piety.

Now, all this is true of the distinction between the conscience and the
heart. The conscience is an _intellectual_ faculty, and by that better
elder philosophy which comprehended all the powers of the soul under the
two general divisions of understanding and will, would be placed in the
domain of the understanding. Conscience is a _light_, as we so often call
it. It is not a _life_; it is not a source of life. No man's heart and
will can be renewed or changed by his conscience. Conscience is simply a
law. Conscience is merely legislative; it is never executive. It simply
says to the heart and will: "Do thus, feel thus," but it gives no
assistance, and imparts no inclination to obey its own command.

Those, therefore, commit a grave error both in philosophy and religion,
who confound the conscience with the heart, and suppose that because
there is in every man self-reproach and remorse after the commission of
sin, therefore there is the germ of holiness within him. Holiness is
_love_, the positive affection of the heart. It is a matter of the heart
and the will. But this remorse is purely an affair of the conscience, and
the heart has no connection with it. Nay, it appears in its most intense
form, in those beings whose feelings emotions and determinations are in
utmost opposition to God and goodness. The purest remorse in the universe
is to be found in those wretched beings whose emotional and active
powers, whose heart and will, are in the most bitter hostility to truth
and righteousness. How, then, can the mere reproaches and remorse of
conscience be regarded as evidence of piety?

2. But, we may go a step further than this, though in the same general
direction, and remark, in the second place, that _elevated moral
sentiments are no certain proof of piety toward God and man_. These, too,
like remorse of conscience, spring out of the intellectual structure, and
may exist without any affectionate love of God in the heart. There is a
species of nobleness and beauty in moral excellence that makes an
involuntary and unavoidable impression. When the Christian martyr seals
his devotion to God and truth with his blood; when a meek and lowly
disciple of Christ clothes his life of poverty, and self-denial, with a
daily beauty greater than that of the lilies or of Solomon's array; when
the poor widow with feeble and trembling steps comes up to the treasury
of the Lord, and casts in all her living; when any pure and spir