Conscience | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 8, 1871

Conscience.

THERE is an innate principle in man which decides the moral quality of every action. However depraved or fallen from his original state of purity, this God-given faculty still continues to perform its intended mission. It is optional with man whether its voice shall be heard and obeyed, or its monitions be unheeded and disregarded. Yet it is an awful thought that, with every impulse of conscience, it brings with it new relations and obligations to ourselves and to God. The authority of conscience is imperative, and we may not violate its laws with impunity. Notwithstanding, by continued departure from its impressions, our hearts become seared, and the pangs of conscience so diminished, that we may now perform that which once would have caused our inmost souls to shrink and draw back. How the child feels poignant remorse after the first act of pilfering; but, by continued acts of theft, he becomes so hardened that he has no dread of anything, save the possible detection of his crime—as seen in the case of Burk, who was in the habit of murdering men for the purpose of selling their bodies to surgeons for dissection. At first he felt all the horrors which could wring the heart of a murderer, but, by continued commission of his hellish crimes, his conscience became so benumbed that he could take the life of a fellow-man with as much composure as a butcher would slaughter a beast. Thus we see that, by continued violation of the dictates of conscience, we degenerate almost into brutes. Hence, our conscience should be enlightened by the word of God; seek to know his will; obey every impulse which would lead in the way of truth. In order that we may accomplish these most desirable results, it would be well, first, before performing an act, to study its moral quality, and deliberate respecting its real nature. Also we should remember that conscience has been so often abused, that it may not always be trusted; and whenever a doubt is entertained respecting an act, let it never be performed. This was President Edwards’ plan:—“Resolved, Never to do anything of which I so much question the lawfulness, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterward whether it be lawful or not, except I as much question the lawfulness of the omission. —Sel.