But, by manifestation of the Truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
I. Corinthians iv. 2.
There is a conflict of ages as to the authority of Conscience. In some, conscience appears as the voice of God, infallible in its dictates and supreme in its authority. To others, conscience appears only as the offspring of its earthly antecedents and surroundings, the creature of circumstances, of education, personal interest, and prevailing opinion. Both theories are true, and their just relation to each other we propose to expound.
There is, without doubt, a variable element in all the utterances of the human conscience. Here or there it speaks with a different voice, according to time, place, circumstance, endowment, culture, and sway of interest. Here there is a Babel, not of tongues, but of articulate ideas, which are seen and understood as opposing and excluding each other. One set of opinions persecutes every other, with deadly hatred. There is no vice or crime which conscience has not sanctioned at one time or another, while at other times it has denounced them; and even in the same individuals it has thus contradicted itself. The variability of conscience, according to circumstances and education, is thus clear and indisputable. This is the voice of personal sense.
