posterity, would
have been able to say: "I see the right and _approve_ of it, while I
follow the wrong." But it was not so. After apostasy, the conscience of
Adam passed the same judgment upon sin that it did before. Adam heard its
terrible voice speaking in concert with the voice of God, and hid
himself. He never succeeded in bringing his conscience over to the side
of his heart and will, and neither has any one of his posterity. It is
impossible to do this. Satan himself, after millenniums of sin, still
finds that his conscience, that the accusing and condemning law written
on the heart, is too strong for him to alter, too rigid for him to bend.
The utmost that either he, or any creature, can do, is to drown its
verdict for a time in other sounds, only to hear the thunder-tones again,
waxing longer and louder like the trumpet of Sinai.

Having thus briefly shown that the approbation of goodness is not the
love of it, we proceed to draw some conclusions from the truth.

1. In the first place, it follows from this subject, that _the mere
workings of conscience are no proof of holiness_. When, after the
commission of a wrong act, the soul of a man is filled with
self-reproach, he must not take it for granted that this is the stirring of
a better nature within him, and is indicative of some remains of original
righteousness. This reaction of conscience against his disobedience
of law is as necessary, and unavoidable, as the action of his eyelids
under the blaze of noon, and is worthy neither of praise nor blame, so
far as he is concerned. It does not imply any love for holiness, or any
hatred of sin. Nay, it may exist without any sorrow for sin, as in the
instance of the hardened transgressor who writhes under its awful power,
but never sheds a penitential tear, or sends up a sigh for mercy. The
distinction between the human conscience, and the human heart, is as wide
as between the human intellect, and the human heart.[2] We never think of
confounding the functions and operations of the understanding with
those of the heart. We know that an idea or a conception, is totally
different from an emotion, or a feeling. How often do we remark, that a
man may have an intellectual perception, without any correspondent
experience or feeling in his heart. How continually does the preacher
urge his hearers to bring their hearts into harmony with their
understandings, so that their intellectual orthodoxy may become their
practical