2.04.03. Faith and a good conscience

III. FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE

"Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck.” — 1 Timothy 1:19.

CHRISTIANS in this country are at present [1874], more than usually happy and hopeful. Both the constituents of apostolic cheerfulness are present, “ a wide door,” and “ many adversaries.” So wide is the door, and so great the spiritual enlargement, that the “adversaries,” instead of depressing, tend rather to stimulate and elevate the hearts of believers. The shout of a King is in the camp, and he is leading many captive. As in ancient times, so now, “ This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith.” “Justified by faith,” is the key-note of the hymn that is now rising heavenward like the voice of many waters from a revived and united Church. Christ the substitute — the just dying for the unjust — is the distinguishing feature of the preaching which at present is accompanied with power. This is as it should be; it is under this standard only that the Christian host will conquer. This gospel of free grace must be always and everywhere proclaimed. The evil spirit that possesses human hearts goeth not out by any other adjuration. But while this should be done, there is another thingwhich ought not to be left undone. A watchful, energetic effort personally to turn from all evil, and to practise all good, must be made by every one who trusts in Christ for pardon and peace. Work from peace and pardon as energetically as if you were working for peace and pardon.

There is not safety for an hour in any other attitude. If the upper side of true religion, pointing heavenward, be, “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;” the under side, pointing earthward, is, “ To visit the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” If the upper side of the seal which binds a believer to the sure foundation bear the inscription, “ The Lord knoweth them that are his; “ the legend on the under side must be kept clear and legible by constant rubbing, “ Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19). Actual holiness is as necessary to the life of faith as the left side of a man’s body is to the life of the right. In these circumstances I think I shall contribute a word for the times, if, for the special use of young converts, rejoicing in a free and full salvation, I set forth the two sides of the Christian life in their union and relations.

These I shall present as given by that great master of logical connections, the Apostle Paul.

“ Holding faith, and * a good conscience; which some Ivaving put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck “(1 Timothy 1:19). The two subjects here are faith, and a good conscience.

We must inquire first. What they severally are, and next, How they are reciprocally connected. Their nature first, and then their relations.

I. What they are

1. Faith. — The term is in the Scriptures applied both to the revealed truth which a disciple believes, and to his act in believing it. Faith is objective, or subjective. It is at one time the truth which you grasp, and at another time your grasp of the truth.

Both of these senses occur in the text, distinguished (in the original, though not in the English) by the presence or absence of the article. “ Faith,” in the first clause, is the soul’s act of believing; “ the faith,” in the second clause, is the gospel which the soul believes.

Both in the Scriptures and in their own nature these two are closely interwoven together. It is impossible everywhere to preserve and mark the distinction between the light that I look on, and my looking on that light.

True, my looking on it does not create the light, but it makes the light mine. Unless I look on it, the light is nothing to me. If I am blind, it is the same to me as if there had not been light. In some such way are faith and the faith connected and combined. It is quite true that the gospel remains, although I should reject it: my unbelief cannot make God’s promise of none effect. Yet my unbelief makes the gospel nothing to me — the same to me as if it had not been. 77ie faith stands in heaven, although faith be wanting on earth; but if faith is wanting, the faith does not save the lost: as the sun continues his course through the sky although I were blind; but my blindness blots out the sun for me.

2. A good conscience, — It is not necessary to explain what conscience is: my readers know what it is better than I can tell. What is meant by conscience is a thing to be experienced rather than to be taught; but what is meant by a “ good conscience “ is not so obvious. Here the principal question is, Whether does the epithet “ good “ refer to the conscience that gives the testimony, or to the testimony that the conscience gives. The term “ good “ here belongs not to the testifier, but to the testimony. In one sense that might be called a good conscience, that tells the truth even though the truth torment you. When the conscience, like an ambassador from God in a man’s breast, refuses to be silent in the presence of sin, and disturbs the pleasure of the guilty by uttering warnings of doom, that conscience is good, in the sense of being watchful and useful; but it is not the good conscience of this text, and of ordinary language. Both here, and in common conversation, a good conscience is a conscience that does not accuse and disturb. It is the same as peace of conscience. It is no doubt true that in an evil world, and through the deceitfulness of an evil heart, the conscience may sometimes be so drugged or seared that it may leave the soul undisturbed, although the soul is steeped in sin.

