And in this sense it is that some say that 'Conscience is the inclination and propension of the will corresponding to practical knowledge.' Will and conscience are like the 'cognati sensus,' the touch and the taste; or the teeth and the ears, affected and assisted by some common objects, whose effect is united in matter and some real events, and distinguished by their formalities, or metaphysical beings.

2. Memory of God's Benefits,

16. Is indeed a good engagement to make us dutiful, and so may incline the will; but it hath no other force upon the conscience but that it reminds us of a special obligation to thankfulness, which is a new and proper tie of duty; but it works only by a principle that is already in the conscience, viz. that we are specially obliged to our gracious lords; and the obedience that is due to God as our Lord, doubles upon us by love and zeal, when we remember him to be our bountiful patron, and our gracious Father.

3. A clean Heart,

17. May be an effect and emanation from a holy conscience; but conscience in itself may be either good or bad, or it may be good when the heart is not clean, as it is in all the worst men who actually sin against conscience, doing that which conscience forbids them. In these men the principles are holy, the instruction perfect, the law remaining, the persuasions uncancelled; but against all this torrent, there is a whirlwind of passions, and filthy resolutions, and wilfulness, which corrupt the heart, while as yet the head is uncorrupted in the direct rules of conscience. But yet sometimes a clean conscience and a clean heart are the same; and a good conscience is taken for holiness: so St. Paul & uses the word, "holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away have made shipwreck ;” ὅτι τὴν θεόθεν ἥκουσαν συνείδησιν ἀπιστίᾳ κατεμίηναν,so Clemens Alexandrinus explicates the place, "they have by infidelity polluted their divine and holy conscience:" but St. Paul seems to argue otherwise, and that they, laying aside a good conscience, fell into infidelity; their hearts and conscience were first corrupted, and then they turned heretics. But this sense of a good conscience is that, which in mystic divinity is more pro

#1 Tim. i. 5. 19.

perly handled, in which sense also it is sometimes used in law. "Idem est conscientia quod vir bonus intrinsece," said Ungarellus out of Baldus'; and from thence Aretine gathered this conclusion, that "if any thing be committed to the conscience of any one, they must stand to his determination, et ab ea appellari non potest;' 'there lies no appeal,' Quia vir bonus, pro quo sumitur conscientia, non potest mentiri et falsum dicere vel judicare;' 'A good man, for whom the word conscience is used, cannot lie, or give a false judgment or testimony." Of this sort of conscience it is said by Ben Sirach, "Bonam substantiam habet, cui non est peccatum in conscientia:" "It is a man's wealth to have no sin in our conscience."-But in our present and future discourses, the word conscience is understood in the philosophical sense, not in the mystical, that is, not for the conscience as it is invested with the accidents of good or bad, but as it abstracts from both, but is capable of either.

4. A free Spirit,

18. Is the blessing and effect of an obedient will to a wellinstructed conscience, and more properly and peculiarly to the grace of chastity, to honesty and simplicity; a slavish, timorous, a childish and trifling spirit, being the punishment inflicted upon David, before he repented of his fact with Bathsheba. But there is also a freedom which is properly the privilege, or the affection, of conscience, and is of great usefulness to all its nobler operations; and that is, a being clear from prejudice and prepossession, a pursuing of truths with holy purposes, and inquiring after them with a single eye, not infected with any sickness or unreasonableness. This is the same thing with that which he distinctly calls, 5. a right soul.' To this is appendant also, that the conscience. cannot be constrained, it is of itself a free spirit,' and is subject to no commands, but those of reason and religion. God only is the Lord of our conscience, and the conscience is not to subject itself any more to the empire of sin, to the law of Moses, to a servile spirit, but to the laws of God alone, and the obedience of Jesus, willingly, cheerfully, and in all in

b Verb. Conscientia.

i In c. Cum. Causa de Testi.

k In sect. Sed iste. Inst. t. de Act. Gl. in c. Statut. sect. Assess. Detent. Ecclus. xiii. 30, alias 24

stances, whether the commandment be conveyed by the Holy Jesus, or by his vicegerents. But of this I shall afterward give particular accounts.

6. A devout Mind,

19. May procure more light to the conscience, and assistances from the Spirit of wisdom, in cases of difficulty, and is a good remedy against a doubting and a scrupulous conscience; but this is but indirect, and by the intermission of other more immediate and proper intercourses.

But the last is perfectly the foundation of conscience.

