h
and 8th verses. The apostle tells the Corinthians--these strong-minded
Corinthians--that the superstitions of their weaker brethren were
unquestionably wrong. "Meat," he says, "commendeth us not to God; for
neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the
worse." He then tells them further, that "there is not in every man
that knowledge; for some with conscience of the idol, eat it as a
thing offered unto an idol." Here then, is an ignorant, mistaken,
ill-informed conscience; and yet he goes on to tell them that this
conscience, so ill-informed, yet binds the possessor of it: "and their
conscience being weak, is defiled." For example,--there could be no
harm in eating the flesh of an animal that had been offered to an idol
or false god; for a false god is nothing, and it is impossible for it
to have contracted positive defilement by being offered to that which
is a positive and absolute negation. And yet if any man thought it
wrong to eat such flesh, to him it _was_ wrong; for in that act there
would be a deliberate act of transgression--a deliberate preference of
that which was mere enjoyment, to that which was apparently, though it
may be only apparently, sanctioned by the law of God. And so it would
carry with it all the disobedience, all the guilt, and all the misery
which belongs to the doing of an act altogether wrong; or as St. Paul
expresses it, the conscience would become denied.

Here then, we arrive at the first distinction--the distinction between
absolute and relative right and wrong. Absolute right and absolute
wrong, like absolute truth, can each be but _one_ and unalterable in
the sight of God. The one absolute _right_--the charity of God and the
sacrifice of Christ--this, from eternity to eternity must be the sole
measure of eternal right. But human right or human wrong, that is the
merit or demerit, of any action done by any particular man, must be
measured, not by that absolute standard, but as a matter relative to
his particular circumstances, the state of the age in which he lives,
and his own knowledge of right and wrong. For we come into this world
with a moral sense; or to speak more Christianly, with a conscience.
And yet that will tell us but very little distinctly. It tells us
broadly that which is right and that which is wrong, so that every
child can understand this. That charity and self-denial are
right--this we see recognised in a