The Conscience

According to John Calvin:

“The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.”

“If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, than in a field…it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”

All Things are in the Hands of Christ

The Christian has been given an advantage in Christ; this connection to Christ gives the Christian an interest in God; by which the love of Christ is made manifest. Ralph Erskine gives us food for thought:

The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. (John 3:35 ESV)

Nothing in the world, will sweeten the remembrance of Christ’s love to us, so much as the believing remembrance of the Father’s love to him; even as nothing can provoke us more to put honor upon Christ, than to see how much honor the Father puts upon him; and for this end, “That all men might honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” Why, what honor has the Father put upon him? It is even the greatest honor; and that wherein our greatest happiness lies He hath given all things into his hand.”

Since faith comes by hearing of the object of faith, by hearing what Christ, the object of faith is, and what he hath, let your eye be towards him, and your ear be open to hear what is said of him; that, in hearing, you may believe, without seeking to draw faith out of your own heart and bowels, whence you will never find it. If there be any subject in the world, the hearing whereof tends, through grace, to work saving faith, it is this, that faith, and all grace, all good, all fullness, all things, are in Christ’s hand. . . .

All things are in the hand of Christ, we mean not only generally, all things in the kingdom of providence; because his kingdom rules over all; and, “He is the Head of all things unto the church,” Eph. 1:22, but also, particularly, all things in the kingdom of grace, of which he says, “My kingdom is not of this world,” John 18:46. But blessed be God, he hath not said, his spiritual kingdom is not in this world; but it is not of this world: he hath his spiritual invisible kingdom in the hearts of his people in this world; who, though they are in it, yet they are not of it, but chosen out of the world; yet, sometimes this kingdom of his is visible, in the remarkable tokens of his spiritual presence in his ordinances. And, O for many such tokens this day!

If they that inherit Christ, inherit all things; then all things are in his hand; but so it is, they that inherit him, inherit all things, 1 Cor. 3:21-23. For all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come: all are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. This golden chain, together with all things present, and all things to come, is linked to the believer, because he is united unto Christ. (“Heaven’s Grand Repository”)