result of sinning against God. The description of the original sin with its consequences of guilt, shame, confusion of face, and penal judgment, as given in Gen. iii, is a most vivid and instructive illustration of the nature of conscience and its working in every act of human sinfulness.

(2) New Testament use of ovveidnois. The Greek word employed in the New Testament to denote this moral intuition is ovveidnois. In Rom. ii, 15, we read that the Gentiles "are a law unto themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them." Paul appealed to the testimony of his own conscience (Rom. ix, 1; Acts xxiii, 1; xxiv, 16). In the last named passage he tells Felix of his constant endeavor "to have a conscience void of offence toward God and man." He also speaks of a good conscience (1 Tim. i, 5, 19), a pure conscience (1 Tim. iii, 9; 2 Tim. i, 3), a weak, defiled, and seared conscience (1 Cor. viii, 7, 12; Titus i, 15; 1 Tim. iv, 2). Mention also is made of a good conscience in 1 Pet. iii, 16, 21; and in Heb. xiii, 18, we meet the suggestive expression "a beautiful (xaλn) conscience," which accompanies the habitual desire and purpose in all things to behave one's self in an honorable and praiseworthy manner of life. In this same epistle we also find the phrase "conscience of sins” (x, 2), and the idea of being "sprinkled from an evil conscience" (x, 22) and of "purging the conscience from dead works" (ix, 14). In 1 Pet. ii, 19, occurs the phrase "conscience of God," that is, a conscience alive and tender in its sense of God and moral obligation.'

(3) Essential Moral Sense. According to these scriptures conscience is an essential element in the moral constitution of man. It witnesses an intuition of moral obligation and asserts itself in judgments of guilt or of innocence. Its existence is assumed in the original commandment of Gen. ii, 16, 17, and implied in the picture of original innocence in Gen. ii, 25. And so in every record of transgression and punishment, in every commandment of God, as well as in all manner of rebuke, blame, admonition, exhortation, and appeal to the moral sense, we recognize the fact and imperative sway of the faculty of conscience.

3. Personality and Freedom of Will. A closer study of this subject leads to an analysis of the moral faculties of man and the question of the freedom of the will. The action of conscience and the sense of moral responsibility imply the fact of freedom.

So Huther: "A genitive of the object, the duty-compelling consciousness of God."-Meyer's Commentary in loco.

The commandments and exhortations of Scripture together with words of warning and assurances of certain penal judgment in case of disobedience are without moral significance if man is not free to act. The final appeal for the truth of this statement must be taken to one's own personal consciousness. All the constituent elements and activities of man's nature which we have passed in review center in the personality of each individual. Human personality consists in the complex self-conscious unity of intelligence, sensibility, and the power of volition, so that these three, thinking, feeling, and choosing, distinguish man as the highest order of being on earth, "crowned with glory and honor," and bearing the image of God. We shall find in the Scriptures, as well as in the study of our own conscious moral action, that rational intelligence in the perception of right and wrong, and the conditions of human sensibility are often necessarily what they are. That is, they are often controlled by causes exterior to themselves, so that what is thought and what is felt can be no other than that which is realized in consciousness. Matters of fact and truth may be so clearly presented to the human understanding that the man cannot fail to know them; and emotions, desires, inclinations, and passions may also be so stirred by forces from without the soul that one cannot possibly ignore the sensation. But this is not true of volition. Under the ordinary conditions of human life the will is free and competent for selfdetermination. The individual, whose rational judgment is fully settled as to what is right, and whose deepest feelings are moved in the same way possesses the power of volition by which he may deliberately reject what is right and choose what is wrong. The appeal of Moses in Deut. xxx, 19, assumes this freedom of will in the persons addressed: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed." The personal individuality of this appeal is noticeable in the use of the personal pronoun in the singular. The like assumption of responsible moral agency appears in the appeal of the prophet Isaiah (i, 19, 20): "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword." The wail of Jesus over Jerusalem (Matt. xxiii, 37) involves the doctrine of the power of the human will to resist and reject the highest motives and the most affectionate calls: "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" We note also how Jesus is represented, in John iii, 20, 21, as saying: "Every one that doeth evil

hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved. But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God." The persecution and martyrdom of Stephen were perpetrated in malicious resistance of the Holy Spirit (Acts vii, 51). Paul's doctrine of rewards and punishments-eternal life for those who do well, and "tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that worketh evil" (Rom. ii, 9)-is obviously based upon the assumption of a free and responsible moral nature. Scores of similar appeals, exhortations, warnings, and facts of personal consciousness recorded in the Scriptures assume that, while the intellect and the sensibility may be necessitated to states of perception and of feeling, the power of free and responsible volition is fully recognized in man. Man, the personal agent, determines among conflicting reasons and various motives that one course of action which he himself will follow. And this is what is meant by freedom of the will, which may be treated both as a fact and a doctrine, and is essential to the explanation of the nature of man as a moral being."

