THE ONE RELIGION.

Auckland Star, Volume XV, Issue 3710, 1 July 1882, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE ONE RELIGION.

IN THREE DISCOURSES,

Preached in the Loiink Stkebt Hall, BY Samuel Edoki:, 1?.A., Ariur, 30th and May 7th and 14th, ISB2.

No. 2.—lrs Conscience and Love.

We have now to consider the other two elements of Religion, besides worship, viz., Conscience and Love ; and to see how they confirm the ouo indivisible nature of all true religion,

Conscience is intended to govern all our human relationships, and the conduct springing out of them.

It is often maintained that all our duties are duties towards each other, and that the observance of these constitutes the whole of religion. So contends the secularist; and cither dispense* with religion, or maintains a religion without a God or a future But both these statements are inaccurate. 1 havo pointed out that in addition to any system of duties, even the moat perfect, wo need the inspiring imputau to their fulfilment; which we have in worship, an essential clement of all religion, lint neither U it quite true that all our duties are towards each other. I should call that an inaccurate statement of what is a great truth. In one sense—a very inattor-of fact House— we can have no duties towutds God. He, not beiug dependent onus, can receive nothing at our hands, either evil. But if lie is tho infinitely good and all-holy is it quite true that I owe no revcrcneo thoictu '', Is it correct to say I have no dutiss towards truth, and holy law, although no man may be in tho least degree affected l*y Imy conduct, Surely not. As I bow be- : fore these superb skies, in deep adoration at their visible grandeur, ami the grander invisible thought they enshrine, and fed that that is right and even imperative— equally whether there be or bo not another man to adore with mo; so in the presence of this moral and spiritual b&tven of what is good, and true, aud beauiihil—the moral law—it is a duty I owe, t*> •whomsoever or whatsoever, to bow adoringly and obediently, whether or not any human being may bo allected thereby. My fealty towards the good lies deeper than any practical consequences. Hut to pnt the truth accurately, it may be said that all duty terminates or culminates in our duty one to another. For there are no other practical duties. Vain is the utmost reverence for the good nnd holy, unless it influences my life and conduct. This our New Testament abundantly proclaims. This, then, is the sphere of conscience— tho inward soul's feeling (with pleasure or pain) of the right and the wrong; of which no further explanation (analysis) can be giveo, as neither can it of one's sense of the true and tho false, nor one's sense of tho beautiful and the deformed; all primary feelings deeply rooted in onr Tory nature, though marvellously capable of culture and expression. Concerning conscience are these three great nriucinlea

1. That consoience is strictly indioidttal and personal. In two senses : that my conscience is not yours, nor yours mine, nor any man's any other man's : aod consequently, that conscience cannot say for all men that this particular thing is right and that particular thing wrong, but that each man must follow the right and shun the wrong, as his individual discernment discriminates tlie right and wrong. Is not all conscientious action walking by the light we have, the light God gives us ? There can be no right walking without light, nor by another man's light. This is not pleasing to men, because tbey thiDk i% suoh trouble to find out for one's self (facetting that God may show us) the light, and that it would bo so much easier to have laid down for one and all, the plain path. And so spiritual apathy and laziness makes men run to a pope—so easy to go to heaven by just following his infallible guidauce— whether the pope be in Home or in some little conventicle. But how great the mistake. Suppose for a moment that it were so ; that conscience defined the same precise thing for each individual—child, adult, old man, man, woman, healthy, infirm, lofty genius, stupid clown, &c.—what a consciense would that be, and what a world 1 The thing is infinitely too absurd. Get your own heaven's guidance ia your own soul. Nought else avails. And then they object further—that this individual character makes conscience variable, unreliable. In a sense variable, no doubt, not therefore unreliable. For in the same sense duly is variable—as in the above diversities; orJf tbat displeases you, just try it.the other way—that conscience should point out just the same duty to a child three years old and a man three scoro and ten to a Maori Chic? and Queen Victoria, • The very thing that makes conscience reliable is just this—that seated upon her interior throne, the minister of God's light, she can indicate to each/wrf Ms and not some other man's faith ; for no two men do or ought to walk the same with. Hence further—

