3. If conscience convicts you of having acted wrongly,

1. Reflect upon the wrong, survey the obligations which you have violated, until you are sensible of your guilt.

2. Be willing to suffer the pains of conscience. They are the rebukes of a friend, and are designed to withhold you from the commission of wrong in future. Neither turn a neglectful ear to its monitions, nor drown its voice amid the bustle of business, or the gayety of pleasure.

3. Do not let the subject pass away from your thoughts, until you have come to a settled resolution, a resolution, founded on moral disapprobation of the action, never to do so any more.

4. If restitution be in your power, make it, without hesitation, and do it immediately. The least that a man ought to be satisfied with, who has done wrong, is to repair the wrong as soon as it is possible.

5. As every act of wrong is a sin against God, seek, in humble penitence, his pardon, through the merits and intercession of His Son Jesus Christ.

6. Remark the actions, or the courses of thinking, which were the occasions of leading you to do wrong. Be specially careful to avoid them in future. To this effect says President Edwards, "Resolved, that when I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back till I come to the original cause and then both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray, with all my might, against the original of it."

7. Do all this, in humble dependence upon that merciful and everywhere present, Being, who is always ready to

grant us all assistance necessary to keep his commandments; and who will never leave us, nor forsake us, if we put our trust in him.

It seems, then, from what has been remarked, that we are all endowed with conscience, or a faculty for discerning a moral quality in human actions, impelling us towards right, and dissuading us from wrong; and that the dictates of this faculty are felt and known to be of supreme authority.

The possession of this faculty, renders us accountable creatures. Without it, we should not be specially distinguished from the brutes. With it, we are brought into moral relations with God, and all the moral intelligences in the universe.

It is an ever-present faculty. It always admonishes us, if we will listen to its voice, and frequently does so, even when we wish to silence its warnings. Hence, we may always know our duty, if we will but inquire for it. We can, therefore, never have any excuse for doing wrong, since no man need do wrong, unless he chooses; and no man will do it ignorantly, unless from criminal neglect of the faculty which God has given him.

How solemn is the thought, that we are endowed with such a faculty, and that we can never be disunited from it! It goes with us through all the scenes of life, in company and alone, admonishing, warning, reproving, and recording; and, as a source of happiness or of misery, it must abide with us for ever.

himself.

Well doth it become man then to reverence

And thus we see, that from his moral constitution, were there no other means of knowledge of duty, man is an accountable creature. Man is under obligation to obey the will of God, in what manner soever signified. That it is

signified in this manner, I think there cannot be a question; and, for this knowledge, he is justly held responsible. Thus, the Apostle Paul declares, that "the Gentiles, who have not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law, written on their hearts, their consciences being continually excusing or accusing one another." How much greater must be the responsibility of those to whom God has given the additional light of natural and revealed religion!

CHAPTER THIRD.

THE NATURE OF VIRTUE.

SECTION I.

OF VIRTUE IN GENERAL.

It has been already remarked, that we find ourselves so constituted, as to stand in various relations to all the beings around us, especially to our fellow-men, and to God. There may be, and there probably are, other beings, to whom, by our creation, we are related: but we, as yet, have no information on the subject; and we must wait until we enter upon another state, before the fact, and the manner of the fact, be revealed.

In consequence of these relations, and, either by the appointment of God, or from the necessity of the case, if, indeed, these terms mean any thing different from each other, there arise moral obligations to exercise certain affections towards other beings, and to act towards them in a manner corresponding to those affections. Thus, we are taught, in the Scriptures, that the relation in which we stand to Deity, involves the obligation to universal and unlimited obedience and love; and that the relation in which we stand to each other, involves the obligation to love, limited and restricted; and of course, to a mode of conduct, in all respects, corresponding to these affections.

An action is right, when it corresponds to these obligations, or, which is the same thing, is the carrying into effect

of these affections. It is wrong, when it is in violation of these obligations, or is the carrying into effect of any other affections.

By means of our intellect, we become conscious of the relations in which we stand to the beings with whom we are connected. Thus, by the exertion of our intellectual faculties, we become acquainted with the existence and attributes of God, his power, his wisdom, his goodness: and, it is by these same faculties, that we understand and verify those declarations of the Scriptures, which give us additional knowledge of his attributes; and by which we arrive at a knowledge of the conditions of our being as creatures, and also of the various relations in which we stand to each other.

Conscience, as has been remarked, is that faculty by which we become conscious of the obligations arising from these relations; by which we perceive the quality of right in those actions which correspond to these obligations, and of wrong in those actions which violate them; and by which we are impelled towards the one, and repelled from the other. It is, manifestly, the design of this faculty to suggest to us this feeling of obligation, as soon as the relations, on which it is founded, are understood; and, thus, to excite in us the correspondent affections.

Now, in a perfectly constituted moral and intellectual being, it is evident, that there would be a perfect adjustment between these external qualities, and the internal faculties. A perfect eye is an eye that, under the proper conditions, would discern every variety and shade of color, in every object which it was adapted to perceive. The same remark would apply to our hearing, or to any other sense. So, a perfectly constituted intellect would, under the proper conditions, discern the relations in which the being stood to other beings; and a perfectly constituted conscience would,