4. The Moral Element of Social Relations. The recognition of the ethical nature of man is essential to an understanding of his social relations. The lower animals mate together and beget offspring according to their kind, and many kinds become gregarious; but man alone is capable of organizing and perpetuating social institutions.' The Scriptures furnish us in sketches of patriarchal life a faithful picture of the family in its earlier forms and also of the development and growth of families into tribes. Later on we see how the tribes become organized into a powerful nation, and adopt various forms of law and government. The records of earliest family life afford evidence of sundry imperfections. While monogamy is the original and fundamental law, the patriarchs were notably implicated in bigamy and polygamy. The Mosaic legislation on divorce is witness to a prevalent defective moral sense. The profound teaching of Jesus respecting the prohibition of adultery (Matt. v, 28) and the bill

'Hence Dorner, in defining the relation between dogmatics and ethics, very appropriately says that ethics "has for its subject that world of human morality which is brought about by the acts of human self-determination." System of Christian Doctrine, vol. i, p. 28. Edinburgh, 1888. For a most thorough and exhaustive discussion of the freedom, as against all necessitarian theories of human action, see D. D. Whedon's classic treatise, The Freedom of the Will. New York, 1864. Note especially the definitions and arguments of chapters i, ii, iv and vi of Part First.

'Human nature has its existence in an ethical sphere and for moral ends of being. We assume that there is a natural capacity or basis for ethical being and life which in the ascent of nature has been reached at length and is occupied by the human race.-Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, p. 27. New York, 1892.

of divorce (Mark x, 2-12) presents the purest and noblest ideal. The family institution is thus made to appear the most fundamental and sacred of all human relations. Based upon the primal natural constitution of male and female (Gen. i, 27) the man and wife are united for lifelong companionship, and for the propagation of their kind (Gen. ii, 18, 24). In the growth of families and the formation of clans jealousy, bitter feuds, grievous wrongs, and fearful cruelties appear, as in the history of the tribes of Jacob. In the organization of rival states and nations these wrongs take on displays of wrath and vengeance still more terrible, and the history of most of the great nations is one long series of wars and oppressions. Yet slowly and surely through all the ages of strife the moral sense of man has recognized the fact and the excellency of inalienable human rights, and the necessity of guarding them against violence and oppression. Hence the enactment of various forms of law for the family, the tribe or clan, the larger community, the state, and the nation. The highest moral law enunciated in the Old Testament, which has a necessary bearing on all social relations, is written in Lev. xix, 17, 18: "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart. . . . Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." This principle strikes at the root of every human wrong, but the Jew did not comprehend the full truth and application of this noble law. To him no foreigner could be neighbor, but only one of his own tribe or people. It has required ages of discipline to show mankind that they are all brethren, the offspring of one God, and the lesson is yet far from being fully understood. But here, imbedded in the midst of old Levitical precepts, is the highest law of human brotherhood and rights. Jesus himself recognized it (Matt. xxii, 39), and set it in golden form in the commandment: "All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them" (Matt. vii, 12; Luke vi, 31). Thus we perceive that the moral sense is a constituent element in the nature of man, and manifests itself in the individual, in the family, and in all the organized forms of society. As races and states become more civilized the ethical standards of all human relationship become more exalted and controlling. Men are, accordingly, coming to recognize more and more the universal bonds of brotherhood.

CHAPTER III

THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN MAN

1. Essential in Normal Human Nature. The moral element of man's nature is related most vitally and fundamentally to a religious element, in which, in fact, it roots itself and finds its most thorough explanation. Morality is essentially a part of the social aspect of religion. As the capacity to receive and communicate ideas is unmistakable evidence of man's intellectual nature; as all the varied emotions of love, fear, and sensitiveness to objects of beauty and of ugliness are a certain witness of the existence of a living soul, conscious of itself and of its conditions, so there is in the depths of human consciousness an intuition of God. There are facts in the operations of the spiritual nature of man which find adequate explanation only in the doctrine of a necessary relation between the self-conscious personality of the human spirit and the infinite and eternal Spirit who is the upholder of all things visible and invisible. A profound sense of dependence upon some higher Power, and some kind of formal reverence for that Power, have been manifest among all men. The exceptions, if there be any, are so limited and uncertain in character as rather to enhance the farreaching significance of the general fact. Man is as truly a religious as he is a spiritual being. The consciousness that he is somehow related to an infinite Being above him or beyond him, and at the same time within him, is so firmly seated and persistent in the whole race that it demands recognition in any fair outline of the nature of man.'

2. Biblical Words Expressive of Religious Feeling and Action. This religious feeling is represented in the New Testament by the words evoéßela, piety, or godliness, and pηokɛía, reverential worship, or religious service. Both words involve the idea of a sacred personal relationship between man and God. The idea is seen in the Old Testament in the frequent use of the adjective

one who is pious or godly, and in the reflexive form of the

In the very notion of a spiritual, self-conscious being there is already involved what may be called a virtual or potential infinitude. The first breath of spiritual life is indeed, in one sense, the realization of this capacity, but in another sense, it is only the beginning of a realization which is itself incapable of limitation. We are rational and spiritual beings only in virtue of the fact that we have in us the power to transcend the bounds of our narrow individuality, and to find ourselves in that which seems to lie beyond us.-John Caird, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, p. 112. New York, 1894.