Nothing can make persecution right—­it is wrong, essentially, eternally wrong in the sight of God.  And yet, if a man sincerely and assuredly thinks that Christ has laid upon him a command to persecute with fire and sword, it is surely better that he should, in spite of all feelings of tenderness and compassion, cast aside the dearest affections at the command of his Redeemer, than that he should, in mere laxity and tenderness, turn aside from what seemed to him to be his duty.  At least, this appears to be the opinion of the Apostle Paul.  He tells us that he was “a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious,” that “he did many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth,” that “being exceedingly mad against the disciples, he persecuted them even unto strange cities.”  But he tells us further that, “for this cause he obtained mercy, because he did it ignorantly in unbelief.”

Now take a case precisely opposite.  In ancient times the Jews did that by which it appeared to them that they would contract defilement and guilt—­they spared the lives of the enemies which they had taken in battle.  Brethren the eternal law is, that charity is right:  and that law is eternally right which says, “Thou shalt love thine enemy.”  And had the Jews acted upon this principle they would have done well to spare their enemies:  but they did it thinking it to be wrong, transgressing that law which commanded them to slay their idolatrous enemies—­not from generosity, but in cupidity—­not from charity, but from lax zeal.  And so doing, the act was altogether wrong.

 II.  Such is the apostle’s exposition of the law of Christian
 conscience.  Let us now, in the second place, consider the applications
 both of a personal and of a public nature, which arise out of it.

1.  The first application is a personal one.  It is this:—­Do what seems to you to be right:  it is only so that you will at last learn by the grace of God to see clearly what is right.  A man thinks within himself that it is God’s law and God’s will that he should act thus and thus.  There is nothing possible for us to say—­there is no advice for us to give, but this—­“You must so act.”  He is responsible for the opinions he holds, and still more for the way in which he arrived at them—­whether in a slothful and selfish, or in an honest and truth-seeking manner; but being now his soul’s convictions, you can give no other law than this—­“You must obey your conscience.”  For no man’s conscience gets so seared by doing what is wrong unknowingly, as by doing that which appears to be wrong to his conscience.  The Jews’ consciences did not get seared by their slaying the Canaanites, but they did become seared by their failing to do what appeared to them to be right.  Therefore, woe to you if you do what others think right, instead of obeying the dictates of your own conscience; woe to you if you allow authority, or prescription, or fashion,