tions, their leading doctrine of Pantheism, having for itself no other natural foundation than that of the God-head of the Internal Voice; and the same facts, in the same way, are witnessed by all Heathen nations of modern times, when as yet they have received no knowledge from Europeans, but are fresh from heathenism. Of this I could bring forward the proofs from the authors, but I deal not in the affectation of learning. It suffices me that these can easily be obtained by my readers that are ordinarily learned, and that those of them who are unlearned have sufficient confidence in me that it is so.

This being so, the facts of Conscience that come up to all men by nature as enigmas and deep mysteries, these in Revelation have revealed truths that are their solutions, corresponding unto them most accurately and exactly. Revelation tells us that to avoid sin must be our supreme endeavour-a motive that must ever and entirely reign in us. It tells us, too, that no ignorance is an excuse, no absence from the sources of knowledge, no hiddenness in the remotest depths of barbarism, but that there is a light that shines upon all wheresoever they may be, whose brilliancy and illuminating power is measured, not by rank, or riches, or station, or abilities, or knowledge, but by our actual zeal in following it. It tells us that the rò sov (the divinity), which the philosopher* ascribed to it, and the dauer (personal deity) of Socrates, and the personality which in universal speech all men give it, these are no chance dreams or vague illusions, but that it is the voice of the Holy Spirit, "God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, of one Substance with the Father ;" and hence that he speaks to each man with the same voice, through a similar faculty and organ.

And thus the two discordant facts of Conscience infallible, authoritative, controlling with a voice requiring absolute submission, and Conscience fallible, and weak, and needing to be ruled, which otherwise could not be made to agree, are reconciled.

Hence, too, its insight into Eternity, its dumb speech regarding the Future, its prophecy of judgment, its connexion of Time with Eternity, all these are made clear.

And, finally, its feelings of Shame, and Stain, and Fear, and Guilt, and of Moral Restlessness, all these manifestly have in the

* Aristotle.

revealed facts of our Fall in Adam, our Redemption in Christ, their due and only explanation. The facts of the Natural Conscience are only to be explained by the facts of the Gospel.

Having thus shown how revealed religion is related to natural religion, in reference to that governing faculty that we have examined, we shall go on next to an examination of the deficiencies of Conscience which prevent its being a perfect guide naturally. He that shall look to the illustrations we have just given, will see that its natural perfection only is in this, that it leads the man who follows it onward, and gives him a feeling towards the facts that perfect it, so that if it is to be perfect, it is so only in connexion with these facts known and these facts applied.

So that the Heathen, or he who is left to the natural Conscience, feels the faculty to be a useful one, but very mysterious; he, again, who knows the facts of Revelation, can explain a great many things to the other deeply mysterious; but that man only to whom the facts are applied, "who is born of the Spirit," to him the Conscience has obtained its due perfection.

That is to say, the man "who is born of the Spirit," he who being so by God's grace then governs himself by his Conscience, always guiding his Conscience by God's law, this I count to be that man in whom alone of all men the Conscience is perfect; for he it is in whom alone the perfection of the three parts of the Conscience exists: and he who shall examine who that man is, or in whom these qualifications meet, shall find they do so only in the "Justified Christian."*

Now, he that examines the faults of the natural Conscience, and compares it with the perfect Conscience, that is, the Conscience of the man unfallen, he shall find that the Conscience of the man unfallen must have been completely free from all error, and a perfect guide. The result of the fall, therefore, is that God the Holy Spirit remaining the same, the natural deficiencies of the Conscience, as a faculty, that it has now, it has from it. The first effect of the Fall upon the nature of man, is the inability of the Conscience adequately to transmit to us the voice of the Spirit.

Of this deficiency, and the means of correcting it by the restoration of its Supremacy, I have already treated; and there is no

* See note at the end of this chapter on the practical nature of justifying faith, page 126

doubt that in a very great degree the sensibility of the Conscience may be restored by these means; indeed, in so great a degree as to make men almost conclude that Conscience may be made by nature a perfect guide.

But when we come to the third law of the Conscience, and see that it must be governed by the rule of God's law, then at once we see that the natural Conscience is no sure guide; for to them who are "born of the Spirit," the Spirit dwells in them in consequence of that birth, informing and internally guiding their Conscience by an influence which, if it come not within our knowledge by sense, is yet not the less manifest in its effects. And secondly, as an external law, the will of God as manifested in the Scriptures, and interpreted and applied by the Church, is the law by which the Conscience is to be ruled.

