and condition of life, acquiescing with a grateful spirit in the wise allotments of divine Providence, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. SERMON XVI. THE EVILS OF A MISINFORMED AND AN ACCUSING CONSCIENCE. HEBREWS, X. 22. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. CONSCIENCE is that moral power which approves or condemns motive, habit, action, or character, as they are perceived to agree with or to depart from the rule of duty. Conscience is either good or evil. A good conscience is that which forms a right estimate of the rule of life, and which approves motives and actions which agree with it. An evil conscience is either a misinformed, or a self-condemning conscience. 1. In the first place conscience may be misinformed. It may approve where it ought to condemn, or it may condemn where it ought to approve. Conscience is by no means what many seem to apprehend, an instinctive principle. The contrary is evident from the diversity, and even the contrariety of its dictates in different circum stances. If conscience were a natural and instinctive power, its dictates would be as invariable as those of the organs of sense. There would be no more diversity of opinion concerning right and wrong, than there is concerning light and darkness, white and black, sweet and bitter. The dictates of conscience would be uniform and universal; the same at all times and in all places, in all ages and in all countries; whereas, no fact can be more obvious than this, that actions which are regarded as perfectly innocent, or even highly meritorious in one age or country, are looked upon in other ages and countries with horror and detestation. And even in the same age and country, among those who live under the same laws, and who profess the same religion, there is a wide difference in their re spective estimation of moral good and evil, in exact proportion to the difference of their education in the different classes of society. They who have been educated in right principles, maintain a sacred regard to truth and justice, to honour and integrity, to benevolence and piety, whereas the unfortunate wretches who have been brought up in the haunts of vice and profligacy, consider truth and honesty as of no value, and pride themselves in their dexterity and success in fraud, falsehood, and mischief. Conscience then, may be, and often is, misinformed; and that sometimes to a very great degree. Some are taught to regard crimes as virtues. The history of persecution, in every chapter of its dark and bloody details, illustrates and confirms the fact. It is not to be supposed that all persecutors have been hypocrites. Some have been such without a doubt; and history proves that many of the most savage and unrelenting persecutors have been men of no religion at all; men who have made religion the stalking-horse of ambition and avarice, or the instrument of cruelty and revenge. But there have been persecutors who have been men of the greatest integrity and piety; and who, in their harshest proceedings, have only followed the dictates of an erroneous conscience. "The time shall come," said our Lord to his apostles, "when whosoever killeth you shall think that he doeth God service." And the apostle Paul, previous to his conversion, verily thought that he ought to oppose the doctrine of Jesus, and madly to persecute his followers even in distant cities. The Jews, who persecuted the first believers, had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. The heathen, who cast the Christians to wild beasts, or who endeavoured to exterminate them by fire and sword, seriously regarded them as the declared enemies of the human race, who were conspiring to overthrow all the ancient systems of religion, to subvert all the established forms of government, and to turn the world upside down. The papists, who exposed |