Christopher Ness

 If Christ have his throne upon your conscience, his sceptre will appear upon your conversation 

[Ness (1621–1705) ejected minister, theological author; works include Antidote against Arminianism]

Elizabeth I

A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing.

Thomas Watson 03

The devil cares not how many sermon-pills you take, so long as they do not work upon your conscience.

(On the Tenth Commandment)

William Gurnall 5

The word tells thee of an informer thou hast in thy own bosom; conscience, which goes along with thee, and is witness to all the fine laid plots, and what it sees it writes down, for it is a court of record; thou canst not sin so fast, but it can write after thee; and the pen with which conscience writes down our sins hath a sharp nib, it cuts deep into the very heart and soul of the sinner.

Christian in complete armour

William Gurnall 4

Wouldest thou preserve thy faith, look to thy conscience. A good conscience is the bottom faith sails in; if the conscience be wrecked, how can it be hought that faith should be safe? If faith be the jewel, a good conscience is the cabinet in which it is kept; and if the cabinet be broken, the jewel must needs be in danger of losing. Now you know what sins waste the conscience; sins either deliberately committed, or impenitently continued in. ....

Christian in complete armour

William Gurnall 3

Can a bird fly when one of her wings is broken? Faith and a good conscience are hope's two wings; if therefore thou hast wounded thy conscience by any sin, renew thy repentance, that so thou mayest act faith for the pardon of it, and acting faith mayest redeem thy hope when the mortgage that is now upon it shall be taken off.

Christian in complete armour

William Gurnall 2

The second effect the Scripture hath on the spirits of men, by which its divine pedigree may be proved, is the power it exerciseth on the conscience to convince and terrify it. Conscience is a castle that no batteries but what God raiseth against it can shake; no power can command it to stop but that which heaven and earth obey.

Christian iin complete arrmour

William Gurnall 1

When the Spirit of God hath sprung with a divine light into the understanding, then he makes his address to the conscience, and the act which passeth upon that is an act of conviction. He shall convince the world ... etc John xvi. 8. Now this conviction is nothing but a reflection of the light that is in the understanding upon the conscience, whereby the creature feels the weight and force of those truths he knows, so as to be brought into a deep sense of them. Light in a direct beam heats not, nor doth knowledge swimming in the brain affect. Most under the Gospel know that unbelief is a damning sin, and that there is no name to be saved by but Christ's, yet how few of those know this so as to apply it to their own consciences, and to be affected with their own deplored state. Who is a scriptural convinced sinner? He, who upon the clear evidence of the Word, brought against him by the Spirit, is found by his own conscience to be so. Speak now, poor creature, did ever such an act of the Spirit of God pass upon thee as this? which that thou mayest the better discern, try thyself by these few characters.

First, A sinner truly convinced, is not only convinced of this or that sin, but of the evil of all sin. It is an ill sign, when a person seems in a passion to cry out at one sin, and to be senseless of another. A parboiled conscience is not right; soft in one part, and hard in another: the Spirit of God is uniform in its work. ....
Christian in Complete Armour

Herman Ridderbos

The liberty given in Christ therefore is mirrored in the conscience not as liberty from moral decision, but as freedom from guilt before God. That which is characteristic of Christian liberty of conscience does not lie in the sphere of the forming of moral judgments, but in that of the religious relationship to God.

Herman Ridderbos, Paul: an outline of his theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982], 293

