97. Upon this serious subject it is therefore peculiarly necessary to endeavour to attain distinct ideas, and to employ those words only which convey distinct ideas to other men. The first section of the present chapter will accordingly be devoted to some brief observations respecting the Conscience, its nature, and its authority; by which it is hoped the reader will see sufficient reason to distinguish its dictates from that higher guidance, respecting which it is the object of the present chapter to inquire.

sense of obligation to refrain. Into the origin of this sense of obligation, or how it is induced into the mind, we do not inquire: it is sufficient for our purpose that it exists; and there is no reason to doubt that its existence is consequent of the Will of God.

102. In most men-perhaps in all-this sense of obligation refers, with greater or less distinctness, to the will of a superior being. The impression, however obscure, is in general fundamentally this: I must do so or so, because God requires it.

98. For a kindred purpose, it appears requisite to offer a short review of popular and 103. It is found that this sense of obligation philosophical opinions respecting a Moral is sometimes connected, in the minds of sepaSense. These opinions will be found to have rate individuals, with different actions. One been frequently expressed in great indistinct-man thinks he ought to do a thing from which ness and ambiguity of language. The purpose another thinks he ought to forbear. Upon of the writer in referring to these opinions, the great questions of morality there is indeed is to inquire whether they do not generally in general a congruity of human judgment; involve a recognition-obscurely perhaps, but yet subjects do arise respecting which one still a recognition-of the principle, that God man's conscience dictates an act, different communicates His Will to the mind. If they from that which is dictated by another's. It do this, and if they do it without design or is not therefore essential to a conscientious consciousness, no trifling testimony is afforded judgment of right and wrong, that that judgto the truth of the principle: for how should ment should be in strict accordance with the this principle thus secretly recommend itself Moral Law. Some men's consciences dictate to the minds of men, except by the influence that which the Moral Law does not enjoin; of its own evidence? and this law enjoins some points which are not enforced by every man's conscience. This is precisely the result which, from the nature of the case, it is reasonable to expect. Of these judgments respecting what is right, with which the sense of obligation becomes from time to time connected, some are induced by the instructions or example of others; some by our own reflection or inquiry; some perhaps from the written law of revelation; and some, as we have cause to conclude, from the direct intimations of the Divine Will.

SECTION I.

Conscience, its Nature and Authority. 99. In the attempt to attach distinct notions to the term Conscience," we have to request the reader not to estimate the accuracy of our observations by the notions which he may have habitually connected with the word. Our disquisition is not about terms but truths. If the observations are in themselves just, our principal object is attained. The secondary object, that of connecting truth with appropriate terms, is only so far attainable by a writer, as shall be attained by an uniform employment of words in determinate senses in his own practice.

100. Men possess notions of right and wrong; they possess a belief that, under given circumstances, they ought to do one thing or to forbear another. This belief I would call a conscientious belief. And when such a belief exists in a man's mind in reference to a number of actions, I would call the sum or aggregate of his notions respecting what is right and wrong, his Conscience.

101. To possess notions of right and wrong in human conduct, to be convinced that we ought to do or to forbear an action,-implies and supposes a sense of obligation existent in the mind. A man who feels that it is wrong for him to do a thing, possesses a

104. It is manifest that if the sense of obligation is sometimes connected with subjects that are proposed to us merely by the instruction of others, or if the connection results from the power of association and habit, or from the fallible investigations of our own minds--that sense of obligation will be connected, in different individuals, with different subjects. So that it may sometimes happen that a man can say, I conscientiously think I ought to do a certain action, and yet that his neighbour can say, I conscientiously think the contrary. "With respect to particular actions, opinion determines whether they are good or ill; and Conscience approves or disapproves, in consequence of this determination, whether it be in favour of truth or falsehood.”1

105. Such considerations enable us to account for the diversity of the dictates of the

1 Adventurer, No. 91.

conscience in individuals respectively. A person is brought up amongst Catholics, and is taught from his childhood that flesh ought not to be eaten in Lent. The arguments of those around him, or perhaps their authority, satisfy him that what he is taught is truth. The sense of obligation thus becomes connected with a refusal to eat flesh in Lent; and thenceforth he says that the abstinence is dictated by his conscience. A Protestant youth is taught the contrary. Argument or authority satisfies him that flesh may lawfully be eaten every day in the year. His sense of obligation therefore is not connected with the abstinence; and thenceforth he says that eating flesh in Lent does not violate his conscience. And so of a multitude of other questions.

