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[The language is good, and I declare Trim reads very well, quoth my father.]

“Now,—as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind has within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of our lives; ’tis plain you will say, from the very terms of the proposition,—whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he stands self-accused,—that he must necessarily be a guilty man.—And, on the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart condemns him not;12—that it is not a matter of trust, as the Apostle intimates,—but a matter of certainty and fact, that the conscience is good, and that the man must be good also.”

[Then the Apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop, and the Protestant divine is in the right. Sir, have patience, replied my father, for I think it will presently appear that St. Paul13 and the Protestant divine are both of an opinion.—As nearly so, quoth Dr. Slop, as East is to West;—but this, continued he, lifting both hands, comes from the liberty of the press.

It is no more, at the worst, replied my uncle Toby, than the liberty of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or ever likely to be.

Go on, Trim, quoth my father.]

“At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case; and I make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon the mind of man,—that did no such thing ever happen, as that the conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the scripture14 assures it may) insensibly become hard;—and, like some tender parts of his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose, by degrees, that nice sense and perception with which God and nature endow’d it.—Did this never happen;—or was it certain that self-love could never hang the least bias upon the judgment;—or that the little interests below, could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness:15—Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred COURT:—Did WIT disdain to take a bribe in it;—or was asham’d to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment.——Or, lastly, were we assured, that INTEREST stood always unconcern’d whilst the cause was hearing,—and that PASSION never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounc’d sentence in the stead of reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case.—Was this truly so, as the objection must suppose;—no doubt then, the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteem’d it;—and the guilt or innocence of every man’s life could be known, in general, by no better measure, than the degrees of his own approbation and censure.

“I own, in one case, whenever a man’s conscience does accuse him, (as it seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty; and, unless in melancholy and hypochondriack cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is always sufficient grounds for the accusation.

“But the converse of the proposition will not hold true;——namely, that whenever there is guilt the conscience must accuse; and if it does not, that a man is therefore innocent.—This is not fact:—So that the common consolation which some good christian or other, is hourly administering to himself,—that he thanks God his mind does not misgive him; and that, consequently, he has a good conscience, because he has a quiet one,—is fallacious;—and as current as the inference is, and as infallible as the rule appears at first sight, yet, when you look nearer to it, and try the truth of this rule upon plain facts,—you see it liable to so much error from a false application;——the principle upon which it goes so often perverted;—the whole force of it lost, and sometimes so vilely cast away, that it is painful to produce the common examples from human life which confirm the account.

“A man shall be vicious and utterly debauched