Vol. vi. page 308: “We have no higher law than our conviction of duty.”
“Conscience is the supreme power within us. Its essence, its grand characteristic, is sovereignty. It speaks with divine authority. Its office is to command, to rebuke, to reward; and happiness and honour depend on the reverence with which we listen to it.” Vol. iii. pp. 335, 336.
Such passages plainly expose the view of what Dr. Channing calls conscience: in answer to which we say, the conscience may be a poor guide to truth. The African savage feels a clear conscience when he kills and eats his captive. The Hindoo mother is governed by her conscience when she plunges her new-born infant beneath the flood, a sacrifice to her gods. The idolaters of Palestine were subdued by conscience when they thrust their suckling infants into the flames to appease Moloch; yet God did not think it was right, and forbade them to do so.
The truth is, the conscience is merely that part of the judgment which takes notice of what it deems right or wrong; consequently, is as prone to be in error as our judgment about any other matter.
For the accuracy of this definition, we refer to all the standard writers on logic, and those on the human understanding, treating on the subject. And in fact, Dr. Channing is forced to recede from his position when he finds that Abraham, Philemon, and some good men even of the present day, were slave-owners; and in vol. vi. page 55, he says—“It is a solemn truth, not yet understood as it should be, that the worst institutions may be sustained, the worst deeds performed, the most merciless cruelties inflicted by the conscientious and the good.”
And again, page 57: “The great truth is now insisted on, that evil is evil, no matter at whose door it lies; and that men acting from conscience and religion may do nefarious deeds, needs to be better understood.”
Would it not have been more frank for Dr. Channing to have said, that the conscience would be an unerring guide so long as it agreed with his, but when it did not, why, then he would inquire into the matter?
It is to be lamented that, among the unlearned at the present day, a confused idea of something tantamount to the conscience being a divine monitor within us has taken a deep root among the minds of men; having grown out of the fact that such was the doctrine of some of the fanatical teachers of former days.
If we shall be permitted to speak of property, in reference to our and its relation to the Divine Being, then we cannot strictly say that man can own property. Jehovah stands in no need. Behold the cattle upon a thousand hills are his; all is the work of his hand; all, all is his property alone! At most, God has only intrusted the possession, the administration of the subjects of his creation, to man for the time being,—to multiply, to replenish and subdue. It is only in reference to our relation to one another that we can advance the idea of property. Man was commanded to have dominion over the whole earth, to replenish and subdue, in proportion to the talent bestowed on him for that purpose. This command presupposes such a state of things as we find, of advancement, progression, and improvement. But in the course of the Divine administration, God has seen fit to bestow on one man ten talents, and on another but one; and who shall stand upon the throne of the Almighty, and decide that he of the ten talents shall have no relation with the progression of him of but one talent?