d conviction
brings the sinner the three stages of Christ's redemptive work, past
judgment and past condemnation into eternal acceptance with the Father.

In striking antithesis with all this, we have an instance in the Acts of
the threefold conviction of conscience, when Paul before Felix "reasoned
of _righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment to come_" (Acts 24:
25). Here the sin of a profligate life was laid bare as the apostle
discoursed of chastity; the claims of righteousness were vindicated, and
the certainty of coming judgment exhibited; and with the only effect that
"Felix trembled." So it must ever be under the convictions of
conscience,--compunction but not peace. We have also an instructive
contrast exhibited in Scripture, between the co-witness of the Spirit and
the co-witness of conscience. "_The Spirit himself beareth witness_
(_summarturei_) that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8: 16). Here is
the assurance of sonship, with all the divine inward persuasion of
freedom from condemnation which it carries. On the other hand is the
conviction of the heathen, who have only the law written in their hearts:
"_Their conscience bearing witness_ (_summarturouses_), their thoughts
one with another accusing, or else excusing them, in the day when God
shall judge the secrets of men" {201} (Rom. 2: 15, 16). Conscience can
"accuse," and how universally it does so, abundant testimony of Christian
missionaries shows; and conscience can "excuse," which is the method that
guilty thoughts invariably suggest; but _conscience cannot justify_.
Only the Spirit of truth, whom the Father hath sent forth into the world,
can do this. The work of the two witnesses may be thus set in contrast:

_Conscience Convinces_-- _The Comforter Convinces_--
Of sin committed; Of sin committed;
Of righteousness impossible; Of righteousness imputed;
Of judgment accomplished. Of judgment impending.

Happily these two witnesses may be harmonized, as they are by that
atonement which reconciles man to himself, as well as reconciles man to
God. Very significantly does the Epistle to the Hebrews, in inviting our
approach to God make, as the condition of that approach, the "having our
hearts _sprinkled from an evil conscience_." As the High Priest carried
the blood into the Holy of Holies in connection with the old
dispensation, so does the Spirit take the blood of Christ into the inner
sanctuar