amaging
health of body and mind thereby, I cannot imagine that Paul would have
treated it as a difficult question at all. You have a sinful habit he
would say, you are injuring and destroying your system; you must break
it, absolutely, decisively, or perish: what help I can give you as man
to man, by the influence of my words or works, is at your service; but
it is no question of what I do or do not: it is a simple point, it is
between you and God; fly to Him for grace and strength, and master your
lust.

But here the case is quite different. It is a case not of a vicious
habit, but of a puzzled conscience; a feeble apprehension of truth, a
doubt as to what is right or wrong, in which the conduct of the wise and
enlightened would be a most wholesome and valuable guide. This weak soul
trying to see its way needed guidance. What a glutton or a sot needs is
power. For the one use, example is most precious; the other need can
only be supplied from a yet deeper spring. How far am I in contact with
idolatry in this eating of meat offered to idols? might easily be a very
fair question; and not only with the weakest of the young Gentile
Church. Some would eat it with conscience of the idol. They would be
pained and distressed, and a constant tolerance of such pain and
distress is demoralizing. Doing great acts of life with a half heart,
with a troubled faith, paralyses conscience, and in the end opens the
way to tremendous sins. The constant converse with idolatry which
attending these feasts with a "conscience of the idol" would generate,
might easily end in apostasy, shipwreck of faith and hope for ever.

How beautiful is the mingled wisdom and charity with which the apostle
handles the difficulty! It was absolutely none to him. The idol to him
was not anything at all. It was a vain imagination of man's vain heart.
There could be no conscience of an idol in his mind in dealing with
anything created by God, however the idol might have been connected with
it by others. Who would recognise an usurper because he occupies the
palace and assumes the signet of the rightful king? "_The earth is the
Lord's, and the fulness thereof._" The creature is the Lord's, every
limb, every particle. If I can but use it for the end for which the Lord
created it and put it under my hand, I will rejoice and give thanks that
so far the usurper is despoiled. Thus the instructed Jew would look at
the matter: "_the idol is not anything at all_." But t