7. An enlightened Reason.

20. To which if we add what St. Bernard before calls a 'right soul,' that is, an honest heart, full of simplicity and hearty attention, and ready assent, we have all that by which the conscience is informed and reformed, instructed and preserved, in its just measures, strengths, and relations. For the rule of conscience is all that notice of things and rules, by which God would have good and evil to be measured, that is, the will of God, communicated to us by any means, by reason, and by enlightening, that is, natural and instructed. So that conscience is νοῦς φυσικός, and Θεοδίδακτος, it is principled by creation, and it is instructed or illuminated in the regeneration. For God being the fountain of all good, and good being nothing but a conformity to him or to his will, what measures he makes, are to limit us. No man can make measures of good and evil, any more than he can make the good itself. Men sometimes give the instance in which the good is measured; but the measure itself is the will of God. For therefore it is good to obey human laws, because it is God's will we should; and although the man makes the law to which we are to give obedience, yet that is not the rule. The rule is the commandment of God, for by it obedience is made a duty.

Measured by the Proportions of Good and Evil.

21. That is, of that which God hath declared to be good or evil respectively, the conscience is to be informed. God hath taken care that his laws shall be published to all his subjects, he hath written them where they must needs read them, not in tables of stone or phylacteries on the forehead, but in a

secret table; the conscience or mind of a man is the puλakTýptov, the preserver of the court-rolls of heaven. But I added this clause to the former of 'a rule,' because the express line of God's rule is not the adequate measure of conscience but there are analogies and proportions, and commensurations of things with things, which make the measure full and equal. For he does not always keep a good conscience who keeps only the words of a divine law, but the proportions also and the reasons of it, the similitudes and correspondences in like instances, are the measures of conscience.

22. The whole measure and rule of conscience is, the law of God, or God's will, signified to us by nature, or revelation; and by the several manners and times and parts of its communication it hath obtained several names: the law of nature, the consent of nations,-right reason, the decalogue, the sermon of Christ,-the canons of the apostles,the laws ecclesiastical and civil of princes and governors,fame, or the public reputation of things, expressed by proverbs and other instances and measures of public honesty. This is

Οἶδεν τό γ' αἰσχρὸν, κανόνι τοῦ καλοῦ μαθών.

So Euripides calls it, all the rule that teaches us good or evil. These being the full measures of right and wrong, of lawful and unlawful, will be the rule of conscience, and the subject of the present books.

In order to Practice.

23. In this, conscience differs from knowledge, which is in order to speculation, and ineffective notices. And it differs from faith, because although faith is also in order to practice, yet not directly and immediately it is a collection of propositions, the belief of which makes it necessary to live well, and reasonable, and chosen. But before the propositions of faith pass into action, they must be transmitted through another principle, and that is conscience. That Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and our Lord, and our Master, is a proposition of faith, and from thence, if we pass on to practice, we first take in another proposition; If he be our Lord, where is his fear?'—and this is a sentence, or virtual proposition, of conscience. And from hence we may

Hecub. 600. Priestley's edition of Euripides, vol. 1. p. 87.

understand the full meaning of the word

conscience.' Evvelonois, and conscientia,' and so our English word conscience, have in them science or knowledge: the seat of it is the understanding, the act of it is knowing, but there must be a knowing of more together.

24. Hugo de St. Victore says, that "conscientia est cordis scientia," "conscience is the knowledge of the heart." It is so, but certainly this was not the ervuov and original’ of the word. But there is truth in the following period. "Cor noscit et alia. Quando autem se noscit, appellatur conscientia; quando, præter se, alia noscit, appellatur scientia:" "Knowledge hath for its object any thing without; but when the heart knows itself, then it is conscience."-So it is used in authors sacred and profane. "Nihil mihi conscius sum," saith St. Paul; "I know nothing by myself;""ut alios lateas; tute tibi conscius eris:" and

m

hic murus ahencus esto, Nil conscire sibi.

so Cicero to Marcus Rutilius uses it; " Cum et mihi conscius essem, quanti te facerem ;"" When I myself was conscious to myself, how much I did value thee."-But this acception of the word conscience is true, but not full and adequate; for it only signifies conscience as it is a witness, not as a guide. Therefore it is more reasonable which Aquinas and the schoolmen generally use: that conscience is a conjunction of the universal practical law with the particular moral action and so it is scientia cum rebus facti,' and then it takes in that which is called ovvrnonois, or the general 'repository' of moral principles or measures of good, and the particular cases as reduced to practice. Such as was the case of St. Peter, when he denied his Lord: he knew that he ought not to have done it, and his conscience being sufficiently taught his duty to his Lord, he also knew that he had done it, and then there followed a remorse, a biting, or gnawing of his spirit, grief, and shame, and a consequent weeping: when all these acts meet together, it is the full process of conscience.

(1.) The ovvrhonots or the first act of conscience, St. Jerome calls scintillam conscientiæ,'' the spark' or fire put into the heart of man.

(2.) The ovveίdnots, which is specifically called 'conscience' of the deed done, is the bringing fuel to this fire.

Ad Divers. xiii. 8. Cortii, p. 674.