C H Spurgeon 07

9. But what is it that makes men tremble under the sound of the Gospel? Some say it is their conscience. Yes, and doubtless it is in some sense. The poet said, “Conscience makes cowards of us all;” and certainly, when the minister’s exposition is faithful and pertinent to our own case, conscience, if it is not thoroughly seared and dead, will make the blush mantle on our cheeks. But I take it that conscience by itself is so thoroughly corrupt, together with all the other powers of manhood, that it would never even make a man go as far as trembling, if there were not something at work upon the conscience, besides its being left to its own natural force. My brethren, I believe that what some people call natural conviction is, after all, the work of the Spirit. Some very profound divines are so fond of the doctrine that the Holy Spirit always works efficaciously, that they think that the Spirit never can work a transitory emotion in a man’s soul: they impute such things to conscience. And if they see a man like Felix trembling, they say it is all natural conscience! Now, do they not see that they are in this touching on another doctrine equally dear to them—the doctrine of total depravity?—for if men be totally depraved by nature, then, since trembling is a good thing, they are not capable even of that without some influence of the Holy Spirit. The fact is, my hearer, the Holy Spirit works in two ways. In some men’s hearts he works with restraining Grace only, and the restraining Grace, though it will not save them, is enough to keep them from breaking out into the open and corrupt vices in which some men indulge who are totally left by the restraints of the Spirit. Now, there was in Felix some little portion of this restraining Grace; and when the Apostle laid the Gospel open to him, this restraining Grace quickened the conscience, and compelled Felix to tremble. Mark you, this Grace man may resist and does resist; for albeit that the Holy Spirit is Omnipotent and never can be resisted when he works Omnipotently, yet as a strong man may sometimes not use all his strength, but work with his finger, for instance, so that he may permit even a gnat or an ant to overcome him, even so the Holy Spirit sometimes works only temporarily and only for good and excellent purposes, which he always accomplishes; but he allows men to quench and resist his influences, so that salvation is not so much as approached by it. God the Holy Spirit may work in men some good desires and feelings, and yet have no design for saving them. But mark, none of these feelings are things that accompany sure salvation, for if so, they would be continued. But he does not work Omnipotently to save, except in the people of his own elect, whom he assuredly brings to himself. I believe, then, that the trembling of Felix is to be accounted for by the restraining grace of the Spirit quickening his conscience and making him tremble.

Delivered On Sunday Morning, January 10, 1858, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

C H Spurgeon 06

I. First, then, WHAT IS PRESUMPTUOUS SIN? Now, I think here must be one of four things in a sin in order to make it presumptuous. It must either be a sin against light and knowledge, or a sin committed with deliberation, or a sin committed with a design of sinning, merely for sinning's sake, or else it must be a sin committed through hardihood, from a man's rash confidence in his own strength. We will mark these points one by one.

1. A sin that is committed willfully against manifest light and knowledge is a presumptuous. sin. A sin of ignorance is not presumptuous, unless that ignorance also be willful, in which case the ignorance itself is a presumptuous sin. But when a man sins for want of knowing better - for want of knowing the law, for want of instruction, reproof, advice, and admonition, we say that his sin, so committed, does not partake to any great extent of the nature of a presumptuous sin. But when a man knows better, and sins in the very teeth and face of his increased light and knowledge, then his sin deserves to be branded with this ignominious title of a presumptuous sin. Let me just dwell on this thought a moment. Conscience is often an inner light to men, whereby they are warned of forbidden acts as being sinful. Then if I sin against conscience, though I have no greater light than conscience affords me, still my sin is presumptuous, if I have presumed to go against that voice of God in my heart, an enlightened conscience. You, young man, were once tempted (and perhaps it was but yesterday) to commit a certain act. The very moment you were tempted, conscience said, "It is wrong, it is wrong" - it shouted murder in your heart, and told you the deed you were about to commit was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Your fellow-apprentice committed the same sin without the warning of conscience; in him it was guilt - guilt which needs to be washed away with the Saviour's blood. But it was not such guilt in him as it was in you, because your conscience checked you; your conscience told you of the danger, warned you of the punishment, and yet you dared to go astray against God, and therefore you sinned presumptuously. You have sinned very grievously in having done so. When a man shall trespass on my ground, he shall be a trespasser though he have no warning, but if straight before his face there stands a warning, and if he knowingly and willingly trespasses, then he is guilty of a presumptuous trespass, and is to be so far punished accordingly. So you, if you had not known better; if your conscience had been less enlightened, you might have committed the deed with far less of the criminality which now attaches to you, because you sinned against conscience, and consequently sinned presumptuously. ...

