CONSCIENCE. To prayer, repentance and obedience due, And to the end persisting, safe arrive.-MILTON. Be that walketh uprightly, walketh surely. Take heed, therefore, that the light which is within thee be not darkness. Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieres the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. OUR conscience is a book in which our thoughts, words, and actions are registered. This book sometimes opens itself (when our mind is troubled), and reproaches and moves us to change our lives. But this book presently shuts again, because we (attend not to it) do not make application enough to take advantage of these good motions we make within us, because they are not constant.-Fuller. THERE is scarce in nature any thing so wild, so untractable, so unintelligible, as a man who hath no bridle of conscience to guide or check him. A profane man is like a ship without anchor to stay him, or rudder to steer him, or compass to guide him, so that he is tossed with any wind and driven with any wave, none knoweth whither; whither bodily temper doth sway him, or passion doth hurry him, or interest doth pull him, or example leadeth him, or company inveigleth and haleth him, or humour transporteth him; whither any such variable and unaccountable causes determine him, or divers of them together distract him; whence he so rambleth and hovereth, that he can seldom himself tell what in any case he should do, nor can another guess it; so that you cannot at any time know where to find him, or how to deal with him; you cannot with reason ever rely on him, so unstable he is in all his ways. He is in effect a mere child, all humour and giddiness, somewhat worse than a beast; which, following the instinct of its nature, is constant and regular, and thence tractable, or at least so untractable, that no man will be deceived in meddling with him. Nothing therefore can be more unmanly than such a person-nothing can be more unpleasant than to have to do with him. But a pious man, being steadily governed by conscience and a regard to certain principles, doth both understand himself, and is intelligible to others: he presently descrieth what in any case he is to do, and can render an account of his acting: you may know him clearly, and assuredly tell what he will do, and may therefore fully confide in him.-Barrow. THERE is great difference in sins and actions, whether truly or seemingly offensive; there are gnats and there are camels: neither is there less difference in consciences. There are consciences so wide and vast that they can swallow a camel, and there are consciences so strait as that they strain at a gnat. Yea, which is strange to observe, those very consciences which one while are so dilated that they strain not at a camel, another while are so drawn together by an anxious scrupulousness, that they are ready to be choked with a gnat.-Bishop Hall. THAT conscience alone is good which is much busied in this work, in demanding and answering, which speaks much with itself and much with God. This is both the sign that it is good, and the way to make it better. That soul will doubtless be very wary in its walk which takes daily account of itself, and renders up that account unto God. It will not live by guess, but naturally examine each step beforehand, because it is resolved to examine all after; will consider well what it should do, because it means to ask over again what it hath done, and not only to answer itself, but to make a faithful report of all unto God; to lay all before Him continually upon trial made; to tell Him what is in any measure well done, as His own work, and bless Him for that; and tell Him too, all the slips and miscarriages of the day, as our own; complaining of ourselves in His presence, and still entreating free pardon, and more wisdom to walk more holily and exactly, and gaining, even by our failings, more humility and more watchfulness. this If Christians in their progress in grace would eye most, that the conscience be growing purer, the heart more spiritual, the affections more regular and heavenly, their outward carriage would be holier; whereas, the outward work of performing duties, and being much exercised in religion, may, by the neglect of this, be labour in vain, and mend nothing soundly. To set the outward actions right, though with an honest intention, and not so to regard and find out the inward disorder of the heart, whence that in the actions flows, is but to be still putting the index of a clock right with your finger, while it is foul or out of order within. Oh! but a purified conscience, a soul renewed and purified in its temper and affections, will make things go right without, in all the duties and acts of our callings.-Leighton. It is infinitely absurd to think that conscience can be kept in order without frequent examination. If a man would have his conscience deal clearly with him, he must deal severely with that. Often scouring it and cleansing it will make it bright; and, when it is so, he may see himself in it. And, if he sees any thing amiss, let this satisfy him, that no man is, or can be the worse for knowing the worst of himself. On the contrary, if conscience, by a long neglect of, and dis-acquaintance with itself, comes to contract an inveterate rust or soil, a man may as well expect to see his face in a mud wall, as that such a conscience should give him a true report of his condition: no, it leaves him wholly in the dark, as to the greatest concern he has in both worlds.-South. SOME have sluices in their consciences, and can keep them open, or shut them as occasion requires.— Fuller. Ir is a true word of the Apostle, "God is greater than our conscience;" and surely none but He: under that great God, the supreme power on earth is the conscience. Every man is a little world within himself; and in this little world there is a Court of Judicature erected, wherein, next under God, the conscience sits as the supreme judge, from whom there is no appeal; that passeth sentence upon all our actions, upon all our intentions; for our persons, absolving one, condemning another; for our actions, allowing one, forbidding another. If that condemn us, in vain shall all the world beside acquit us; and if that clear us, the doom which the world passeth upon us, is frivolous and ineffectual. I grant, this judge is sometimes corrupted with the bribes of hope, with the weak fears of loss, with an undue respect of persons, with powerful importunities, with false witnesses, with forged evidences, to pass a wrong sentence upon the person or cause, for which he shall be answerable to Him that is higher than the highest; but yet this doom |