Note 3 — ISAIAH. (continued 3)

Reason is God’s candle in men. But, as a candle must first be lighted, ere it will enlighten, so reason must be illuminated by Divine grace, ere it can savingly discern spiritual things.—Toplady, 1740–1778.

Conscience, as an expression of the law or will and mind of God, is not now to be implicitly depended on. It is not infallible. What was true of its office in Eden, has been deranged and shattered by the fall; and now lies, as I have seen a sun-dial in the neglected garden of an old, desolate ruin, thrown down from its pedestal, prostrate on the ground, and covered by tall, rank weeds. So far from being since that fatal event an infallible directory of duty, conscience has often lent its sanction to the grossest errors, and prompted to the greatest crimes. Did not Saul of Tarsus, for instance, hale men and women to prison; compel them to blaspheme; and imbrue his hands in saintly blood, while conscience approved the deed—he judging the while that he did God service? What wild and profane imaginations has it accepted as the oracles of God? and as if fiends had taken possession of a God-deserted shrine, have not the foulest crimes, as well as the most shocking cruelties, been perpetrated in its name? Read the Book of Martyrs, read the sufferings of our forefathers; and, under the cowl of a shaven monk, or the trappings of a haughty Churchman, you shall see conscience persecuting the saints of God, and dragging even tender women and children to the bloody scaffold or the burning stake. With eyes swimming in tears, or flashing fire, we close the painful record, to apply to Conscience the words addressed to Liberty by the French heroine, when, passing its statue, she rose in the cart that bore her to the guillotine, and throwing up her arms, exclaimed, “O Liberty, what crimes have been done in thy name!” And what crimes in thine, O Conscience! deeds from which even humanity shrinks; against which religion lifts her loudest protest; and which furnish the best explanation of these awful words, “If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. vi. 23).

So far as doctrines and duties are concerned, not conscience, but the revealed Word of God, is our one, only sure and safe directory.—Guthrie.