It sometimes says “ Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

“ There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked;” but the conscience sometimes contradicts God, and says that there is peace to the wicked. This is, however, an abnormal state of things j as when an ambassador at a foreign court turns traitor to the king who commissioned him, and refuses to deliver his lord’s commands to the court where he has been accredited. Although this state of rebellion is in point of fact common among men, it is in its own nature a contradiction and an anomaly. Although it abounds in this fallen world, it is an exception and a rarity in the universal dominion of the supreme God. It may for our present purpose be set aside. The conscience in man is intended to be God’s witness, and to speak to the man all the truth. Taking conscience, not as twisted and seared by sin, but as constituted by God in the conception and creation of humanity, then a good conscience is peace of conscience. You have and hold a good conscience when that present representative of God in your bosom does not charge you with sin. When it accuses it is an evil, when it approves it is a good, conscience. The one is an inward sense of guilt, the other an inward sense of righteousness. By the light of Scripture we know that, as matters go among the fallen, a good conscience, if real and lawfully attained, implies these two things: — (1) The application of the blood of sprinkling for the pardon of sin; and (2), Actual abstinence from known sin in the life through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. A good conscience — if it is not a cheat — implies a righteousness on you and a righteousness in you. There is the washing away of guilt in the fountain open; and there is the actual turning from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. There is a righteousness which you get, and there is a righteousness which you perform. The one is the justification, and the other the sanctification, of a believer. The one is an act of God’s free grace; the other is the work of God the Spirit. The one, as being an act, is completed when it is begun; the other, as being a work, drags its slow length along — alas, through corruptions within and temptations without — along the whole line of a disciple’s life, until he escape from the body and depart to be with Christ. Pardon and renewing combine to constitute, under the gospel, a good conscience.

What God hath joined, let not man put asunder. The first dissociated from the second is antinomianism; the second dissociated from the first is legalism. The hope of pardon through grace, without actual newness of life, tramples under foot God’s holy law. The effort to lead a holy life, without looking for pardon through the blood of Christ, parades the filthy rags of a sinner’s righteousness, as if they were fit to constitute the wedding garment of the King’s guests when the King cometh in. The conscience is then really good when your trust is in the blood and righteousness of your Redeemer, and your life is practically dedicated to the Lord that bought you. The conscience is good when it truly testifies that God is at peace with you, and you are at peace with God. For all practical purposes, the good conscience here may be taken as synonymous with well-doing.

II. Their relations, — The text consists of. two parts. The first is a command, the second is an example. The example, as is usual both in human teaching and divine, is adduced for the purpose of enforcing the precept. An illustrative case, taken from actual life to explain or apply a prescribed duty, may be in its form positive or negative; that is, it may either directly show how good it is to obey, or how evil it is to transgress. The case which is employed in this text is negative. It exhibits, in concrete form, not the good that results from obedience, but the evil that results from transgression. Doubtless, Paul could have called up from his own experience many examples to show how good it is to hold both faith and a good conscience; but it suited his purpose better, in this instance, to adduce an example which shows the dread consequence of attempting to separate them. In point of fact, an example of these two rent asunder is more effective in proving the necessity of their union than a hundred examples in which the union remains intact. Thus, if proof were necessary, to divide a Kving child in two with Solomon’s sword would constitute more vivid evidence that in a human being the left side is necessary to the life of the right, and the right to the life of the left, than the sight of a hundred unharmed children. When one side is wrenched off, the other side also dies: this is shorter and surer proof that the two are mutually necessary to each other’s existence than a hundred examples of positive, perfect life.

Besides, it is easier to find a foundation for a negative than for a positive example. In buoying a channel, they cannot well set up a mark where the ship ought to go; they set up a beacon on the simken rock which the ship ought to avoid. On this principle, the apostle selects a negative rather than a positive example to enforce his point. A case in which death resulted from severance suits his purpose better than a case in which life is preserved through continued union. In this case, one of the related pair is severed, and the other, as a necessary consequence, perishes.

Holding faith and a good conscience, which some — and he immediately names two men who had actually passed through the course which he describes — which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck; that is, when they put away the good conscience, the faith also was lost.

Here a question of the deepest interest crosses our path and claims our regard. Granted that faith and a good conscience are linked so intimately together that the one cannot live without its consort, what is the specific character of the relation? Whether of these two is first in nature as cause, and whether follows as effect? Looking to the form of expression in the text, which is exact and definite, we find that in the case adduced it was not the dissolution of faith that destroyed the good conscience, but the failing of the good conscience that destroyed faith.

These men put away the good conscience; then and therefore, they lost the faith. What then? As the continued possession of the faith depended on maintaining the good conscience, is it through prior possession of a good conscience that one may attain faith?

No. The converse is the truth, fully and clearly taught in the Scriptures. You do not reach faith through a good conscience, but a good conscience through faith. A good conscience grows on faith, like fruit on a tree, not faith on a good conscience. A good conscience in both its aspects, as already explained, is the fruit of faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God, either by the righteousness of Christ in justifying, of the new obedience in sanctifying. God is pleased with both righteousnesses, each in its own place, and after its own kind. The righteousness which a believing man receives satisfies his justice, and the obedience which a converted man renders adorns his doctrine. God is well pleased, for his righteousness’ sake, when he sees his Son accepted in your heart and his law honoured in your life. But both of these are attained through faith.

