must use with our children before they are old enough to
understand about the Word and the Spirit of God. This is what accuses
or excuses the heathen.

Conscience is "a divinely implanted faculty in man, telling him that
he ought to do right." Someone has said that it was born when Adam and
Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, when their eyes were opened and they
"knew good and evil." It passes judgment, without being invited, upon
our thoughts, words, and actions, approving or condemning according as
it judges them to be right or wrong. A man cannot violate his
conscience without being self-condemned.

But conscience is not a safe guide, because very often it will not
tell you a thing is wrong until you have done it. It needs
illuminating by God because it partakes of our fallen nature. Many a
person does things that are wrong without being condemned by
conscience. Paul said: "I verily thought with myself that I ought to
do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." Conscience
itself needs to be educated.

Again, conscience is too often like an alarm clock, which awakens and
arouses at first, but after a time the man becomes used to it, and it
loses its effect. Conscience can be smothered. I think we make a
mistake in not preaching more to the conscience.

Hence, in due time, conscience was superseded by the law of God, which
in time was fulfilled in Christ.

In this Christian land, where men have Bibles, these are the agency by
which God produces conviction. The old Book tells you what is right
and wrong before you commit sin, and what you need is to learn and
appropriate its teachings, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Conscience compared with the Bible is as a rushlight compared with the
sun in the heavens.

See how the truth convicted those Jews on the day of Pentecost. Peter,
filled with the Holy Ghost, preached that "God hath made this same
Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." "Now when they
heard this, they were _pricked in their heart_, and said unto Peter
and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

Then, thirdly, the Holy Ghost convicts. I once heard the late Dr. A.
J. Gordon expound that passage--"And when He (the Comforter) is come,
He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment;
of sin because they believe not on Me,"--as follows:--

"Some commentators say there was no real conviction of sin in the
world until the Holy