On Presumptuous Sins June 7, 1857

C H Spurgeon 05

7. There is yet another class, and when I have referred to them I will mention no more. These are the people who become religious for the sake of quieting their conscience; and it is astonishing how a very little religion will sometimes do that. Some people tell us that if in the time of storm men would pour bottles of oil upon the waves, there would be a great calm at once. I have never tried it, and it is most probable I never shall, for my organ of credulity is not large enough to accept so extensive a statement. But there are some people who think that they can calm the storm of a troubled conscience by pouring a little of the oil of a religious profession upon it; and it is amazing how wonderful an effect this really has. I have known a man who was drunk many times in a week, and who got his money dishonestly, and yet he always had an easy conscience by going to his church or chapel regularly on Sunday. We have heard of a man who could “devour widows’ houses” - a lawyer who could swallow up everything that came in his way, and yet he would never go to bed without saying his prayers; and that stilled his conscience. We have heard of other people, especially among the Romanists, who would not object to thieving, but who would regard eating anything except fish on a Friday as a most fearful sin, supposing that by making a fast on the Friday, all the iniquities of all the days in the week would be atoned for. They want the outward forms of religion to keep the conscience quiet; for Conscience is one of the worst lodgers to have in your house when he gets quarrelsome: there is no getting along with him; he is an ill bedfellow; ill at lying down, and equally troublesome at rising up. A guilty conscience is one of the curses of the world: it puts out the sun, and takes away the brightness from the moonbeam. A guilty conscience casts a noxious exhalation through the air, removes the beauty from the landscape, the glory from the flowing river, the majesty from the rolling floods. There is nothing beautiful to the man who has a guilty conscience. He needs no accusing; everything accuses him. Hence people become religious just to quiet them. They take the sacrament sometimes; they go to a place of worship; they sing a hymn now and then; they give a guinea to a charity; they intend to leave a portion in their will to build alms houses; and in this way conscience is lulled asleep, and they rock him to and fro with religious observances, until there he sleeps while they sing over him the lullaby of hypocrisy, and he does not awaken until he shall awake with that rich man who was here clothed in purple, but in the next world lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torments, without a drop of water to cool his burning tongue.

A Sermon Delivered On Friday Afternoon, June 11, 1858, By Pastor C. H. Spurgeon, On The Grand Stand, Epsom Race Course. So run, that you may obtain. (1 Cor 9:24)

C H Spurgeon 04

4. Yet once more - conscience, too, has been overpowered by the fall.

I believe there is no more egregious mistake made by divines, than when they tell people that conscience is the vicegerent of God within the soul, and that it is one of those powers which retains its ancient dignity, and stands erect amidst the fall of its compeers. My brethren, when man fell in the garden, manhood fell entirely; there was not one single pillar in the temple of manhood that stood erect. It is true, conscience was not destroyed. The pillar was not shattered; it fell, and it fell in one piece, and there it lies along, the mightiest remnant of God's once perfect work in man. But that conscience is fallen, I am sure. Look at men. Who among them is the possessor of a "good conscience toward God," but the regenerated man? Do you imagine that if men's consciences always spoke loudly and clearly to them, they would live in the daily commission of acts, which are as opposed to the right as darkness to light? No, beloved; conscience can tell me that I am a sinner, but conscience cannot make me feel that I am one. Conscience may tell me that such-and-such a thing is wrong, but how wrong it is conscience itself does not know. Did any man s conscience, unenlightened by the Spirit, ever tell him that his sins deserved damnation? Or if conscience did do that, did it ever lead any man to feel an abhorrence of sin as sin? In fact, did conscience ever bring a man to such a self-renunciation, that he did totally abhor himself and all his works and come to Christ? No, conscience, although it is not dead, is ruined, its power is impaired, it hath not that clearness of eye and that strength of hand, and that thunder of voice, which it had before the fall; but hath ceased to a great degree, to exert its supremacy in the town of Mansoul. Then, beloved, it becomes necessary for this very reason, because conscience is depraved, that the Holy Spirit should step in, to show us our need of a Saviour, and draw us to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Preaching on Human inability, March 7, 1858

C H Spurgeon 03

There are some respects in which every man should rail his house by denying himself those indulgences which might be lawful to others, but which would prove fatal to himself. The individual who knows his weakness to be an appetite for drink should resolve to totally abstain. Every man, I believe, has a particular sin which is a sin to him, but may not be a sin to another. No man's conscience is to be a judge for another, but let no man violate his conscience. If you cannot perform a certain act in faith, you must not do it at all. I mean if you do not honestly and calmly believe it to be right, even if it is right in itself, it becomes wrong to you. Watch, therefore, watch at all points. Guard yourselves in company.

