in any particular case, with an honest desire to find it, and will he be mistaken? The united conscience of the world supports all the most important rules of life. On the other hand, however, there have been whole nations which have elevated their favourite crimes into virtues; as in the ancient world the most advanced peoples considered it a duty to hate their enemies. Saul of Tarsus thought that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Mis-education, self-interest and passion blind the eyes even of conscience. We not unfrequently defend in ourselves acts which we would instantly condemn if we saw them done by others. Low ideals of life make us satisfied when we ought to be aiming higher. The light which is in us may be darkness.
In short, the conscience requires to be enlightened. God's law is written on it, but the lettering is like that of an old inscription, where the words are filled up with moss and mould, so that they are apt to be misread and require to be re-cut. Many means are available for this purpose-all just maxims and observations on life and conduct; all high-toned books and discourses; all living examples of admirable character. But the great educator of conscience is the Word of God, in which, happily for mankind, the law of right conduct is written so clearly that he who runs may read. The Bible, however, is not intended to take the place of conscience, but to make it more serviceable. It is like a lamp lit within it by which the laws which have been inscribed on it by the Divine finger arc rendered more legible.
2. A good conscience is a tender conscience.
While the first excellence of conscience is to tell accurately which is .the right road and which the wrong, it is hardly less necessary to have a conscience which urgently prompts to take the right road, and at once gives warning by the prick of pain when a wrong step is taken.
It is too evident that the consciences of all have not this sensitiveness; for many do wrong without feeling pain. The Scripture speaks of some whose consciences are seared as with a hot iron. As a hot iron, touching the fingertips, would harden the skin, so that the fine sense of touch located there could not act, so may the conscience be seared in such a way that it does not prompt to do the right or inflict pain when the wrong is done. It is appalling to what lengths this moral insensibility may go. You will see a young man, after a few years of the sins of the city, breaking his mother's heart and bringing his father's grey hairs down with sorrow to the grave, apparently without a qualm. The hardened debauchee will ruin a fair life and introduce shame and desolation into an honoured home, and then go among his companions and boast of it. But we may all see now and then the beginnings of this hardening process in ourselves. Acts which at first we touch with shame and fear we do at last without any inward pain. The conscience is ceasing to perform its functions, and atrophy is setting in.
What produces such a state? It is disobedience. If the conscience is constantly called upon to condemn the same sin, which is constantly repeated, it gradually ceases to perform the useless function. If its warnings are neglected, they become less and less distinct, and at last cease altogether. On the contrary, obedience to conscience sharpens it, and makes it a more and more perfect instrument. There are virgin souls which blush in secret at the most transient thought of sins in which others wallow without remorse. There are men who wince, as high-blooded horses do at the touch of the whip, at the first sound in their hearing of words which in other companies form the staple of conversation. The conscience may be trained to tremble at the least approach of dishonour, as the needle of a perfect compass indicates the least turn of the ship. This is the path to all fineness of character. It gradually elevates the whole man, stamping the aspect of dignity and purity even on the external appearance. A hardened conscience coarsens and brutalises soul and body but a tender conscience refines both.
3. A good conscience is a purified conscience.
When a sin is committed, it makes a stain on the conscience, and the stain burns. This pain is the hint of nature to seek the removal of the sin. But, if it is not taken, the pain in time assuages; and stain may be added to stain, till the conscience is defiled through and through.
In such a defiled conscience there are terrible latent possibilities, for the pain may at any time break out again. Sometimes it does so in time-when a man is awakened to a sense of his bad past, and in pain and tears cries out for deliverance from it. Sometimes it is by the sudden apparition of eternity, in which it can perceive nothing but a fearful menace of judgment, that the conscience is aroused. We have reason to believe that the latent pain of unpardoned sin, if it is not felt in time, will break out all the more intolerably beyond the veil.
Can this defilement be removed? This surely is the question for every child of Adam; for what conscience is there which has not been stained with sin? It is a question which the conscience itself cannot answer. Conscience prescribes our duty and rewards us if we perform it. If we fail, it fills us with alarms and forebodings, but it cannot tell how these may be removed. This honour belongs to the Gospel of Christ. Like the law, conscience is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Conscience may be compared to a stern guide, who gives a lantern to a cripple and orders him to go the way which the light reveals on pain of death; but it has no concern for his pitiful inability to surmount the difficult path. It is Christ who heals the cripple, putting strength into his feet and ankle-bones, so that he walks and leaps and praises God. Yet it is questionable if anyone can appreciate the blood which cleanseth us from all sin who has not felt the shame and pain of a conscience defiled, or if anyone can understand the easiness of the yoke of Christ who has not felt his bones broken by the yoke of the law.
Though conscience does not of itself know the way to reconciliation, yet it wanders restless and excited till it catches sight of Calvary, when its eye kindles like that of the exile who sees on the horizon the cliffs of his native land; and, when it reaches the cross, it pitches its tent there forever.
