The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [69]
“Thus conscience, this once able monitor,—placed on high as a judge within us, and intended by our maker as a just and equitable one too,—by an unhappy train of causes and impediments, takes often such imperfect cognizance of what passes,—does its office so negligently,—sometimes so corruptly,—that it is not to be trusted alone; and therefore we find there is a necessity, an absolute necessity of joining another principle with it to aid, if not govern, its determinations.
“So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite importance to you not to be misled in,——namely, in what degree of real merit you stand either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful subject to your King, or a good servant to your God,–call in religion and morality.—Look,–What is written in the law of God?29—How readest thou?——Consult calm reason and the unchangeable obligations of justice and truth;—what say they?
“Let CONSCIENCE determine the matter upon these reports;—and then if thy heart condemns thee not, which is the case the Apostle supposes,—the rule will be infallible, (here Dr. Slop fell asleep) thou wilt have confidence towards God;30—that is, have just grounds to believe the judgment thou hast past upon thyself, is the judgment of God; and nothing else but an anticipation of that righteous sentence which will be pronounced upon thee hereafter by that Being, to whom thou art finally to give an account of thy actions.
“Blessed is the man, indeed then, as the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus expresses it, who is not prick’d with the multitude of his sins: Blessed is the man whose heart hath not condemn’d him; whether he be rich, or whether he be poor, if he have a good heart, (a heart thus guided and informed) he shall at all times rejoice in a chearful countenance; his mind shall tell him more than seven watch-men that sit above upon a tower on high.31——[A tower has no strength, quoth my uncle Toby, unless ’tis flank’d.] In the darkest doubts it shall conduct him safer than a thousand casuists, and give the state he lives in a better security for his behaviour than all the clauses and restrictions put together, which law-makers are forced to multiply:—Forced, I say, as things stand; human laws not being a matter of original choice, but of pure necessity, brought in to fence against the mischievous effects of those consciences which are no law unto themselves; well intending, by the many provisions made,—that in all such corrupt and misguided cases, where principles and the checks of conscience will not make us upright,—to supply their force, and, by the terrors of goals and halters, oblige us to it.”
[I see plainly, said my father, that this sermon has been composed to be preach’d at the Temple,—or at some Assize.32—I like the reasoning,—and am sorry that Dr. Slop has fallen asleep before the time of his conviction;—for it is now clear, that the Parson, as I thought at first, never insulted St. Paul in the least;—nor has there been, brother, the least difference between them.——A great matter, if they had differed, replied my uncle Toby,—the best friends in the world may differ sometimes.—True,—brother Toby, quoth my father, shaking hands with him,—we’ll fill our pipes, brother, and then Trim shall go on.
Well,—what do’st thou think of it? said my father, speaking to Corporal Trim, as he reach’d his tobacco-box.
I think, answered the Corporal, that the seven watch-men upon the tower, who, I suppose, are all centinels there,—are more, an’ please your Honour, than were necessary;—and, to go on at that rate, would harrass a regiment all to pieces, which a commanding officer, who loves his men, will never do, if he can help it; because two centinels, added the Corporal, are as good as twenty.—I have been a commanding officer myself in the Corps de Garde33 a hundred times, continued Trim, rising an inch