CHAPTER V

CONCERNING PRACTICAL RELIGION

SECT. I.-Conscience

RELIGION is the voluntary submission of human actions to the control of a higher Power. In the language of the New Testament the Christian Religion is usually described as the service of God. The strongest possible word is used. Christians are bond-servants, slaves; that is to say, their wills, their souls and bodies, are not their own; they are bought with a price. But they enter into this servitude and continue in it by an act of their own will. The Christian ideal is to be free, not using freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as a bond-servant of God.1

The first thing needed for service of this kind is to know the will of the Master. The knowledge of God, whether attained by nature or by revelation, is the groundwork of religion. But for this purpose a purely objective knowledge is not sufficient. To be religious

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I Cor. vi. 20; 1 Pet. ii. 16. The word religion is badly used in the English Bible. In Acts xxvi. 5, it stands for Opŋokela, the formal observance of rule; in Gal. i. 13, 14, 'Iovdaïouds is merely the Jewish polity (cf. 2 Macc. ii. 21); in Jas. i. 26, 0pĥσкos probably means an observer of ceremonies, and such is his @pnokela, while in the next verse opnσkeía seems to be used with a touch of irony. The word religion occurs nowhere else.

a man must have this knowledge subjectively in relation to himself. He must begin with the question that rose to the lips of St. Paul at the moment of his conversion : “What shall I do, Lord?" Knowledge of this kind is called by a special name, Conscience. The idea was common to Greek and Latin thought, and found similar expression in both languages. The Greek word barely made its way into the Septuagint rendering of the Old Testament; it does not occur in the Gospels, but is frequent in the Epistles of the New Testament.1

The Apostles build then upon a current idea, the exact nature of which we must ascertain. It starts from the notion of acquaintance with the actions of another. To be conscious of him is to share his knowledge of what he is doing, to be privy to his designs, the word being used more especially of a guilty knowledge which makes a man accessory to crime. From this we pass to a like knowledge of one's own guilt; and here the specific sense of the word begins. To be conscious, in this sense, is to know oneself to be guilty, or inversely to know oneself to be innocent. Mens sibi conscia recti is so written by Vergil, while the Horatian phrase nil conscire sibi shows how the word, used absolutely, points rather to consciousness of wrong. So St. Paul writes, “I am conscious of nothing." He speaks of men who are "branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron," the knowledge of their guilt being ineffaceably impressed on them. He speaks of the testimony of his conscience to his own purity of motive. There is a conscience

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1 The verb σvveidévai, Lat. conscire, or more commonly conscius esse, gives the substantive τὸ συνειδὸς oι συνείδησις, Lat. conscientia, common from the time of Cicero. The LXX. has the word only in Eccles. x. 20, καί γε ἐν συνειδήσει σου βασιλέα μῆ καταράσῃ. The reading in John viii. 9 is apparently not genuine.

of sins," which is destroyed by the grace of pardon. The Blood of Christ cleanses the conscience from dead works. There is thus an evil conscience which needs cleansing, and a good or pure conscience, which is the knowledge that sin either has not been done, or has been altogether put away by the sanctifying grace of God.1

Passing from this use, the word comes to mean the faculty of the mind by which a man reviews his own actions, adjudging them right or wrong. There is a curious tendency to separate this faculty from the other reasoning powers, and to personify it as a being apart from the man himself, praising him or condemning him for what he has done, and consequently controlling him by the anticipation of judgment. This would seem to be what Socrates meant by his familiar demon. The real fact is shrewdly expressed in the well-known line of Menander, which declares that to every man his own conscience stands for God.2 The only approach to this in the New Testament in found in St. Paul's words, “my conscience bearing witness with me;" but in the strictly accurate sense of a reasoning faculty the word frequently Occurs. Mind and conscience are coupled by St. Paul, as defiled by sin; that is to say, the reasoning faculty which seizes the distinction of right and wrong as objective fact, and the faculty which views the distinction subjectively in relation to self, are alike injured. The pure

1 1 Cor. iv. 4; 1 Tim. iv. 2; 2 Cor. i. 12; Heb. ix. 9, 14; x. 2, 22; xiii. 18; Acts xxiii. 1; xxiv. 16; 1 Tim. i. 5, 19; 2 Tim. i. 3.

2 Βροτοῖς ἅπασιν ἡ συνείδησις Θεός. The more natural word in this sense is Tò σuveidos, which is not used in the New Testament. It may be doubted whether conscientia is used in this sense by classical writers,' but the phrase salva conscientia approximates to it.

conscience in which we are to hold the mystery of the faith is a faculty clarified by grace. The meaning of the word is made especially clear in St. Paul's instruction to the Corinthians about the idol-offerings. We have an objective knowledge, he says, that an idol is a mere nothing, the sacrifices before the idol have no significance, the flesh of the victim has no sacramental effect and is merely so much good food. There can therefore be no harm in eating it. "Howbeit in all men there is not that knowledge: but some, being used until now to the idol, eat as of a thing sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled." This weak conscience is a faculty incapable of distinguishing between what is right and what is wrong in the action; unable to dissociate the act of eating from an act of communion with the idol. For this reason Christians were bound to be careful. “For if a man see thee which hast knowledge sitting at meat in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols?" That is to say, he will be led to do that which he considers in some measure an act of idolatrous worship. Returning to the subject, and giving the Corinthian Christians practical advice, St. Paul says, "Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat, asking no question for conscience sake.” It may or may not be the flesh of a sacrifice; they are not to trouble themselves about it, or make it a matter of conscience. "If one of them that believe not biddeth you to a feast, and ye are disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake." It is the same advice again. "But if any man say unto you, This hath been offered in sacrifice, eat not, for his sake that showed it, and for conscience sake: conscience, I say, not thine own, but the other's." Now the direction is changed.

To the man who says this—

probably a Christian of confused mind-it is matter of conscience; he regards the flesh subjectively as a means of idolatrous communion; and the man who knows better is required by the law of charity not to cause him scandal. "But why," St. Paul conceives an objector asking, "is my liberty judged by another conscience?" He replies curtly, "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give no occasion of

To the respect which is due to the weak conscience we shall presently return. Here we must notice that, without passing altogether away from subjectivity, the conscience adjudges a thing right or wrong in the abstract; right or wrong for another as well as for self. This implies a reference to an external standard. The judgment is not, "This is wrong because I think it wrong; otherwise I should not be able in my conscience to judge another. The conscience, that is to say, is not a criterion to itself; it refers to a standard. What is this? The natural conscience will refer to many standards-public opinion, general utility, or others. Common morality becomes possible only when a common standard is recognized. The Stoic notion of a

1 Rom. ix. I; Tit. i. 15; 1 Tim. iii. 9; 1 Cor. viii. 1-10; x. 25-32. The last passage admits two varied interpretations. "For conscience sake" in vers. 25 and 27 may possibly mean, "Lest your own conscience be defiled by the knowledge of the fact," in which case it is advice to those of weak conscience; but this is improbable in view of what follows. In ver. 29 the question has been taken to mean, "Why should I use my liberty so as to scandalize another, doing that for which his conscience will condemn me?" But this is harsh and obscure, and leaves the further question unexplained, "Why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks?" The interruption of a supposed objector is characteristic of St. Paul's style.