From  sermon (No 2999) on Deuteronomy 22:8 "When you build a new house, then you shall make a railing for your roof that you bring not guilt of bloodshed on your household, if any man fall from it."

C H Spurgeon 02

True Walking Posture

"He that walketh uprightly walketh surely" (Proverbs 10:9).

His walk may be slow, but it is sure. He that hasteth to be rich shall not be innocent nor sure; but steady perseverance in integrity, if it does not bring riches, will certainly bring peace. In doing that which is just and right, we are like one walking upon a rock, for we have confidence that every step we take is upon solid and safe ground. On the other hand, the utmost success through questionable transactions must always be hollow and treacherous, and the man who has gained it must always be afraid that a day of reckoning will come, and then his gains will condemn him. Let us stick to truth and righteousness. By God's grace let us imitate our LORD and Master, in whose mouth no deceit was ever found. Let us not be afraid of being poor, nor of being treated with contempt. Never, on any account whatever, let us do that which our conscience cannot justify. If we lose inward peace, we lose more than a fortune can buy. If we keep in the LORD's own way and never sin against our conscience, our way is sure against all comers. Who is he that can harm us if we be followers of that which is good? We may be thought fools by fools if we are firm in our integrity; but in the place where judgment is infallible we shall be approved.

Chequebook of the Bank of Faith, December 1

C H Spurgeon 01

We must make the Church a school to educate the conscience. Many a man has enough conscience to scare him in sin, but not enough to save him from sin.
(This saying seems to have been gathered by a ccontemporary biographer, William Williams)

Patricia Highsmith

He poked a finger at Ingham. "The ways of Araby are strange as her perfumes. Yes! But you are a son of the West. May your conscience let you rest! Ha-ha! That rhymes. Unintentional. Bye-bye, Howard, and God bless you!" (The Tremor of Forgery)

Books on conscience

2017 The art of turning
Kevin DeYoung
2016 Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ
Naselli and Crowley
2012 Pure Joy: Rediscover your conscience
Christopher Ash
2010 The Conscience
Robert Solomon

1996 Honesty, Morality, and Conscience
Jerry White
1994 The vanishing conscience
John MacArthur

1989 Living With Your Conscience Without Going Crazy!

Dr Joel A Freeman
1984 Your conscience as your guide

Peter Toon

1983 Meet your conscience, Back to the Bible

Warren Wiersbe

1973 Let Conscience Speak

David Fountain

1972 Liberty of Conscience

John Van Til

1963 Church and State

J Marcellus Kik

1969 The Pauline use of Suneidesis

NT Studies

1969 Conscience and Responsibility

Eric Mount Jr

1968 The Christian Conscience

Philippe Delahaye

1961 Paul and Seneca

Jan Sevenster

1960 Contemporary Moral Theology

J C Ford and G Kelly

1963 Ethics in a Christian Context

P Lehmannn

1961 Conscience and its right to Freedom

Eric D'Arcy

1956 Christ and Conscience

N H G Robinson
1956 The Voice of Conscience

A M Rehwinkel
1950 Conscience
Ole Hallesby

1927 Conscience and its Problems

Kenneth E Kirk

1917 Conscience and Christ: Six lectures on Christian ethics

H Rashdall

1888 The Christian Conscience: A Contribution on Christian Ethics
W T Davison

1878 Unexplored remainders of Conscience With Preludes on Current Events

Joseph Cook
1838 Conscience considered chiefly in reference to moral and religious obligation

John King
1685 Heaven upon earth

James Durham

1640 The soul's looking glass

William Fenner

1639 Consciences with the power and cases thereof

William Ames

1630 Christian see to thy conscience

Richard Bernard

1626 The anatomy of conscience, or, The sum of Pauls regeneracy

Ephraim Huitt

1608 Whole treatise of the cases of conscience

William Perkins 

Martin Luther 2

Although I lived a blameless life as a monk, I felt that I was a sinner with an uneasy conscience before God. I also could not believe that I had pleased him with my works. Far from loving that righteous God who punished sinners, I actually hated him. I was a good monk, and kept my order so strictly that if ever a monk could get to heaven by monastic discipline, I was that monk. All my companions in the monastery would confirm this. ... And yet my conscience did not give me certainty, but I always doubted and said, "You didn't do that right. You weren't contrite enough. You left that out of your confession."

