But how about the personal ends of rewards? How is this reached in the atonement system? We answer: By faith. Just as the sinner says: "I do not suffer for the condemnation of my sins, but I humbly accept the condemnation that comes through the sufferings of Christ," which is faith "resting in the blood"; so, in view of Christ's righteousness, he says: "I possess no righteousness that can be rewarded, but I endorse, and love, and trust in that righteousness which is worthy of the highest reward," which is faith resting on the righteousness of Christ. By faith we trust in Jesus, not as a mere person, but as the one who possesses a pure and spotless righteousness, the only one who deserves heavenly bliss. When we think of heaven as a reward, we think of Jesus, and of his transcendent worth. Then it is right for us to enjoy heaven because we accept it as the reward of righteousness. Our acceptance of Christ points us out as proper participants in the glory which is his well-earned reward. The righteousness is not ours by achievement, but ours by dependence. The position of a sinner enjoying the fruits of Christ's merit is nowise repugnant to conscience, for there is a reason for it. It is not a case of partiality. He stand among the lovers of righteousness, himself not righteous inherently, but in the depths of his soul, adherent to righteousness and the righteous Lamb of God. For no other sinner would it be right, even if it were possible, to enjoy that bliss which is the reward of Jesus. Thus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."

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We close with a few words on the satisfaction of divine justice. The human conscience, if it is anything, is a copy of the divine conscience. We are like God in our perception of right and wrong and our sense of justice. This is our foundation for the knowledge of God's moral attributes. But we must be sure to draw our conclusions from an unperverted conscience. If we have done so in the preceding pages, it follows that the satisfaction which divine justice receives in the atonement arises from its overwhelming con

demnation of sin, and a corresponding approbation of righteousness; sin being reprobated with a moral force exceeding that which would attend the everlasting punishment of all sinners, and righteousness being vindicated with a glory that could hardly beam from rewarding a universe of righteous men. Here is one of the wonders of redemption, that even salvation can be made to satisfy justice. The Eternal Monarch, humbling himself to save rebels, accomplishes in his infinite condescension more for justice than if he had bared his right arm for justice without mercy. The loving heart, shrinking from the pain of punishing, accepts the pain of humiliation, and saves the lost.

Is not then God's so-called "obligation" to make atonement just this, that being able to satisfy his attribute of justice by the atonement, it cannot be that his other attribute of love should fail of the satisfaction of saving sinners? It must be that he who can, will make atonement. In other words, the atonement is God-like.

ARTICLE VII.

CONSCIENCE, ITS RELATIONS AND OFFICE.

BY REV. JOHN BASCOM, D.D., PROFESSOR IN WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

WE are sometimes startled by the profound significance of words, by the precision with which they etymologically penetrate to the root of the idea indicated, and lay open its essential features. It seems, either as if those who first applied them must have possessed wonderful insight into things, or as if, by some force or law of growth in themselves, they had come to cover and hold with strange perspicuity the germs of knowledge. Thus the word "consciousness" expresses a sort of double knowing a knowing with one's self, a knowing that one knows, which is the essential feature of what it designates. This two-sided character of knowledge, by which

it awakens the mind to the inner and the outer at once, by which, in the same act, it contains both the object and subject of thought, and is able thus to resolve the simple phrase "I know," into the two "I know," and "I know that I know," is the peculiar and subtile feature of mental phenomena. Herein are not two acts of knowing, but each act, that it may be an act of knowledge, implies the recognition by the mind of its own processes, a union of these inward to the centre of thought, as well as outward to its object—a knowing together, a bi-polar knowledge pointing in two directions.

From this word another, closely allied, yet radically distinct, has sprung by gradual separation conscience. Designating the faculty by which we discern right and wrong, it also implies a second or double knowing, a knowing of action. in its moral as well as in its natural qualities. There is here even more perfect accuracy of thought than in the word "consciousness." There is strictly no additional, no second act of knowledge in consciousness. We merely mark by the word one of the two aspects which belongs to every simple act of knowing or of feeling. The conscience, on the other hand, does give a second, a more penetrative perception; we know within ourselves, with ourselves, that an action, previously seen by the eye and recognized by the intellect in its motives and consequences, is right. This idea of conscience, testified to by the etymology of the word, as that of a power which imparts a direct knowledge of moral quality, we accept; and proceed to inquire into the relations and offices of this faculty.