106. When therefore a person says, My conscience dictates to me that I ought to perform such an action, he means—or in the use of such language he ought to mean-that the sense of obligation which subsists in his mind, is connected with that action; that, so far as his judgment is enlightened, it is a requisition of the law of God.

108. But another portion of men's judgments respecting moral affairs is derived from immediate intimations of the Divine Will. (This we must be allowed for the present to assume.) These intimations inform, sometimes, the judgment; correct its mistakes; and increase and give distinctness to our knowledge :--thus operating, as the Scriptures operate, to connect the sense of obligation more accurately with those actions which are conformable with the Will of God. It does not, however, follow, by any sort of necessity, that this higher instruction must correct all the mistakes of the judgment; that because it imparts some light, that light must be perfect day; that because it communicates some moral or religious truth, it must communicate all the truths of religion and morality. Nor, again, does it follow, that individuals must each receive the same access of knowledge. It is evidently as possible that it should be communicated in different degrees to different individuals, as that it should be communicated at all. For which plain reasons we are still to expect, what in fact we find, that although the judgment receives light from a superhuman intelligence, the degree of that light varies in individuals; and that the sense of obligation is connected with fewer subjects, and attended with less accuracy, in the minds of some men than of others.

109. With respect to the authority which properly belongs to Conscience as a director of individual conduct, it appears manifest, alike from reason and from Scripture, that it is great. When a man believes, upon due deliberation, that a certain action is right, that action is right to him. And this is true,

107. But not all our opinions respecting morality and religion are derived from education or reasoning. He who finds in Scripture the precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," derives an opinion respecting the duty of loving others from the discovery of this expression of the Will of God. His sense of obligation is connected with benevolence towards others, in consequence of this discovery; or, in other words, his understanding has been informed by the Moral Law, and a new duty is added to those which are dic-whether the action be or be not required of tated by his conscience. Thus it is that Scrip- mankind by the Moral Law. The fact that ture, by informing the judgment, extends the in his mind the sense of obligation attaches jurisdiction of conscience; and it is hence, in to the act, and that he has duly deliberated part, that in those who seriously study the upon the accuracy of his judgment, makes the Scriptures, the conscience appears so much dictate of his conscience upon that subject an more vigilant and operative than in many who authoritative dictate. The individual is to do not possess, or do not regard them. Many be held guilty if he violates his conscience,— of the mistakes which education introduces, if he does one thing, whilst his sense of oblimany of the fallacies to which our own specu- gation is directed to its contrary. Nor, if his lations lead us, are corrected by this law. In judgment should not be accurately informed, the case of our Catholic, if a reference to if his sense of obligation should not be conScripture should convince him that the judg- nected with a proper subject, is the guilt of ment he has formed respecting abstinence violating his conscience taken away. from flesh is not founded on the Law of God, it otherwise, a person might be held virtuous the sense of obligation becomes detached from for acting in opposition to his apprehensions its subject; and thenceforth his conscience of duty; or guilty, for doing what he believed ceases to dictate that he should abstain from to be right. "It is happy for us that our title flesh in Lent. Yet Scripture does not decide to the character of virtuous beings, depends every question respecting human duty, and not upon the justness of our opinions or the in some instances individuals judge differently constant objective rectitude of all we do, but of the decisions which Scripture gives. This, upon the conformity of our actions to the again, occasions some diversity in the dictates sincere convictions of our minds."2 Dr. Furof the conscience; it occasions the sense of obligation to become connected with dissi-ill:-it infallibly directs us to avoid guilt, but is not intended 1 "By Conscience, all men are restrained from intentional milar, and possibly incompatible, actions. to secure us from error."-Advent., No. 91. 2 Dr. Price.

