Now without quibbling about the translation this scheme of social arbitration contains the ultimate of justice, It contains the only working hypothesis within any social condition of mankind. There is no such thing as justice in the abstract or concrete, It is like heat and electricity, a mere mode of motion, a form of action. And when a controversy between Citizens is fairly submitted to the judgment of normal men the voice of their consciousness, being the ultimate organ of nature's Creator, must be "binding" so far as man is concerned socially. And as there does not appear to the natural man any appeal to heaven, the arbitrament of man in the special case carries the seal of the eternities and forecloses all further controversy. The speech of the honorable Consciousness of Man is the voice of the Creator of his personality.--Ed. [10] Since what is in the text was written, maturer thoughts have suggested an interpretation, by which, if received, the sad inferences presented by the doctrine, that misdeeds, and consequent suffering that have had place, could by a dip into a piece of water be caused never to have happened, may be repelled. According to this interpretation, the act of being baptized--the bodily act--is one thing; an act of washing away the sins--the spiritual act--another. The effect produced is--not the causing the misdeeds and sufferings never to have had place, but the causing them to be compensated for, by acts productive of enjoyment, or of saving in the article of sufferings, to an equal or greater amount. [11] See Ch. xvii. §. v. 4. Peter's and Cornelius's visions. [12] See Bentham's _Church of Englandism examined_. CHAPTER II. _Outward Conversion--how produced--how planned._ SECTION 1. MOTIVE, TEMPORAL ADVANTAGE--PLAN. How flourishing the state of the church had at this period become, will be seen more fully in another place. Long before this period,--numbers of converts, in Jerusalem alone, above three thousand. The aggregate, of the property belonging to the individuals, had been formed into one common fund: the management--too great a burden for the united labours of the eleven Apostles, with their new associate Mathias--had, under the name so inappositely represented at present by the English word _deacon_, been committed to seven trustees; one of whom, Stephen, had, at the instance of Paul, been made to pay, with his life, for the imprudence, with which he had, in the most public manner, indulged himself, in blaspheming the idol of the Jews--their temple.[13]