The first of these relations is that of conscience to our moral nature. This power by which we perceive the right, is the foundation of morals in our constitution, is that, and that only, which imparts moral quality to our actions and to our feelings. Without this perception, moral action or affection is impossible; with it, a moral element enters freely into our whole intellectual and emotional life. The perception itself, though simple, has both an intellectual and an emotional element. These are inseparable. The oughtness and

the rightness are but the two phases under which the one idea develops itself the expression of the effect of the moral quality of action on the feelings and perception respectively. The sense of obligation cannot exist, cannot arise, without the intuition to which it is attached; the intuition cannot be present without bringing with it the obligation. The only oughtness, the only coercion of law and interior pressure of authority, is that of conscience. The only intuition which reveals duty, declares what it is, and guides us into it, is that of right given by the conscience.

This faculty, so single in its perception, gives a law to action, and thus through disobedience, the occasion of the feelings of guilt, shame, apprehension, remorse; and through obedience a sense of approval, of ineffable satisfaction. In the disobedience of another, it gives the occasion of contempt, dislike, indignation; in the obedience of another, of admiration, trust, sympathy, love. So far as this quality is present, and it pervades all rational action, it furnishes the ground for a new, a moral element in our feelings; and thus these become affections instead of mere passions. Love without the beauties of moral worth to call it forth and sustain it, is a passion; with these, an affection. Our moral nature, our moral affections are not, then, so much a certain portion of our faculties as our whole nature made capable of a moral mood by the possession of the one faculty, the one power of perception expressed by conscience. This one faculty at once lifts our entire nature into a higher realm, makes it capable of new perceptions, new judgments, new feelings, brings it under a nobler law, lays upon it great responsibili ties, and wraps up in its ordinary action issues of infinite compass and reach.

A second relation of this power is to our intellectual nature. The conscience is an intellectual faculty; its action is one of knowing. Of it itself, little more needs to be said or can be said, than that it is the ability of directly perceiving a single, simple, original quality. It does, however, stand in peculiar relations to the other intellectual faculties, quicken

ing and calling them forth in an unusual degree. The conscientious man, one in whom conscience finds full activity, cannot be otherwise than the thoughtful, reflective man. The action of conscience is, indeed, a second knowing, and must be preceded, therefore, by a first knowing. Right is not perceived in actions as actions, but in them as rational actions; that is, as springing from certain motives and leading to certain consequences. As it is this rational element alone that makes them capable of the quality, right, and determines in each given instance its presence or absence, the perception, the intuitive action of conscience, must be preceded by a thorough inquiry into the motives and results of action before it can safely pronounce a verdict. This investigation is not the very act of conscience, but furnishes the knowledge preliminary thereto; and, as it extends over the whole field of human conduct, over all the direct and indirect consequences of action, the theories and experiences of individual and social well-being, of present and future, of physical and spiritual good, conscience necessarily calls forth and greatly quickens the other intellectual faculties. Selfinterest even is not so broad, persistent, and exacting in its inquiries as the fully aroused conscience. For the mind to fall short of faithfulness in the inquiries it prosecutes at the bidding of conscience is not loss merely, but sin. To neglect another's interest is equally fatal as the neglect of one's own. It is the conscience, above all faculties, which puts every kind and form of knowledge into immediate use in solving those problems of private and public good with which it is constantly compelled to busy itself. The conscientious mind is the most thorough, painstaking, and scrutinizing of all minds, since every faculty becomes at once and perfectly instrumental.

Even more intimate is the relation of conscience to the will. The presence of the perception of right implies, calls for, and helps to give, the concomitant power of choice. It implies it, since no action is capable of a moral quality that is not free. Freedom is the antecedent condition without VOL. XXIV. No. 93.

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