[September 22d, 1861.]
I. The facts of conscience.
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We have a discernment of the difference between right and wrong.
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We approve of the one, and we disapprove of the other, as of good and bad laws.
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We condemn ourselves for what conscience disapproves in our states and acts.
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We are impelled by conscience to do what is right, and deterred by it from what is wrong. Conscience therefore is not a simple faculty. It is a collective term for those exercises of our rational nature which concern moral good and evil. It includes cognition. It includes a judgment of approbation and disapprobation, which is a complex state of mind, including feeling as well as decision. And it is an impulse, as desire and affections are. It is not a mere decision as to truth.
II. Of this mysterious power, the obvious characteristics are,
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That it is independent of the understanding and of the will. No man can force himself by a volition to approve of what he sees to be wrong. Nor can conscience be perverted by mere sophistry of the understanding. If a man honestly thinks a thing which is wrong to be right, his conscience will approve his doing it. But no man can argue his conscience out of its convictions. Nor can it be silenced. It will be heard in spite of all we can do.
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It is authoritative. It asserts the right to rule, to control our hearts and lives. And this authority we cannot deny. We may disregard it and rebel against it; but we must admit it to be legitimate.
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It does not speak in its own name. The authority which it exercises is not its own. The vengeance which it threatens is not its own displeasure. It is the representative of God. It brings the soul before His bar.
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It is avenging. It is made so by God. Remorse is a state produced by conscience. It includes self-condemnation, self-abhorrence, regret and apprehension of wrath. It can be opposed only by what satisfies justice.
III. Our duty in regard to conscience.
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To enlighten it. It is not infallible in its judgments. It is in this respect on a par with reason, for it is in fact only a function of reason. We find men, therefore, differing widely as to what is right and wrong. Our thinking a thing right does not make it right. It is of the last importance to have an enlightened conscience, as opposed to a perverted conscience, to a scrupulous or a scared one.
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To obey it. No man is better than his conscience. No man is as good. Although he is liable to error, yet he must obey his conscience in all cases in which its decisions are not contrary to a higher law.
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Not only to obey it in particular cases, but to have a fixed and governing purpose to permit it to rule. That is, that we will not act from impulse, self-interest, from mere feeling or inclination, allowing ourselves to be determined by what is agreeable or disagreeable, and in small matters as well as great. He that is faithful in that which is least will be faithful in that which is much, etc.
The ground of this obligation to obey conscience is—
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The authority of God in whose name it speaks. In resisting conscience we resist and disobey God. This is to be understood with the limitations above mentioned.
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Respect for our own dignity as rational and moral beings. Selfdegradation and ruin are the consequence of disobedience and the habit of it.
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The greatest happiness flows from an approving conscience, and the greatest misery from a wounded conscience.
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