cause he ought not; which is a way not possible to prevail with a wise man, or with a fool; how it may work with any sort of madness, I know not.

But against this rule, some contend earnestly, in particular Gulielmus Parisiensis, and some that follow him, saying 'it is impossible that an erring or a lying conscience should oblige a man to follow it.' The thing hath great influence upon our whole life, and therefore is worth a strict survey.

Quest. Whether a false and abused conscience can oblige us to pursue the error?

That it cannot, these reasons are or may be pretended.

1. Because it seems to be absurd to say, that when the error itself is not a sin at all, or but a little one, that it can be a great sin to follow a man's own humour against that error; if a man should do according to his error, it could at most be but a small sin, and therefore, to go against it cannot be greater. For the error can oblige no higher than its own nature, as rivers cannot rise above their fountains.

2. But it is a more material consideration; if an erring conscience obliges us to follow it, then some men are bound to persecute the church, and the high priests sinned not in crucifying Christ; and the zealots of the Jews did well in afflicting the apostles and disciples of Jesus, because they did it ignorantly, and by the dictate of an erring conscience; and St. Paul says of himself before his conversion, "I myself thought I ought to do many things against the name of the Lord Jesus;" and yet he sinned in following his erring conscience; and, therefore, certainly could not be bound to it. In pursuance of which,

3. St. Bernarda argues thus; to follow truth is always good; but if by the conscience we can be bound to follow error, and that in that case it is not good to follow truth; that is, if a good may become evil by the sentence of an erring conscience, and so great an evil as it supposes it to be, then by the same reason that which is evil, may, by the like sentence, become good, and so great a good as it is supposed; and then may a man be chaste for committing adultery, and charitable for committing murder, and religious

Li. de præcept. et dispens.

for worshipping idols, and pious to his parents in denying to relieve them from the Corban;' all which consequents being intolerable, the antecedent which infers them, must needs be false.

4. It is true indeed, the conscience is our guide and our lawgiver, our judge and our rule; but it is not our Lord, nor in the present case is it an authentic record, but a vevderiypapov, a heap of lies and errors; and therefore cannot be a true guide, and we are not tied to follow any leader to hell. Better it is in this case to follow the conscience of a wiser and a better man than myself, it being more reasonable that we be tied to follow his right, than our own wrong conscience.

5. For if still we were bound to follow our abused conscience, then we were bound to impossibilities: for then either we were not at all bound to follow God, or if we were, and yet bound to follow our conscience against God, we were bound at the same time to do, and not to do the same thing; "To serve two masters;" which, our blessed Saviour said, "No man can do."

6. But, therefore, in this case God must be obeyed and not man; it being impious to say that the law of our conscience should derogate from, or wholly evacuate, the law of God, by which alone we ought to be governed. For if this law of conscience takes away the obligation of the Divine law, or if the Divine law takes away the obligation of conscience when it errs, then they must cease respectively; and the event will be this, that as long as God's law binds us (which is for ever), the law of an erring conscience cannot bind us.

7. And there are in this, great proportions of reason. For if the will be bound to lay down all its rods and axes, all the ensigns of empire at the foot of the throne of God, doing or refusing by the command of God against its own inclination, it will not be imagined that the conscience, that is, the practical understanding, hath any such privilege indulged to it, that it can be exempt from the jurisdiction of God, or that it can oblige in defiance of his laws.

8. For it is certain, conscience is God's creature, bound to its Lord and Maker by all the rights of duty and perfect subordination, and therefore cannot prejudice the right and power of its Lord; and no wise man obeys the orders of a

magistrate against the express law of his king; or the orders of a captain against the command of his general; and, therefore, neither of conscience which is God's messenger, against the purpose of the message with which God intrusted it. However, it is better to obey God than man; to follow the law of God than to go against it; to do that which we should, rather than that which we should not.

9. And there can be no more necessity upon us to follow our conscience teaching us, than our conscience binding us; and yet if a contract that is vicious be made, or an oath that is unlawful be uttered, the obligations of conscience cease, because they are against the law of God; and how then can conscience against this law of God in any sense pass an obligation? But this rather, that as we are bound not to commit a crime, so not to follow an error and a lie.