2. That conscience acts according to a man's entire character, and therefore demands his co-operation. The sense of right and wrong never varies, but whatw right and wrong lias to be discovered with the utmost care. The sense of truth varies not, but you have to search for the true, So of the beautiful; so of the good. Nothing comes to the man of indolence, the sluggard, tlio spiritual drone. Every single action demands thought, reflection, even prayer; then you will discover whether it be good or ill, as all its bearings and meanings pass before you. And so some men are very dullards as to the right and wroDg, and blunder on in moral stupidity; while come are keenly sensitive as finest steel to catch the truth, arid seem to be looking with the eyes of the All-Holy. But the great thing is for us to see that it belongs to each one to bring that; aid to conscience that may ensure tho perfect fulfilment of her. task; and,that is, to pronounce upon every single action possible to man—ftir that marit Yet further—

3. Conscience in one man is imperatively bound to recognise and respect conscience in every other man, and does so. Does any friend of liberty claim liberty for himnoli and trample it out in another ? Does the advocate of the rights of man mean hi right and no other mini's ? You cry out— away with aiich arrant hypocrisy. It La just «.v true that every conscientious man respects another man's conscience as much

:ia his own. Away with the hollow falsehood that talks pious cant about conscience for himself, and tramples upon another's. Hove you hare the solution of. many difficulties. Cannot n conscientious man persecute ? Well, on these grounds, Can ho ? Can he not maintain his own convictions, and slander and hate another man for his? Again I say, Can he? Can he not draw into disown little sect and Bay, we ate right and all you are wrong ? Once more, Can lio ? No, no. So soon as mou thus understand conscience, trims will bean end to alt these miserable discords in religion ; nnd Peter's ureat Haying will bo clear enough. Each man from every nation, and in every age that workcth righteousness, will bo working in the light of liis owi conscience, not auothor's. .No man cun any, I am holier than thou ; each accepting uud obeying God's light in everything. If lam not holier than thou, nnd thou art not holier than I; each man answeriog to God only and respecting each other man's answer; how can you split up religion into sects; how can it be otherwise than one and indivisible ?

Some, no doubt, will say that in adhering" to sects, we do not say, " I am holier tham thou." 1 must be pardoned for giving a flat denial to this. How long is it since wo heard that thorough Catholics could not be good Christians, that a Unitarian could not enter heaven? Why are men counselled again and again not to come to tluse services if we are as holy as they ? Let not faUehoud be added to injustice. One is enough to answer for to Gud.

Wo corao now to speak of Love, tho last and highest element of Religion. And hero we meet with a difficulty, to know just what place lore shall fill in lifo. Consider thia. Wo have supposed tho whole of life, to every minutest action, to bo under the guidance of Conscience. Now what room ih left for love, which is certainly a diflorent principle from conscience? The difliculty is not a theoretic, but a most practical ono. A man may say—as scores have said—l have done right towards ail men, studying to maintain tho most exact rectitude I have boon careful rather to ■wrong myself than to wrong anyone else. Having done this, what more oon bo demanded'or expected of me? I cannot be naked to add to all this a love that perhaps Ido not feel. Wbat shall we say to this? We must admit that love does go beyond all duty and conscience, and raises us altogether into a higher sphere of life. Conscienco again seems to build up and consolidate the individual—love, on the other hand, sinks the individual, in man the brotherhood, others. It is essentially selfrenouncing, while cooscicnce may bo said to be self-asserting. But now, if we look again, wo may see that love has a most essential sphere, in a world like ours; that even with conscience, it can in no way be dispensed with. For what will conscience or duty dictate towards the base, the worthless, tho outcast or the fallen ? It would be a sadder and darker world than it is were there not something to stretch out a hand towards those who have put themselves outside tho sphere of reciprocal duties; those of wlaom Carlylo, in whom the sense of conscience was so much stronger than sympathetic love, would say—"Let the rascals be hanged ! " Goethe, who never touches religion but with a most reverent hand and deep icilectloii, says, that there are three kinds of reverence; reverence towards that which is above us, which wo have seen to be the source of worship; reverence towards that which is on our own level, which its the basis of duty or conscience ; and reverence towards that which is beneath us,, which gives us the religion of tor-row anid love—the most wonderful exis ing thing. The world owes more to this than perjiaps all other things together. A world railed high by a pure conscience among tho 'Conscientious should not leave its outcasts to the doom of law ; or there were no gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. On two facts this love, reaching beyond the sphere of (conscience, rests. That wonderful power of sympathy by which the loving koul goes out of itself to live in anothor's experience o£ joy and sorrow, lays in our very being the foundation of that love which, tmnsce ruling conscience, can sacrifice self to love i's noblest works. And then when-we look up to the great Father, most perfectly revel iled in Christ, what are all His gifts to ns but a regard for that which is beneath Him . To God is no conscience ; for Ho has no equal. But God is lovo. And thus, by that very act, in which we sacrifice self an d become nothing for others, transcending ti .c whole sphere of reciprocal duties, in that do we becomo most like to God—while oil )eying one of the deepest promptings of: our own nature. In all its features, love' 3s a great mystery—evolving the sublimest: truths. In nothing more than in this S that while fulfilling every duty of consc ioDce, and seaming to annihilate self—itti.-anslfonnseveryduty into sacred bliss.^ And this is the highest thiDg in religion, as it is tin; sablimest thing in life^ witi £out it, Carlyle's idea might be realised—a world swept clean of scoundrels and reserv ed for the few—aye the very few —conscien .tiousl. With it, the regions of the deep a jre searched, the dark abodes of hell are t jraversed, the deserts where the miserable . and lonely perish, the sepu'ehres of the de ad, where the maddened in guilt wander, lacerating themselves with stones —all the se dark regions are swept, and from their gloomy darkness, children brought home to ? God. Keligion cannot .dispense with lo' /c. These three thiags—Worship, Conscic {nee, Love —are the ■whole of Religion. . , ; • ■ . • •