Were

Communication from the dictates of the con- | governor, to direct and regulate all undue science. They are separate and distinct principles, passions, and motives of action. considerations. It is obvious that those It carries its own authority with it, that it is positions which some persons advance ;- our natural guide, the guide assigned us by "Conscience is our infallible guide,"—"Con- the Author of our nature." Would it have science is the voice of the Deity," &c., are been unreasonable to conclude, that there wholly improper and inadmissible. The term was at least some connection between this may indeed have been employed synony- reprover of "all undue principles, passions, mously for the voice of God; but this ought and motives," and that law of which the New never to be done. It is to induce confusion Testament speaks, "All things that are reof language respecting a subject which ought proved are made manifest by the light"?1 always to be distinctly exhibited; and the necessity for avoiding ambiguity is so much. the greater, as the consequences of that ambiguity are more serious: it is obvious that, on these subjects, inaccuracy of language gives rise to serious error of opinion.

Review of Opinions respecting a Moral

Sense.

114. Blair says, "Conscience is felt to act as the delegate of an invisible Ruler; "Conscience is the guide, or the enlightening or directing principle of our conduct."2 In this instance, as in many others, Conscience appears to be used in an indeterminate sense.

to guide our steps." It were to be wished that such sentiments were not obscured by propositions like these: "A sense of right and wrong in conduct, or of moral good and evil, belongs to human nature."- "Such sentiments are coeval with human nature; for they are the remains of a law which was originally written in our heart.” 4

Conscience is not an enlightening principle, but a principle which is enlightened. It is not a legislator, but a repository of statutes. 113. The purpose for which this brief review Yet the reader will perceive the fundamental is offered to the reader, is explained in very truth, that man is in fact illuminated, and few words. It is to inquire, by a reference illuminated by an invisible Ruler. In the to the written opinions of many persons, thirteenth sermon there is an expression whether they do not agree in asserting that more distinct: "God has invested Conscience our Creator communicates some portions of with authority to promulgate His laws." It is His Moral Law immediately to the human obvious that the Divine Being must have mind. These opinions are frequently de- communicated His laws, before they could livered, as the reader will presently discover, have been promulgated by Conscience. In in great ambiguity of language; but in the accordance with which the author says in midst of this ambiguity there appears to exist another place, "Under the tuition of God let one pervading truth,-a truth in testimony to us put ourselves."-"A Heavenly Conductor which these opinions are not the less satis-vouchsafes His aid.”—“Divine light descends factory because, in some instances, the testimony is undesigned. The reader is requested to observe, as he passes on, whether many of the difficulties which inquirers have found or made, are not solved by the supposition of a Divine communication, and whether they can be solved by any other. The Author of nature has much better furnished us for a virtuous conduct than our moralists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and powerful 115. I do not know whether the reader will instructions as we have for the preservation be able to perceive with distinctness the ideas of our bodies." 1 "It is manifest, great part of Lord Bacon and of Dr. Rush in the followof common language and of common be- ing quotations, but I think he will perceive haviour over the world, is formed upon the that they involve a recognition-obscure and supposition of a moral faculty, whether called indeterminate, but still a recognition of the conscience, moral reason, moral sense, or doctrine, that the Deity communicates His Divine reason; whether considered as a senti- laws to the minds of men. Dr. Rush says, ment of the understanding, or as a perception "It would seem as if the Supreme Being had of the heart, or, which seems the truth, as in-preserved the Moral Faculty in man from cluding both."2 Is it not remarkable that for the ruins of his fall, on purpose to guide him a "faculty" so well known over the world," back again to paradise; and at the same even a name has not been found, and that a time had constituted the Conscience, both in Christian bishop accumulates a multiplicity of man and fallen spirits, a kind of royalty in ambiguous epithets to explain his meaning? his moral empire, on purpose to show His Bishop Butler says again of Conscience, "To property in all intelligent creatures, and their preside and govern, from the very economy original resemblance to Himself." And Lord and constitution of man, belongs to it. This Bacon says, "The light of nature not only faculty was placed within to be our proper shines upon the human mind through the medium of a rational faculty, but by an

1 Dr. Hutcheson: Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil. 2 Bishop Butler: Inquiry on Virtue.