respecting the offences thus in some degree preferred and palliated. For no transgression can be said to be so much better than another, as not to be utterly bad. No offence can rightly be deemed slight, since the slightest utterly interrupts our moral progress.

354. But in this aspect of offences, that they interrupt or undo our moral progress, we have a kind of Measure, of their magnitude. Those offences are most grievous, which are most pernicious in their effect upon our moral culture. Some may interrupt our moral culture for a time, and it may nevertheless be resumed. Others may show that moral culture has no place in our thoughts; that we have no wish to be better than we are. Other transgressions may imply a recklessness or despair of moral progress; a state of mind which points to moral ruin as its natural sequel. The gravity of the offence will therefore be increased by all circumstances which indicate it to be the result of an habitually immoral state of the Affections and Desires, of settled and deliberate purpose, of a want or a rejection of moral aims. The hope that an offence may be only a transient interruption of the offender's moral progress, is favoured by its being the result of great and sudden Temptation, plainly at variance with the habitual course of the affections and will. Such circumstances, therefore, tend to make an offence less grave and mischievous to the offender.

355. I have already pointed out, of what nature the mischief is, which offences do to the offender. So long as there is a suspension of the authority of Duty, there is a suspension of the proper moral functions of man. So long as immoral thought, purpose, and affection prevail, the moral progress, which is the proper course of man's life; is arrested or inverted. Acts of Wickedness are steps towards moral ruin. Or, to resume a figure which we have already employed; the moral life is nourished by the per

petual aliment of moral purposes, desires and affections. By an immoral act, poison is taken into the human being, which tends to enfeeble, distemper, and destroy the moral life.

We are now led to ask, whether there is any remedy for this mischief. When transgression has been committed, how is rectitude to be restored?' When the moral progress has been interrupted and turned back, how is the regress to be checked, the lost ground to be recovered, the progress to be resumed? When poison has been taken into our moral being, how is it to be ejected, and the powers of life restored to their healthful action?

The mode in which the poison of immoral purposes, desires, and affections, was taken into our being was, by their being our purposes, our desires, our affections. In order to expel their effect, they must be rejected as our purposes, our desires, our affections. They must be repudiated, so that they shall no longer belong to us. They must be changed into their reverse; desire, into aversion; love, into hate; the purpose to do, into the purpose to undo; joy in what was done, to sorrow that it was done. This change must be carried, by an effort of thought, into the past. We must recall in our memory the past act of transgression, contradicting, as we do so, the motives by which we were misled, and condemning the purpose which we formed. This change, this sorrow, this renunciation and condemnation of our past act, is Repentance. The transgressor must repent. We do not say that this suffices to remedy the evil. It does not do so. But there can be no remedy of the evil without this. This, at least, he must do. He must make the effort of Repentance, in order to cast out of his being the poison of immoral act or purpose. He, for this purpose, must see his moral regression as what it is, a dire mischief, which, if not remedied, tends to immeasurable evil.

356. But the regression must not only be lamented, it must also be repaired. We must not only reject the past offence by repentance, but we must seek to resume the course which morality points out. We must endeavour to restore our moral progress; to regain the ground which we have lost; to avoid all repetition of the errors and offences which we have committed. We must direct our Moral Culture to our recovery and renovation. We must amend ourselves. We must reform our lives. Amendment and Reformation, as well as Repentance, are the necessary sequel of transgression, in virtue of that Duty of Moral Culture and Moral Progress which is constantly incumbent upon all men.

357. The Moralist is thus led to teach, that after Transgression, Repentance and Amendment are necessary steps in our Moral Culture. But the Moral. ist cannot pronounce how far these steps can avail as a remedy for the evil; how far they can repair the broken completeness of man's moral course; how far they can restore the health of man's moral life; how far they can finally, and upon the whole, avert the consequences of sin from man's condition and destination. These are points on which the Moralist necessarily looks to Religion for her teaching. These questions regard the effects of Sin upon the Soul, and the concerns of the Soul belong to Religion. They regard the provision made by God for saving man from the effects of Sin, and this is also a matter belonging to Religion.

358. There is, however, one consequence of what has been said, which we may notice. We have said, that when a man has deviated from the course of Duty, he cannot resume his moral progress without Repentance and Amendment. We may remark further, that the Amendment is required by Morality to be immediate. If a man repents in the middle of an immoral act, he will not go on with the act. As soon

as the authority of Morality is acknowledged, the moral course of action must begin; and not at some later period, when pending acts have been completed. Duty is the perpetual rightful Governor of every man; and the man who merely promises to obey this Governor at some future time, is really disobedient. The man who completes an immoral act, knowing it to be immoral, commits a new offence. He yielded to temptation in the first part of the act; he sins against conviction, in the second.

This remark may be of use when we come to consider some cases of Duty. For instance, if I have made an immoral promise, and see my fault, it is my Duty not to complete the act by performing the promise.

CHAPTER XIV.

OF CONSCIENCE.

359. THE Desires and Affections receive their Culture by being converted into, or comprehended in, the Operative Moral Principles. The Faculties which control and direct the Desires and Affections, namely, the Reason and the Moral Sentiments, must also receive their Culture, in order that the being of man may tend to its proper completeness. The Čulture of these Faculties implies the formation or adoption, in our minds, of Rules of Duty, and the application of such Rules to our own actions, with the accompanying Sentiment of Approval or Disapproval of ourselves.

Thus, by the culture of these controlling and directing Faculties, we form habits, according to which we turn our attention upon ourselves, and approve or disapprove what we there discern. These Faculties,

The

thus cultured, are the Conscience of each man. word conscious implies a reflex attention of the mind to its own condition or operation; a contemplation of what we ourselves feel and do. We feel pain, but we are conscious of impatience. We start unconsciously at a surprise, but in danger we are conscious of fear. Our consciousness reveals to us not only our most secret acts, but our desires, affections, and intentions. These are the especial subjects of morality, and we cannot think of them, without considering them as right or wrong. We approve, or disapprove, of what we have done, or tried to do. We consider our acts, external and internal, with reference to a moral standard of right and wrong. We recognize them as virtuous or vicious. The Faculty or Habit of doing this is Conscience.

360. As Science means Knowledge, Conscience etymologically means Self-knowledge; and such is the meaning of the word in Latin and French, and of the corresponding word in Greek; (conscientia, conscience, ovvčionois). But the English word implies a Moral Standard of action in the mind, as well as a Consciousness of our own actions. It may be convenient to us to mark this distinction of an internal Moral Standard, as one part of Conscience; and Selfknowledge, or Consciousness, as another part. The one is the Internal Law; the other, the Internal Accuser, Witness, and Judge.

This distinction was noted by early Christian Moralists. They termed the former part of Conscience, Synteresis, the internal Repository: the latter, Syneidesis, the internal Knowledge. We may term the former, Conscience as Law; the latter, Conscience as Witness.

361. We have already (341) spoken of the steps by which we establish in our minds that internal Law which we call Conscience. It is established by such a Culture of our Reason as enables us to