those who hold
the doctrine referred to, mean any thing more than this,--if they allow
the mind a power of moral decision independently of any such standard,
then this is precisely what we mean by conscience, and the controversy
resolves itself, like not a few that have gone before it, into a dispute
about a name. If they do not allow the mind such a power, it then
becomes them to say, what is the standard by which its moral judgments
are to be formed, and whence it is derived. It appears, I think,
distinctly, that it can be derived only from one of two sources. It must
either be received through divine revelation; or it must be the result
of our speculations respecting utility, in one or other of the forms in
which that doctrine is presented to us. There does not appear to be any
middle course; and accordingly some late writers, who reject the latter
system, while they do not admit the authority of conscience, seem to
refer our moral impressions entirely to the will of the Deity as made
known to us by revelation. I have formerly stated what seem to me to be
insuperable objections to this doctrine. It appears, indeed, to be
distinctly opposed by the very words of Scripture, which clearly
recognise a power, or a process in the mind by which "those who are
without law," that is, without a revelation, "are a law unto themselves,
their consciences bearing witness, and their thoughts accusing or else
excusing one another."

It does, I confess, appear to me, that some late excellent and
respectable writers, in their apprehension of not giving sufficient
prominence to the doctrine of human depravity, have greatly under-rated
the actual power of conscience, and have thus injured in a most
essential manner the important argument which is derived from the moral
impressions of the mind. True it is, indeed, that the nature of man is
degenerate, and that the effect of this appears in his disregarding and
disobeying that monitor within. I am not disposed to differ from the
writers referred to, respecting the existence and the extent of this
degeneracy, but rather as to the manner in which it operates in the
actual moral condition of mankind. I do not say that there is in human
nature more good than they assign to it, but that there is more
knowledge of what is good; not that men do better than these writers
allege, but that they have a greater sense of what they ought to do.
Those who maintain the absolute and unusual corruption of