4. Yet once more - conscience, too, has been overpowered by the fall.
I
believe there is no more egregious mistake made by divines, than when
they tell people that conscience is the vicegerent of God within the soul,
and that it is one of those powers which retains its ancient dignity, and
stands erect amidst the fall of its compeers. My brethren, when man fell
in the garden, manhood fell entirely; there was not one single pillar in
the temple of manhood that stood erect. It is true, conscience was not
destroyed. The pillar was not shattered; it fell, and it fell in one piece,
and there it lies along, the mightiest remnant of God's once perfect
work in man. But that conscience is fallen, I am sure. Look at men.
Who among them is the possessor of a "good conscience toward God,"
but the regenerated man? Do you imagine that if men's consciences
always spoke loudly and clearly to them, they would live in the daily
commission of acts, which are as opposed to the right as darkness to
light? No, beloved; conscience can tell me that I am a sinner, but
conscience cannot make me feel that I am one. Conscience may tell me
that such-and-such a thing is wrong, but how wrong it is conscience
itself does not know. Did any man s conscience, unenlightened by the
Spirit, ever tell him that his sins deserved damnation? Or if conscience
did do that, did it ever lead any man to feel an abhorrence of sin as sin?
In fact, did conscience ever bring a man to such a self-renunciation, that
he did totally abhor himself and all his works and come to Christ? No,
conscience, although it is not dead, is ruined, its power is impaired, it
hath not that clearness of eye and that strength of hand, and that thunder
of voice, which it had before the fall; but hath ceased to a great degree,
to exert its supremacy in the town of Mansoul. Then, beloved, it
becomes necessary for this very reason, because conscience is
depraved, that the Holy Spirit should step in, to show us our need of a
Saviour, and draw us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Preaching on Human inability, March 7, 1858