3445. CONTINUATION. This preacher or preceptor was afterwards examined, and conversation was first had respecting conscience, that true conscience is not given without the knowledges of faith; but he would have it that the human race was born into the conscience of truth, that he might thence know what truth and good is; but it was shown, that man is not born into any knowledge, but is viler than the brute, and unless he received the knowledges of truth and good from education, would be much viler than the brutes, and scarce an animal; thus that he is altogether destitute of conscience, which is the product of those things that the man thinks true and good. Thus it happens that false and defiled consciences are given, as for instance when one is troubled on account of prevarications against those things that are not true and good, but which he only thinks to be true, and good, but which he only thinks to be true, like heretics, idolaters, and others acting from trifling considerations, in which there is nothing of evil; whereas conscience is true [when there is trouble or anxiety on account of transgressions or prevarications] against the things that are of the truth of faith. This kind of conscience is never born with man, but there are first knowledges, by which it is to be procured, and then at length it is [fully] given by the Lord, so that he may sometimes be ignorant of the causes [from which he acts], like a man who, having learnt languages and sciences from infancy, becomes at last as if he did not know them, but they follow as though they had never been acquired.