WHENEVER the natural conscience is awakened, there is a certain sense of responsibility to God (indeed that is, in a sense, the awakening of it). The knowledge that God takes notice of all that is going on, of what we do, and the like, and that there is a judgment to come. Therefore the moment a man’s conscience is so awaked (the grace of God not being known), he begins to inquire whether his conduct is such as God can approve and accept; and thence he draws some inference as to his own future happiness or misery. This is the natural state of man―of every man that thinks about the matter.
But it is, alas! the real condition of multitudes of believers in Christ. There is a constant tendency in the heart to turn again to self―to a condition in which man stands responsible to God. It is always the case when the soul has got out of the power of the testimony of the Spirit of God as to the completeness of redemption; as also when we have not come to a distinct knowledge of the hopelessness of our condition before God as sinners. I say to a distinct knowledge; that is, when the soul has not estimated truthfully the hopelessness of its case, that in the flesh good does not dwell and become fully satisfied that everything―all the practical righteousness, holiness, or graciousness of the saint―is consequent upon the introduction of that new thing created in us by the power of God because of the risen Jesus.
J. N. D.