GOOD AND BAD CONSCIENCES.
WHEN Peter and John were commanded by the Jewish rulers "not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus," they promptly replied: "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." When these apostles, having disobeyed the command of these rulers, were called to account by them for so doing, they again replied: "We ought to obey God rather than men." Saul of Tarsus, on the other hand, thought that he "ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth," and he did so, not only persecuting his followers in Jerusalem, but pursuing them "even unto strange cities."611Here are certainly two different consciences, leading to opposite courses of action; and the point of their divergence from each other is not in the rightful supremacy of conscience in either case, and not in adherence to what conscience required. Peter and John obeyed their conscience; and Saul of Tarsus obeyed his conscience. The difference between them consists in the fact that Peter and John had correct consciences, according to the truth and the requirements of God, and that Saul had an incorrect conscience, contrary to the truth and the law of God. Saul had a false conscience. What he thought that he ought to do was sinful in the highest degree; and this fact he afterward freely admitted, and for it he bitterly condemned himself. He did not excuse his conduct or deny its sinfulness on this ground. He spoke of himself as the chief of sinners, because he persecuted the church of God. It is not enough then simply to obey conscience. That conscience must be correct in what it requires, and must then be obeyed. A man is as really bound to have a right conscience as he is to obey conscience. He cannot excuse a wicked act, or change its nature, by a false conscience. The act is what it is, independently of his conscience; and it is his duty to see it in its true light. Human obligation reaches to right thinking as preliminary to right action. "Woe unto them," says the prophet Isaiah, "that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"—Independent.