It is faith that justifies the man before God*s judgment, and establishes the law in the life-course of the man.

Now this specific relation is not reciprocal. The good conscience does not produce faith, as faith produces a good conscience. What then? If faith goes first as the cause, and a good conscience follows as the fruit, the good conscience obviously cannot subsist without faith; but may faith subsist without a good consdenoe? No. As to production at first, the relation is not reciprocal; but as to maintenance it is. We cannot say, as a good conscience springs from faith, faith also springs from a good conscience; but we can say, as the want of faith makes a good conscience impossible, so, also, the loss of a good conscience is fatal to faith.

Some species of trees retain life in the roots although the head and stem are cut away. A young tree may spring from the old stump, and grow to maturity. But other species, such as the pine, will not thus spring a second time. When the mature tree is cut off, although the root, with a portion of the stem, is left, the tree does not revive. The root dies when the head is severed.*

There is an interesting analogy between a pine-tree and the pair which are joined in the text. It is not the tree’s towering head that produces the root; the root produces the towering head. We can, therefore, safely say. If the root is killed, the head cannot live; but we may also say, If the head is severed, the root will die. Precisely such is the relation between faith and a good conscience. Faith is the producing, sustaining root, and a good conscience the stem that it sustains. Consequently, cut off faith, and a good conscience falls to the ground. Tes, this is the truth; but it is not the whole truth. We can also say. Destroy the good conscience, and faith cannot stand.

* The emigrant, in clearing his lot in the American forest, does not at first dig each tree out by the root. This process would occupy too much time. He cuts the tree four or five feet above the ground, and the root rots away in a few years. Hence, a common feature of the landscape in newly-reclaimed territories — fields studded all over wii the stumps of trees, and the comgrowing around them. Hence the coinage of a new word in the English language as used in America. A candidate for office is said *’ to stump the state ’* — that is, he goes through it addressing meetings and soliciting votes. One of these stumps constitutes a convenient platform for the political orator.

Thus in one way only may the good eonacienee be obtained; but in either of two ways both may be lost.

Let faith fail, and the good conscience goes with it; let the good conscience be polluted, and the faith itself gives way. In the first place, then, speculative error undermines practical righteousness. As belief of the truth purifies the heart and rectifies the conduct, so a false belief leads the life astray. Let it suffice to have enunciated the relation on this side; we shall turn for practical lessons chiefly to another aspect of the case. The example given in the text, and oftenest found in experience, is not false faith leading to an incorrect conduct, but impure conduct undermining faith. I suppose, in the experience of human life, if the speculative error producing practical wickedness slays its thousands, the practical wickedness perverting the creed slays its ten thousands. The backsliding begins more frequently on the side of conduct than on the side of opinion: the good conscience is lost in most cases, not by adopting a heretical creed, but by indulging in the pleasures of sin.

“ A good conscience, which some having put away.” When a man who has known the gospel and professed to be a disciple of Christ yields to temptation, and indulges in a course of sin — knowing the right, but doing the wrong — he forthwith loses the good conscience. His peace is disturbed; the witness in his bosom accuses him, and he is tormented by the fear of divine wrath. To this wicked man there is now no peace, and that by the word and decree of God. His heart is a house divided against itself, and it is wretched. Now, will this man who has fallen into sin, and so lost his good conscience, continue still sound in the faith? When his conduct is polluted, will his opinion continue true?

No, verily. As in the case of the text, when the good conscience is thus forced out, the sound creed will soon follow. Having put away a good conscience, concerning the faith they have made shipwreck. It is true indeed that pure conduct depends on sound doctrine; but it is also true that sound doctrine depends on pure conduct.

And, in point of fact, it is much more common to find the faith perverted by loose practice, than practice perverted by a loose creed. The wicked one knows that a soul may be undone by a successful assault either on his faith or his practice. But in seeking whom he may devour, he finds the side of a holy life more easily reached and pierced than the side of orthodox views. Our enemy finds it easier to persuade us to do what is evil than to believe what is false. The conscience is more exposed in the battle of life than the intellect. And it is on the weak point that a skilful adversary will concentrate his attack. For our instruction and reproof, the Spirit, by the apostle, adduces a case in which, while all the beliefs remained sound, the heart and life glided into impurity. In such a case there is strife in a man’s own bosom. The doctrines of grace entertained in the mind wage war against the vices indulged in the life, and the vices indulged in the life wage war against the doctrines still retained in the mind. This battle cannot last very long. One or other combatant must give way. Either sound doctrine, maintaining its ground, will drive out the vile indulgence, or the vile indulgence, growing, like an appetite, by what it feeds on, will put to flight the faith. In the case of our text the bad conscience prevailed and cast out the good belief. There is another ease recorded in the same epistle — 1 Timothy 6:9-10. Here are some who erred from the faith. How came that? They first gave themselves over to covetousness; then and therefore they erred from the faith. In truth, a man cannot make both money and Christ his portion. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways; and in some turn of the way the unstable traveller will stumble and fall.