Jonathan Edwards

Natural conscience consists in these two things.

1. In that disposition to approve or disapprove the moral treatment which passes between us and others, from a determination of the mind to be easy or uneasy, in a consciousness of our being consistent or inconsistent with ourselves. Hereby we have a disposition to approve our own treatment of another, when we are conscious to ourselves that we treat him so as we should expect to be treated by him, were he in our case and we in his; and to disapprove of our own treatment of another, when we are conscious that we should be displeased with the like treatment from him, if we were in his case. So we in our consciences approve of another’s treatment of us, if we are conscious to ourselves, that if we were in his case, and he in ours, we should think it just to treat him as he treats us; and disapprove his treatment of us, when we are conscious that we should think it unjust, if we were in his case. Thus men’s consciences approve or disapprove the sentence of their judge, by which they are acquitted or condemned. But this is not all ... there is another thing that must precede it, and be the foundation of it. ...

2. The other thing which belongs to the approbation or disapprobation of natural conscience, is the sense of desert ... consisting ... in a natural agreement, proportion, and harmony, between malevolence or injury, and resentment and punishment; or between loving and being loved, between showing kindness and being rewarded, &c. Both these kinds of approving or disapproving, concur in the approbation or disapprobation of conscience: the one founded on the other. Thus, when a man’s conscience disapproves of his treatment of his neighbour, in the first place, he is conscious, that if he were in his neighbour’s stead, he should resent such treatment from a sense of justice, or from a sense of uniformity and equality between such treatment, and resentment, and punishment ... And then, in the next place, he perceives, that therefore he is not consistent with himself, in doing what he himself should resent in that case; and hence disapproves it, as being naturally averse to opposition to himself.

Dissertation on the nature of true virtue Chapter 5

Harper Lee

"Atticus, you must be wrong...."

"How's that?"

"Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong...."

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

From To Kill a mockingbird

Charles Buxton

It is astonishing how soon the whole conscience begins to unravel if a single stitch drops. One single sin indulged in makes a hole you could put your head through.
Notes of Thought (No 456)

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din:
Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the Oracle of God.
The Island Canto 6

Eddie Cantor

A sleeping pill will never take the place of a clear conscience.

Petrus Forestus

If they be solitary given, superstitious, precise, or very devout: seldom shall you find a merchant, a soldier, an innkeeper, a bawd, a host, a usurer, so troubled in mind, they have cheverel* consciences that will stretch, they are seldom moved in this kind or molested: young men and middle age are more wild and less apprehensive; but old folks, most part, such as are timorous and religiously given.

*soft leather for gloves

Anselm

My conscience dictates to me that I deserve damnation, my repentance will not suffice for satisfaction: but thy mercy, O Lord, quite overcometh all my transgressions.

Leonhard Culman

How unavailable and vain men's councils are to comfort an afflicted conscience, except God's word concur and be annexed, from which comes life, ease, repentance, &c.

Robert Burton

To these professed atheists, we may well add that impious and carnal crew of worldly-minded men, impenitent sinners, that go to hell in a lethargy, or in a dream; who though they be professed Christians, yet they will nulla pallescere culpa (not grow pale at the imputation of guilt), make a conscience of nothing they do, they have cauterised consciences, and are indeed in a reprobate sense, past all feeling, have given themselves over to wantonness, to work all manner of uncleanness even with greediness, Ephes. iv. 19. They do know there is a God, a day of judgement to come, and yet for all that, as Hugo saith, ita comedunt ac dormiunt, ac si diem judicii evasissent; ita ludunt ac rident, ac si in coelis cum Deo regnarent: they are as merry for all the sorrow, as if they had escaped all dangers, and were in heaven already:

Metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.

(Vergil in The Georgics

(knowing) ... The causes of things and able to trample underfoot All terrors and inexorable fate and the clamour of devouring Acheron)

The principal agent and procurer of this mischief is the devil; those whom God forsakes, the devil by his permission lays hold on. Sometimes he persecutes them with that worm of conscience, as he did Judas, Saul, and others. The poets call it Nemesis, but it is indeed God's just judgement, sero sed serio, he strikes home at last, and setteth upon them as a thief in the night, 1 Thes. ii.ii.

