also speak; as St Peter *; «Baptism doth save us...not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God." On the same grounds do the sacred writers proceed in many other passages, which I need not here accumulate. And all these, I will not say prove, but manifestly harmonize with and confirm the doctrine that we possess a moral faculty within us, which is intended by our Maker to be our guide; and by which those who carefully awake and consult it, are enabled to direct themselves, in the path of truth and righteousness.

To this view, of the existence and authority of an internal faculty, fitted and entitled to pronounce upon the moral quality of actions, various objections have, as you well know, been urged by moral teachers of great name and authority. It has been said, that no such power, existing as a peculiar and separate endowment in the mind, can be discovered or established ;-that the decisions of conscience may be resolved into the impressions produced upon us by the experience and expectation of pain and pleasure, into the common working of fear and hope ;-that thus, the operations of conscience do not require us to

* 1 Pet. iii. 21.

assume any separate faculty of the mind from which they proceed;-that those who have supposed such a faculty have never been able to derive from this doctrine, rules of conduct of clear and universal application ;-that on the contrary, different nations and different ages, all of whom must have possessed this internal guide, have entertained opinions the most diverse concerning the moral quality of the same actions; many of them holding those things to be blameless or laudable, which we condemn as utterly wicked and abominable. In such diversity of opinions, how, it has been asked, do we discern the impress of one original form of truth? In such a mixed mass of motives and reasons, how do we trace the operation of one single faculty of the soul?

Such questions may appear too remote and obscure to be treated of in the discourse of a preacher. Nor can it be denied that such enquiries into the foundation-principles of conduct and duty have their peculiar difficulties. Even when motives are exemplified in actions ;-even when we have before us, in living men, the manifestations of approval and condemnation, of peace of mind and remorse ;-how hard is it to disentangle from each other the shadowy forms of

passion and reason!-to resolve the internal tu. mult into the voices which compose it!-and to assign each part of the mental dialogue to a separate speaker! Yet when we see principles thus embodied and impersonated;-when we are thus assisted by our practical judgments and sympa. thies; we can contemplate steadily, and often, it may be, profitably, the workings and struggles, the impelling and regulating movements, of man's heart and mind. But when we would deal with these workings in a general and separate form ;when we would ascend into the region of abstract objects of thought;-when we would speak of will and desire, reason and conscience as things, concerning which we have to enquire their history and boundaries and office ;- -we feel that it is then far more difficult to carry along with us the thoughts and convictions of hearers.

But yet,

among men who are called upon to examine their own minds;-who are, by their condition and destination, directed to meditation and connected thought;-such matters, even in this abstract and incorporeal form, may hope for some regard, such as in former times they have often received, in similar circumstances. And at the present day, this interest in speculative truth extends far and wide, and reaches almost to all. For, the inter

course of men with each other and with books has

so shaped their mental habits, that the very words which they unconsciously utter, and the arguments which they employ on common occasions, give some echo of the meditations of the most profound and acute thinkers of the past and of the present time. It cannot be unprofitable, therefore, to listen somewhat more nearly to the tones of the instrument of which we thus so often repeat the strains.

Let it not, then, be deemed too hard a saying, if we here speak of the conscience of man as a faculty distinct from the other impelling and guiding principles of his actions. But yet, while we use such language, we need not be careful to maintain that this faculty is widely and plainly distinguishable from other powers of the mind, in the same way in which one bodily sense is distinct from another;-the sight from the touch. For who shall undertake thus to parcel man's soul into separate portions? Who shall say,-Here memory ends;-Here imagination begins;This is reason's exclusive domain? But that right and wrong are peculiar qualities, and no mere modifications of pleasure and pain;-that there is good of a higher order than mere corporeal good; -that there is a sense of duty which is not merely a transformed sense of interest;-that the con

science does not delude itself when it elevates virtue above all comparison with sensual enjoyment; these appear to be doctrines consistent both with the soundest reason, and the plainest teaching of revelation and it is such convictions as these which we would now strengthen and illustrate.

:

It is by no means needful that we should here reply at length to all the difficulties and objections which have been pointed at. The arguments tending to show that the power in man which judges concerning right and wrong, is a peculiar and distinct endowment, as far as any obvious marks and characters can prove it to be so, have often been stated. This faculty speaks a peculiar language, associates with a peculiar class of emotions, has a peculiar growth and history in the heart of man. In all these respects, this differs from other motives of human action, with which attempts have been made to confound it. Compare conscience for example with a prudential and long-sighted love of gain or of pleasure or of power, which some point at as her nearest kindred. When we examine her aspect and manners, we see in her no resemblance to this family of the human impulses. They and she may come together, but they meet without recognising each other: they