10. For it is impossible that our opinion, or falsely persuaded conscience, should make any alteration in the thing; if it was evil in itself, it is so still; and my thinking that mercury is not poison, nor hellebore purgative, cannot make an antidote and deletory against them, if I have upon that confidence taken them into my stomach; and the sun is bigger than the earth, though I foolishly think it no wider than a bushel. And, therefore, in such cases, the conscience can have no power, and can bind us to nothing but to lay our error down. Because as to him that is in error, it were madness to bid him err more; so to him that hath an erring conscience, it were equally evil to bid him pursue, and actuate and consummate his error; which yet he were bound to do, if an erring conscience could bind him.

11. Lastly, if an erring conscience binds us to obedience, it either binds us by its own independent, ingenite power, or by a power derived from God. If by a power derived from God, then God commands us to believe a lie, to commit a sin, to run after false fires and illusions,-which to affirm, seems to be blasphemy; but if it binds us by its own power, then our conscience can make God's law to become unlawful to us, and we shall be stronger than God, and a man's self becomes his own rule; and he that is deceived by a false opinion, is a lawgiver to himself, and error shall be the measure of good and evil.

These are the arguments which are used by several persons respectively in verification of the opinion of Parisiensis, which I have not only heaped here together, but added some and improved the rest, that by the collision of these with their answers, the truth might be made more useful and evident; and divers collateral things incident to the main question might be spoken of; and those arguments remain valid which I brought for the affirmative in the first and second paragraphs of this rule. To the first therefore I

answer:

1. That it is not the error that binds us to follow it, but the conscience in error; and, therefore, although the error can have no force greater than its own nature and proper energy, yet our conscience can bind beyond the force of error. As if a general commands a soldier to turn to the right hand under pain of death; if he mistaking turn to the left, the event is greater than can be effected by the intentional relations of right or left hand, but depends upon the reason, and the command, the power and empire of the general.

2. To the second, I answer, that it follows not, because the erring conscience binds, therefore the obedience is not a sin. For such is or may be the infelicity of an abused conscience, that if it goes forward, it enters into folly; if it resists, it enters into madness; if it flies, it dashes its head against a wall, or falls from a rock; if it flies not, it is torn in pieces by a bear; and the very instances make it clear; the rulers of the Jews and St. Paul were both called to repent of that, which they did in obedience to their erring conscience,—which cannot legitimate impiety, but only make the one or the other instance to be unavoidable.

3. To that which St. Bernard objects, the answer is easy upon another account; for conscience may make a good thing evil to it; because, besides the goodness of the object to make an action lawful, there is required the faith and persuasion of the agent; and if this be wanting, as it is in an erring conscience that believes not the goodness of it, the action is evil, by reason of the destitution of an integral part. For, "Bonum ex integra causa, malum ex qualibet particulari;" and by the same reason, conscience cannot make an evil thing good, because, besides the persuasion of conscience, there is re

quired the goodness of the object, which if it be wanting, one ingredient cannot make it good: all must enter into the constitution of good, though the want of one is enough to spoil it.

4. To the fourth I answer, that because the conscience is in error, and the principle within it is a Veuderlyçapov, ‘a false record,' therefore it is true, that we are not absolutely tied to follow its conduct, but we are tied to lay the error aside, that we may follow it in straight ways; but in the present constitution of affairs it is miserable, and because we must follow our leader, that is, all that can go before us; we do go to hell, or to mischief, not that we are by God bound to do this, but only to do that; and it is by our own fault that we are bound to fall into an evil portion. God binds us to follow our conscience; we spoil it by some folly or other, and then we follow it: the evil appendage is our own, the law by which God bound us, was holy. Nature requires of us to drink at our meals: but if we have corrupted all our beverage, we must drink unwholesome draughts, but yet nature did not bind us to this misfortune.

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5. And, therefore, the answer to the next objection provides us of a remedy against the former. We are bound absolutely to follow the law of God; but we are bound to follow the contrary law of conscience erring, conditionally and by accident, that is, because we have made our rule crooked, which God had made straight. For to be absolutely and irrespectively bound to follow God, and yet respectively and by accident to be bound to follow the contrary conscience, are not incompossibilities, or the parts of a contradiction, because they are not ad idem,' not in the same regards.' But then, since it is impossible that both these should be actually followed, therefore God does not command us to follow our conscience and not to follow it at the same time, but to follow our conscience, and to lay aside the error, and then both parts are reconciled; for God and the conscience are but accidentally opposed; and God commanding us to follow our conscience, took care that at the same time we should follow God too; and therefore God taught our conscience, but when we get other teachers, we make it impossible to obey God. Let us submit our conscience to God, that is, lay aside our error, and then God and conscience are