صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

governed, and by their agreeableness or disagreeablenefs with which, they become morally good or evil.* The law of the Chriftian, in religious matters, is the revealed will of GoD; and what, upon proper authority, is deducible from it. The confcience of a Chriftian, confequently, is that teftimony which the mind bears to the conduct, when compared with that revealed will.

It is in fact the application of the general Chriftian law to a particular instance of practice. Hence it is, that confcience, as the vicegerent of GOD, carries a divine authority with it, because it has a divine word or precept to fupport it. But if no fuch word or precept is to be produced, it may, indeed, be ftrong opinion or perfuafion, but it is not confcience. And no greater mischief has been done in the world, than from the want of a proper distinction having been made between confcience and mere confidence of opinion, or persuasion.

In temporal matters, fhould a man plead confcience, or it should rather be called private perfuafion, against the determination of an exifting law, he would be told, that he was not at liberty to make a rule for

* See "Difcourfe concerning Confcience" by Archbishop SHARP, in London Cafes, No. 8.

himself different from that which the fociety, of which he was a member, had made for him; and upon which it was his duty to procure information. Were the case otherwise, the very end of fociety would be fruftrated. For let it be confidered, what must be the confequence of the admiffion of that principle, upon which the modern plea of confcience is too commonly founded; namely, that the private perfuafion of the party, furnishes a juftification for his public conduct.

The Quaker, for instance, confiders the payment of tithe to be unlawful. He therefore refift's the demand, upon the hacknied plea of confcience. But, as it has been already obferved, nothing can be a rule of confcience, in religious matters, but fome law of GOD, real or fuppofed. The plain law of GOD calls upon the Quaker, in common with all other members of a civilized community, to " submit himself to every ordinance of man for the LORD's fake;" and the legislature of his country has made the payment of tithe legal. Nothing, then, can justify an opposition to the legislature, in this cafe, but a firm conviction in the mind of the party, that the law enacted is in direct contradiction to fome law of GOD, natural or revealed.

But the law establishing the payment of tithe does not stand in this predicament; for it must be confi dered rather as a law in conformity with the revealed will of GOD, than in contradiction to it. The private perfuafion of the Quaker, under the impofing plea of confcience, may therefore be confidered as fet up in oppofition to the law both of God and man; and the admiffion of it by the legislature is but establishing a precedent for further oppofition to its authority.

For let this principle be carried to its length, and it is easy to see where it must terminate. Upon the ground that the Quaker refifts the law of tythe, he may take it into his head to refift any other act of the legislature; and if his resistance be admitted, if the private perfuafion of the individual (for confcience it must not be called) be allowed to be pleaded in bar of obedience to an existing law, there will fhortly be an end of all government in the world.

That this fame plea of confcience is of equal validity, when made ufe of by Diffenters of any kind, as a juftification for their non-conformity tothe liturgy, rites, and ceremonies of our church, is a point that has been abundantly and repeatedly proved.*

* See SOUTH's Sermons on 1 John iii. 21, vol. ii.; and “ Difcourse of Confcience" by Archbishop SHARP, in London Cafes.

As in temporal matters, then, the law of the land becomes obligatory upon every individual of the community; fo, in concerns of a fpiritual nature, the will of GOD, fo far as it has been revealed, admits of no exemption from its obligation; nor can confcience be pleaded as a juftification for disobedience in either cafe.

If GOD, then, has been pleased to appoint a way in which he will be worshipped; I am no more at liberty, upon the mere ground of my own perfuafion, to worship him in any other way, than I am at liberty to act in contradiction to his revealed will in any other When men, therefore, talk of liberty of confcience, they would do well to confider, whether it be not, as the phrafe is now generally understood, rather a liberty of their own making, than any portion of that liberty with which CHRIST has made them free.

matter.

Indeed, the idea that has for fome time prevailed among us, that Christian liberty gives every man a right to worship GOD in his own way, appears to have been admitted without fufficient examination. There is not one fingle paffage of fcripture, which strikes me as warranting the conclusion that has been drawn upon this fubject. Our SAVIOUR fays,* that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath

John xii. 48.

one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the fame fhall judge him in the last day." And "though we, or an angel from heaven, (faith ST. PAUL) preach any other Gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accurfed." Gal. i. 8.

Suppose, now, any man, upon the plea of confcience, fhould reject CHRIST, as many, alas! have done; refufe to acknowledge him in his mediatorial character, and thereby set up for himself a religion, effentially different from that which has been revealed; will it be faid, that CHRIST has given man a liberty to be thus employed against himself? "He that is not for me," faith CHRIST, "is against me; and he that gathereth not with me, fcattereth."+

It has, indeed, been faid, that in a matter which concerns his own falvation, every man fhould be left to the direction of his own judgment.

Provided the revealed will of God be made the rule of that judgment, this will be readily granted. But as this pofition is generally understood, those who are forward in advancing it, have not duly confidered, perhaps, to what extent it may be carried; or, what is still more to the purpose, whether GoD has,

+ Matt. xii. 30.

« السابقةمتابعة »