Conscience by Joseph Cook

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 34.

Conscience

By Joseph Cook

CONSCIENCE expresses the instinctive sense of obligation to moral law. This law was not enacted and is not reversible by the human will; it is imposed by an authority outside of ourselves. The instinct of obligation is active when we are separated from all human government and society; we cannot imagine ourselves to obliterate this obligation by the obliteration of all finite beings; we know that we must answer to a Power outside of ourselves. In the nature of things this implies that the Power to which we are answerable knows what we do and what we ought to do; approves the right and disapproves the wrong, and has the power and purpose to reward us according to our character and conduct.—Joseph Cook.