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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 the liberty of the pulpit; for it does not appear that the sermon is printed, or ever likely to be. > > Go on, Trim , quoth my father.] > > “At first sight this may seem to be a true state of the case: and I make no doubt but the knowledge of right and wrong is so truly impressed upon the mind of man,⁠—that did no such thing ever happen, as that the conscience of a man, by long habits of sin, might (as the scripture assures it may) insensibly become hard;⁠—and, like some tender parts of his body, by much stress and