1. That Conscience may be perverted so that it allows those things that are wrong, and forbids those things that are right, is, alas, very true. S. Paul speaks of this. "Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and Conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." (Titus i. 15, 16.) And again, he speaks of those whose Consciences are seared with a hot iron (1 Tim. iv. 2); and again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, he speaks of evil Consciences. Now an evil Conscience can only be such an one as--originally good and sound--has been turned about so as to be bad and diseased, allowing such things as it should condemn, and condemning such things as it should allow. 2. Now a False Conscience may be either _invincibly_ wrong, or _vincibly_ wrong, that is to say, incurably bad, or curable. It does not by any means follow that he who follows his Conscience, invincibly false, commits sin. Not only does he not commit sin, but he is probably doing what is the best for his spiritual condition under the circumstances. For instance, take a man who has been born and brought up in Dissent, into whose mind has been inground the maxim that he must fight against the Church. So long as he does resist the Church by fair means he is not sinning, the Devil cannot count on him as fighting in his army against the Kingdom of God, as an enrolled soldier of evil. That he is not. He is doing right, according to his lights. _But_, supposing he has recourse to illegitimate means of defaming and undermining the Church, such as spreading scandalous stories against its members or ministers, _knowing them to be false_, then his resistance to Christ's kingdom becomes sinful. Prejudice, the result of a false education, has become so enrooted that his error is invincible, except by some supernatural illumination. It was so with Saul. He fought against the Church, but he did it from a right motive. As soon as God miraculously converted him to a knowledge of the truth, then he became an Apostle under that Gospel which he had formerly resisted. 3. Now let us consider the case of a Conscience in a condition of _vincible_ error. As a vincible condition of error is one from which nearly any man may free himself if he takes the pains, he sins if he follows a false Conscience, without making any effort to set it right. The error being voluntary does not excuse the act. Through indolence, or indifference, or prejudice, he does not attempt to give himself a direct and sound Conscience, and he sins in following his Conscience when he commits something wrong, or omits something right, _not_ because he is following his Conscience, but because he has made no endeavour to educate his Conscience to discriminate rightly.