a bow as he did it,--he began again.)

The Sermon.

Hebrews xiii. 18.

--For we trust we have a good Conscience.--

'Trust! trust we have a good conscience! Surely if there is any thing in
this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which he
is capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must be
this very thing,--whether he has a good conscience or no.'

(I am positive I am right, quoth Dr. Slop.)

'If a man thinks at all, he cannot well be a stranger to the true state
of this account:--he must be privy to his own thoughts and desires;--he
must remember his past pursuits, and know certainly the true springs and
motives, which, in general, have governed the actions of his life.'

(I defy him, without an assistant, quoth Dr. Slop.)

'In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances; and, as the
wise man complains, hardly do we guess aright at the things that are
upon the earth, and with labour do we find the things that are before
us. But here the mind has all the evidence and facts within herself;--is
conscious of the web she has wove;--knows its texture and fineness, and
the exact share which every passion has had in working upon the several
designs which virtue or vice has planned before her.'

(The language is good, and I declare Trim reads very well, quoth my
father.)

'Now,--as conscience is nothing else but the knowledge which the mind
has within herself of this; and the judgment, either of approbation or
censure, which it unavoidably makes upon the successive actions of
our lives; 'tis plain you will say, from the very terms of the
proposition,--whenever this inward testimony goes against a man, and he
stands self-accused, that he must necessarily be a guilty man.--And, on
the contrary, when the report is favourable on his side, and his heart
condemns him not:--that it is not a matter of trust, as the apostle
intimates, but a matter of certainty and fact, that the conscience is
good, and that the man must be good also.'

(Then the apostle is altogether in the wrong, I suppose, quoth Dr. Slop,
and the Protestant divine is in the right. Sir, have patience, replied
my father, for I think it will presently appear that St. Paul and the
Protestant divine are both of an opinion.--As nearly so, quoth Dr. Slop,
as east is to west;--but this, continued he, lifting both hands, comes
from the liberty of the press.

It is no more at the worst, replied my uncle Toby, than