Preached January 25, 1852.

 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE.

“Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge:  for some, with conscience of the idol, unto this hour, eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is denied.  But meat commendeth us not to God:  for neither if we eat are we the better; neither if we eat not are we the worse.  But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak.  For if any man see thee which hast knowledge, sit at meat in the idol’s temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; and through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died?  But when ye sin so against the brethren and wound their weak conscience ye sin against Christ.  Wherefore if meat make my brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.”—­1 Corinthians viii. 7-13.

We have already divided this chapter into two branches—­the former portion of it containing the difference between Christian knowledge and secular knowledge, and the second portion containing the apostolic exposition of the law of Christian conscience.  The first of these we endeavoured to expound last Sunday, but it may be well briefly to recapitulate the principles of that discourse in a somewhat different form.

Corinth as we all know and remember, was a city built on the sea coast, having a large and free communication with all foreign nations; and there was also within it, and going on amongst its inhabitants, a free interchange of thought, and a vivid power of communicating the philosophy and truths of those days to each other.  Now it is plain, that to a society in such a state, and to minds so educated, the gospel of Christ must have presented a peculiar attraction, presenting itself to them as it did, as a law of Christian liberty.  And so, in Corinth the gospel had “free course and was glorified,” and was received with great joy by almost all men, and by minds of all classes and all sects; and a large number of these attached themselves to the teaching of the Apostle Paul as the most accredited expounder of Christianity—­the “royal law of liberty.”  But it seems, from what we read in this epistle, that a large number of these men received Christianity as a thing intellectual, and that alone—­and not as a thing which touched the conscience, and swayed and purified the affections.  Thus this liberty became to them almost all—­they ran into sin or went to extravagance—­they rejoiced in their freedom from the superstitions, the ignorances, and the scruples which bound their weaker brethren; but had no charity—­none of that intense charity which characterized the Apostle Paul, for those still struggling in the delusions and darkness from which they themselves were free.