Tit. 2. A fuller resolution of the cases, 1. Whether the laws of men do bind the conscience? 2. Especially smaller and penal laws?
The word conscience signifieth either, 1. In general according to the notation of the word, The knowledge of our own matters; conscire; the knowledge of ourselves, our duties, our faults, our fears, our hopes, our diseases, &c. 2. Or more limitedly and narrowly, The knowledge of ourselves and our own matters in relation to God's law and judgment; Judicium hominis de seipso prout subjicitur judicio Dei, as Amesius defineth it.
2. Conscience is taken, 1. Sometimes for the act of self-knowing. 2. Sometimes for the habit. 3. Sometimes for the faculty, that is, for the intellect itself, as it is a faculty of self-knowing. In all these senses it is taken properly. 4. And sometimes it is used (by custom) improperly, for the person himself, that doth conscire; or for his will (another faculty).
3. The conscience may be said to be bound, 1. Subjectively, as the subjectum quod, or the faculty obliged. 2. Or objectively, as conscire, the act of conscience, is the thing ad quod, to which we are obliged.
And upon those necessary distinctions I thus answer to the first question.
Prop. 1. The act or the habit of conscience is not capable of being the subject obliged; no more than any other act or duty: the act or duty is not bound, but the man to the act or duty.
2. The faculty or judgment is not capable of being the object, or materia ad quam, the thing to which we are bound. A man is not bound to be a man, or to have an intellect, but is made such.
3. The faculty of conscience (that is, the intellect) is not capable of being the immediate or nearest subjectum quod, or subject obliged. The reason is, Because the intellect of itself is not a free-working faculty, but acteth necessarily per modum naturæ further than it is under the empire of the will; and therefore intellectual and moral habits are by all men distinguished.
4. All legal or moral obligation falleth directly upon the will only: and so upon the person as a voluntary agent; so that it is proper to say, The will is bound, and The person is bound.
5. Improperly and remotely it may be said, The intellect (or faculty of conscience) is bound, or the tongue, or hand, or foot is bound; as the man is bound to use them.