Gold Nugget 233 - Shelter for Our Cowardice
Policy is consulted when conscience is absent. It is dubious, and flies to compromises. … There is danger in all societies and committees of men for the conscience. They are more timid than in isolation, and timidity is mean and treacherous to the noblest instincts of the heart. Men will back one another up on doing things or refraining from doing things, when they would have been more true if left to themselves. ‘Tis a moral trial in these respects to act with others. Shelter for our cowardice, stimulus to our active passions, is found in the fellowship of close interest. …
The mind cannot be chained; the spontaneous movements of the spirit cannot be checked by force … Force can only act within the laws of nature; it enters not the kingdom of spirit …
Shall he obey god or man? The tyrant must tremble when he hears the question put. Physical necessity is on his side; moral necessity, revealed in the conscience, on the other. The one says to the witness – You shall not; the other replies from his breast – I cannot but. … The tyrant and his victim change places when it is seen that the latter has placed himself against the rock of eternal right. … He will not obey man rather than God. He has one clear principle only – to obey the voice in his soul. Immediate consequences form no element of calculation. They may be favorable to him, as now in the physical sense, for the many may be for the moment on his side; or they may be fatal. With eye far fixed on eternity, and ear attent upon the Divine voice, he goes forward … and is not afraid.
The Pulpit Commentary, Acts p. 133-134, Acts 4:1-22, (E. Johnson)
Gold Nugget 233
Shelter for Our Cowardice