The "Birth of the Spirit," then, in consequence of which He becomes the internal law of the Conscience, and the outward law of God's revelation, these are the actual gifts of revealed religion, in consequence of which the Conscience is perfected, and to which no strife of our own moral nature can attain of itself merely. No internal working or struggle of the Conscience of Socrates could cause him to attain unto the gift of Spiritual Regeneration, given in consequence of our Saviour's death, or to a knowledge of the completed canon of the Holy Scripture.

But again, we shall make another remark which will more fully manifest the truth of that which we have asserted. In the primitive man it has been seen that the Conscience was a perfect guide, the natural faculty being perfect, and from the Supernatural Gift the power perfectly to obey it was his. Hence was there no Stain upon it, and no Shame, no Guilt, and thence no Fear. The Recording Conscience detailed no transgression of God's will, and the Prophetic Conscience prophesied no punishment; but the past was without the consciousness of evil, the future without dread of misery.

Now, herein is a difference, and a vital one; there is none of fallen men that has a Conscience that is without Guilt and Stain; this is to each human being an effect of the Fall. Nature tells us at once that there is no natural means of removing this Guilt and Stain. Good is not antagonist to Evil, so that the " plus" of one shall make the "minus" of the other, and that we can keep a debtor and creditor account with Conscience, so much

Good against so much Evil, the surplus of our good balancing accounts against our evil. But Good is the living according to a law which we are bound to live by, and Evil the transgression of that law. We cannot, therefore, balance the one against the other.

Nor does Conscience reveal to us any way of getting rid of the Stain or the Guilt; in fact, to express it clearly, Conscience has first a Warning power, and then a Recording power, and then a Power Prophetic of punishment, but it has no pardoning power naturally.

Thence are we to seek the completion of Conscience in the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, applied to us by the Spirit; the effect of His death by which our sins are forgiven, in consequence of our Regeneration by his Spirit, the Stain of them wiped out, and the Guilt pardoned, and ourselves set free from the Shame and the Fear. This fully completes, as far as Conscience is concerned, our illustration of the relation that nature bears to grace, and Natural to Revealed Religion.

And besides illustrating the first part of this chapter, it fully shows the position of Conscience in man as a secret force in the heart of each which he may resist, overthrow, conquer again and again, so as to feel that he is perfectly free from compulsion; and that in his actions, if he do evil, he must act in a full sense of his responsibility and against light and knowledge.

So that herein the Freedom of Man, the Justice of God, Ignorance and Unlimited Knowledge, Time and Eternity, Mercy and Judgment, all meet together in this one faculty.

And by this faculty in its action, the dealings of the Almighty Creator with us his creatures are justified, so that whatever man may have to say to his fellows before their bar, before the judgment throne of God, the evidence of the Recording Spirit and of the man himself shall, in each man's case, manifest that "the Judge of the whole earth has not done wrong."

We have thus examined the nature of Conscience, and shown its uses; we have gone into its laws, and the means of perfecting the faculty naturally and spiritually. In the next book we shall proceed to consider the Reason as a governing faculty, the second of the governing powers.

NOTE UPON THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF "JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH," REFERRED TO ON PAGE 123.

We are "justified by faith," working by love, and showing itself in true Christian works.

In the justified man there must be first, "faith-a sincere belief in the Gospel, and an appreciation of the Atonement of Christ as sufficient for the sins of the whole world, and as applied to himself."

2dly, This faith must realize itself in his heart by the Spirit of his Lord, that is, true love towards his God and towards his fellow

men.

3rdly. This must issue forth in actual works of love, in "the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, against which there is no law;" in works of mercy to the wretched; and in subjection of his own thoughts, words and actions to the Spirit and Law of Christ.

In the Regenerate Christian it will be seen, if this be so with him during life, that the voice of God, at the last great day of judgment, will declare him just through the blood of Christ; and even in this world the voice of the Holy Spirit, through his Conscience, will witness to his justification. According to that which the apostle says, "the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God;" (Rom. viii. 16;) and again, "We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father." Herein is seen the connexion of the natural faculty with the Spirit, and the relation of both under the Gospel to justification.

This, I conceive, to be the doctrine of the Church, against both the Roman Catholic doctrine, that we are made just by an infused righteousness, instead of being declared just or "acquitted" by the Atonement, and the Solifidian scheme, that says that love and works are not necessary. But for more ample information, I refer the learned to Bishop Bull's treatise, the "Harmonia Apostolica."

To the unlearned, then, I say, as a practical inference, if, after you are Regenerate, "made a member of Christ, a child of God, an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," for after this point only