A good conscience is a continual feast, but a galled conscience is as great a torment as can possibly happen, a still baking oven, (so Pierius in his Hieroglyph, compares it) another hell. Our conscience, which is a great ledger book, wherein are written all our offences, a register to lay them up, (which those Egyptians in their hieroglyphics expressed by a mill, as well for the continuance, as for the torture of it) grinds our souls with the remembrance of some precedent sins, makes us reflect upon, accuse and condemn our own selves. Sin lies at door, &c. I know there be many other causes assigned by Zanchius, Musculus, and the rest; as incredulity, infidelity, presumption, ignorance, blindness, ingratitude, discontent, those five grand miseries in Aristotle, ignominy, need, sickness, enmity, death, &c.; but this of conscience is the greatest, Instar ulceris corpus jugiter percellens: The scrupulous conscience (as Peter Forestus calls it) which tortures so many, that either out of a deep apprehension of their unworthiness, and consideration of their own dissolute life, accuse themselves and aggravate every small offence, when there is no such cause, misdoubting in the meantime God's mercies, they fall into these inconveniences. The poet calls them furies dire, but it is the conscience alone which is a thousand witnesses to accuse us, Nocte dieque suum gestant in pectore testem. A continual tester to give in evidence, to empanel a jury to examine us, to cry guilty, a persecutor with hue and cry to follow, an apparitor to summon us, a bailiff to carry us, a serjeant to arrest, an attorney to plead against us, a gaoler to torment, a judge to condemn, still accusing, denouncing, torturing and molesting. And as the statue of Juno in that holy city near Euphrates in Assyria will look still towards you, sit where you will in her temple, she stares full upon you, if you go by, she follows with her eye, in all sites, places, conventicles, actions, our conscience will be still ready to accuse us. After many pleasant days, and fortunate adventures, merry tides, this conscience at last doth arrest us.
The Anatomy of Melancholy

Robert Browning

The great beacon-light God sets in all
(Strafford Act IV)

Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?
Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more
Of what right is, than arrives at birth
In the best man's acts that we bow before:
(Christmas Eve)

Francis Bowen

Conscience is God's vice regent on Earth, and within the limited jurisdiction given to it, it partakes of His infinite wisdom and speaks in His tone of absolute command. It is a revelation of the being of a God, a divine voice in the human soul, making known the presence of its rightful sovereign, the Author of the law of holiness and truth.

Karl Barth

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed!

This is the voice of our conscience, telling us of the righteousness of God. And since conscience is the perfect interpreter of life, what it tells us is no question, no riddle, no problem, but a fact -  the deepest, innermost, surest fact of life: God is righteous. Our only question is what attitude toward the fact we ought to take.

We shall hardly approach the fact with our critical reason. The reason sees the small and the larger but not the large. It sees the preliminary, but not the final, the derived but not the original, the complex but not the simple. It sees what is human but not what is divine. We shall hardly be taught this fact by men.

"The Righteousness of God" (1916) in The Word of God and the Word of Man (1928) as translated by Douglas Horton;

Augustine

Conscience and reputation are two things. Conscience is due to yourself, reputation to your neighbour.

Sermo CCLV, De vita et moribus clericorum suorum sermo primus On the life and customs of the clergy first sermon

David Fountain

David Fountain's little book on conscience can be accessed here.

Charles Wesley

1. I want a principle within
of watchful, godly fear,
a sensibility of sin,
a pain to feel it near.
I want the first approach to feel
of pride or wrong desire,
to catch the wandering of my will,
and quench the kindling fire.

2. From thee that I no more may stray,
no more thy goodness grieve,
grant me the filial awe, I pray,
the tender conscience give.
Quick as the apple of an eye,
O God, my conscience make;
awake my soul when sin is nigh,
and keep it still awake.

3. Almighty God of truth and love,
to me thy power impart;
the mountain from my soul remove,
the hardness from my heart.
O may the least omission pain
my reawakened soul,
and drive me to that blood again,
which makes the wounded whole.