The culture of conscience.
"Before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good." Some take this expression as referring to pleasant or unpleasant food; but it probably is used in a general moral sense. Compare the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in Genesis 2:9; Genesis 3:5. For the expression as used in reference to children, see Deuteronomy 1:39. Isaiah evidently intends, by a figure of speech, to indicate two or three years, the time when a child may be regarded as getting out of his infancy of ignorance and innocence. Without discussing philosophically the nature of conscience, or the sense in which man has innate ideas, and keeping quite within the sphere of observation and experience in family life, we may say, with Reid, "Conscience, like all other powers, comes to maturity by insensible degrees, and may be more aided in its strength and vigor by proper culture." The following, line of thought is given barely and suggestively, because its detailed treatment must depend on the philosophical and theological standpoint of the preacher.
I. WE BEGIN LIFE WITH DESIRES. AS soon as Eve was made she looked longingly on the beautiful fruits of the garden. The infants are crying for something, if it be only the light. Man wants. He is not sufficient to himself. And the wants are ever growing.
II. WE FIND THE SUPPLY OF SOME DESIRES BRINGS PLEASURE, and of some brings pain. So we begin to distinguish things by their attendant consequences in our feeling.
III. WE CALL THE PAINFUL EVIL, AND THE PLEASANT GOOD; and so establish for ourselves a standard which will test more than we at first imagine.
IV. PRESENTLY WE FIND THAT WE CONFUSE THINGS, AND CALL THINGS PLEASANT WHOSE CONSEQUENCES ARE EVIL. So we discover that our discernment needs educating; and—
V. WE ARE BROUGHT TO SEEK A STANDARD BY WHICH TO JUDGE THINGS; that is away from, and beyond ourselves; and we learn to find the only sure educating force in the revealed will of God. Man knows with certainty what is evil and what is good, when he recognizes that God has set him in this world of sensible relations, and, pointing to some things, has said, "Thou mayest;" and to other things, "Thou shalt not." Conscience is truly cultured only when it clearly witnesses to that of which God has, in his revelation, expressed his approval.—R.T.