And. mow what can you say as 'to love an<Ua .Ittoe indivisible religion. Try and

' see if you can pet any discord, any ecpar.it- : ing iDiluence out of love, which thus draws : into its sympathetic bosom all the most opposite, guilty, fallen, and miserable elc- : nieiits, to melt them into a harmony of goodness and purity. I reserve it tor next Sunday morning to i point out how Christianity is the most perfect realisation or embodiment of this one religion. 13ut I may here just observe iv closing, what must be obvious on a moment's reflection, that those ihree elements of religion are mo«t manifestly set before us in Christ himself, and cannot but be recognised by him who possesses tho spirit of Chiut. The absolute manner iD which He made the will of God His own will and very life compels in his true followers that spirit of reverent worship which keeps us drawn towards God, aud inspires us with iuilucnccs that would transform tho human into the very likeness of the divine. If wo desire a sensitive and refined conscience, nowhere is it more certain than in fellowship with Him to whom tbc smallest evil was intense pain, and who recognised no true life but in the bliss of holiness. And for love, when we waut to see itin its deepest compassion for the wretched, its most self-deny ing redemptive power for the guilty, we go nowhere but to Christ to learn this. And when wo havo well seen all this, what more remains to he Been in Christ ? He never proclaimed the barest skeleton ot a creed ; to him all forms were a matter of indifference, and of priests he made a complete end. Or if we ask, what should be the fruits of religion, can we have more tban is here assured to us? AVith inspiring influences that would not stop short of God Himself; ■with a conscientiousness that cannot bear itho breath of contamination, and embrac ling every human concern; with a love "that cannot find an object too pitiable for j £ts compassion or too deeply ruined for its loving help ; tell me what you can add to this, in order to'produce a thoroughly godf like man. Here may ba found all noble- \ ncsa of thought, all purity of heart, and all iieroic action in life, equally appropriate to : ■every ago, to erery class, and to every shade iof human character. Tho religion that ; >can so transform the man need* nothing 1 added to it, and should have nothing taken feora it. For these years we have endeavoured to isAiind before this august conception of ■ neQjgion—uninfluenced by the ceremonies | saam iparty dogmas that havo in all ages be- ■ Mitlod it—until we might bocome fully ! eoDsoiouz of those sacred influences that dray arid oven toward God and his eternal wsuriight, au/d might sec sinking into absoJmtc nothingness eyeiything tbat divides xman from man or disturbs the harmony of God's great family.