CONSCIENCE AND SPIRITUAL TASTE
CONSCIENCE AND SPIRITUAL TASTE
The plant called ‘hen and chickens’ is a very beautiful illustration of the new man - Christ and His brethren. The stem and large central flower is the parent plant, and growing out of the stem all around are small blossoms, alike in colour and material to the central one, and differing only in size. The colour always indicates the material, and morally the outside must be in keeping with the power within. The flaw outside intimates that there is a flaw within. Hence the tongue is the tell-tale of every one. “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man” (James 3: 2). “I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress” (Psalm 17: 3). Our great study should be to increase the treasure within, for, according as I am a mirror, I reflect Christ in His glory - that is,
[p. 198] in the moral order which is suited to, and emanating from God. There it is that my spiritual tastes are formed, and there they are fed, but I have to maintain, to be an epistle here of what is written on me there. I find no help from my body, but it is an earthen vessel that the excellency of the power may be of God. I acquire the tastes there, and I seek to express and maintain them here. It is not merely conscience judging whether I am up to the word or light made known to me; but spiritual taste is much more - it is nature. My taste is formed in glory, and there it is nurtured and strengthened, and as it is, so do I find nothing here in keeping with my taste. Association with the Son of man, the One most perfect, and in every way the most beautiful, develops my new nature, which is the same as His. Where He is is my home - there I feed and rest; but here on earth, I am learning to set aside in death everything in me which hinders the life of Jesus. Now if I have only conscience, and if I hear much truth, or see much light, I am ever judging myself as to the extent in which I have received it. Conscience never imparts. It is like a register, which keeps an account of all the changes of conditions, or a pedometer, that only goes as you move, and therefore records how much you have walked, and how much you have not. It occupies you with your condition. Now, on the other hand, taste is ever set on finding something to suit itself. The blessed Lord walked about the earth - His own estate - looking for everything in it which could suit His taste. He required no register, no action of conscience, but He found but little here for His taste, and He continued in heaven, though manifestly on the earth. He was the “Son of man which is in heaven” (John 3: 13). I do not say for a moment that we can go on without the conscience - it is quite right that the registrar should take note of the changes of condition, but this of itself would never advance us. Where the taste is the primary thing, then the conscience [p. 199] only warns or intimates to us that the taste has not been, as I may say, consulted. You can discern a person’s taste by the company he seeks. If you seek company below what your conscience approves of, your tastes are low, and you will sink - the dead are there; but if you seek the company morally superior to you, your tastes are good, and you will be helped and strengthened even though you may feel your own inferiority. Conscience tells me that I am deficient, but it does not help; it is like pain in the body, which warns me of something wrong, but it does not relieve, though it suggests the need of relief. Conscience tells me I need spiritual food, or any kind of means, but it never supplies them. The source of supply, then, is the greater thing, and it is there that the capacity to hold and enjoy the supply is acquired, because there the taste is developed.
As I cultivate divine taste, I am occupied with good, and the more I am so, the stricter becomes my conscience to record the changes of condition. How different the experiences, “My soul thirsteth for thee” (Psalm 63: 1), and “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” (Psalm 43: 5). In the former I am occupied with Him who satisfies me; my taste has found its object; and my conscience is good, because I have not offended against it. But when I am watching what the conscience records, I am occupied with the results of life, and not with the power to support it, and this always depresses. The sun penetrates a very small way into the ground, and if I go to the ground to measure its power, I shall be disappointed; but if I keep near it, I enjoy all its warmth and brightness.