Such are the greater number perhaps of converts at this day, in whatever
direction their conversion lies; and their so-called exercise of private
judgment is neither right nor wrong in itself, it is a spontaneous act
which they do not think about; if it is any thing, it is but a means of
bringing out their moral characteristics one way or the other. Often, as
in the case of very illiterate and unreflecting persons, it proves
nothing either way; but in those who are not so, it is right or wrong,
as their hearts are right or wrong; it is an exercise not of reason but
of heart. Take, for instance, the case of a servant in a family; she is
baptized and educated in the Church of England, and is religiously
disposed; she goes into Scotland and conforms to the Kirk, to which her
master and mistress belong. She is of course responsible for what she
does, but no one would say that she had formed any purpose, or taken any
deliberate step. In course of time, when perhaps taxed with the change,
she would say in her defence that outward forms matter not, and that
there are good men in Scotland as well as in England; but this is an
after-thought.
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