While the calamity is substantially in all cases the same, the faith may be shipwrecked in any of three distinct forms, — a dead faith, an erroneous faith, and no faith. In the first a form of sound words remains, but they are a dead letter; in the second, false views of Christ and his work are entertained; and in the third, the backslider sits down in the chair of the scomer, and says, No God, with his lips as well as in his heart.

Among ourselves, perhaps a dead faith is the most common form of soul shipwreck. Through the indulgence of various vanities and lusts, although the name of Christ and the salvation which it brings remain as words, they are words of no meaning, no power. It is difficult to tear the stump right out of the ground at once. The same end is gained by leaving it standing dead; it will gradually rot away.

Faith and covetousness, faith and any impurity, cannot dwell together in the same breast. These cannot be in the same room with living faith. As well might you expect fire and water to agree. The cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word. What then? In order that faith in us should not be choked and die, we must crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts. Does this savour of legal teaching? See how Paul, the of the Cross, acted in his own experience — Acts 24:15-16, “And have hope toward God... And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men.” You have faith in Christ; well, this is the way to keep it — to keep it living. Let not one of us suppose that his faith will remain fresh and full without watching and striving, when we see that even Paul found it necessary to exercise himself every day to keep his conscience clean.

Young men are, in the present day, peculiarly exposed to the danger of speculative error or unbelief. They hear many arguments against either certain doctrines of the gospel, or the gospel itself; they must listen to many sneers against men who profess the faith. I do not deny that there is danger on that side. There is danger: a process of sapping and mining goes on, which may in time overthrow the faith of some. I confess there is danger of false opinions insinuating themselves into men’s minda All I contend for is, that the danger is greater on the other side. Faith is easier and oftener reached and undermined by stains that eat through the conscience.

I knew a young man once who became what was called a Socialist. He attained a great degree of boldness in the profession of ungodliness. No God, or no God that cares for me, was his short, cold creed. But I knew him and his communications before he had made shipwreck concerning faith. The second table of the law had, by indulgence of sinful pleasure, been rusted out of his heart before the first table was discarded from his creed. He had cruelly dishonoured his father and his mother, before he learned to blaspheme God. It cannot be comfortable to a young man in his strength to come day by day to open his heart to God, if day by day he is deliberately disowning and dishonouring his parents in the weakness of their age. The dishonourer of his parents finds it necessary to his own comfort to cast off God. This man put away his good conscience, and therefore his faith was wrecked.* I knew another, who had in youth made higher attainments, and who, on that account, made a more terrible fall.

He had experienced religious impressions, and taken a side with the disciples of Christ. I lost sight of him for some years. When’T met him again, I was surprised to find that he had neither modesty before men nor reverence before God. He was free and easy. He announced plainly that he did not now believe in the terrors spiritual that had frightened him in his youth. I made another discovery at the same time regarding him. He had deceived, ruined, and deserted one whom he falsely pretended to love.

Through vile and cruel affections he had put his good conscience away; and, to pacify an evil conscience, he had denied the faith. The belief of the truth and the practice of wickedness could not dwell together in the same breast. The torment caused by their conflict could not be endured.

He must be rid of one of the two. Unwilling to part with his sin at the command of his faith, he parted with his faith at the command of his sin. But though the shipwreck of faith is often, it is not always, the issue of the struggle. When the conscience of one who tried to be Christ’s disciple is defiled by admitted, indulged sin, the struggle inevitably, immediately begins. The Spirit striveth against the flesh, and the flesh against

* The man ultimately reoovered his faith. The stress of life was too heavy for an empty heart to bear; and he was fain to return, like the prodigal, to his Father. the Spirit The sin often casts out the faiih; but the faith also often casts out the sin. The outcome is often, through grsce, the discomfiture of the adversary. “Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victoiy.” “ The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.”

David put away his good conscience. His conscience was deeply stained by great, grievous, deliberate sin. The sword of the Spirit, glancing from a prophet’s lips, pierced through the searing, in the short and awful word, “ Thou art the man.” Then b an the conflict to rage in his breast This battle cannot last long. One or other combatant, in such a fast and furious struggle, must soon succumb. Angels desire to look into it. Here is a fight for the life of a soul! Now, or never! Either his faith vrill triumph over his sin, or his sin will triumph over his faitL These two cannot divide the kingdom and reign in concert. Repentance or Atheism will gain the day, and possess the man. It must either be the cry of Repentance, “ I have sinned against the Lord; “ or the cry of Atheism, “ There is no Lord to sin against” The struggle closed in the confession of the penitent; and the Lord also put away his sin.