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continual hard usage, lose by degrees that nice sense and perception with which God and nature endowed it:⁠—Did this never happen;⁠—or was it certain that self-love could never hang the least bias upon the judgment;⁠—or that the little interests below could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness:⁠⸺⁠Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court:⁠—Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;⁠—or was ashamed to show its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment: Or, lastly, were we assured that Interest stood always unconcerned whilst the cause was hearing⁠—and that Passion never got into the judgment-seat, and pronounced sentence in the stead of Reason, which is supposed always to preside and determine upon the case:⁠—Was this truly so, as the objection must suppose;⁠—no doubt then the religious and moral state of a man would be exactly what he himself esteemed it:⁠—and the guilt or innocence of every man’s life could be known, in general, by no better measure, than the degrees of his own approbation and censure. > > “I own, in one case, whenever a man’s conscience does accuse him (as it seldom errs on that side) that he is guilty; and unless in melancholy and hypocondriac cases, we may safely pronounce upon it, that there is always sufficient grounds for the accusation. > > “But the converse of the proposition will not hold true;⁠—namely, that whenever there is guilt, the conscience must accuse; and if it does not, that a man is therefore innocent.⁠⸺⁠This is not fact⁠⸻So that the common consolation which