Seite:Marsh Hallig 1856.djvu/110

110THE HALLIG.

were a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, since if that
were so it would not have been necessary to put the
question, but he must seek the answer in the commands
of God, as they are given him in the pure and clear
revelation of the Divine law. Such a law, standing
there in its firm decisiveness, in its simple grandeur,
leaving no room for perversion or casuistry, however
much men may turn and twist it, tolerates no addition
and no subtraction without being changed entirely and
made to contradict itself, and such a command without
exception, such a guide pointing only in a single direc-
tion, such a positive yes or no, must decide without
compromise. Without such a stronghold of law it
comes to this, and it has already come to this, that
every man has his own system of morality, and that this
morality is a Janus head with two faces, and eyes which
regard as gray to-morrow what they held to be green
to-day. If you appeal to the voice of conscience, this
is nothing else, if indeed it deserve the name you have
given it, than a stream of living water from the rock
of the law, and if it is not that, there is less confidence
to be placed in it than in a weathercock, which at least
has the advantage of pointing out the direction from
which the wind blows. The clear, pure, revealed word of
God, which is not to be made or modeled according to
circumstances, should be for thee, in all thy willing
and doing, an immovable Sinai. At the sound of his
voice through the clouds, let all other voices be hushed,
and however flatteringly they may whisper around you
in the very tones of truth, still they are false just in
proportion as they differ more or less from the plain
open sense of the law. Do you think of consequences ?