Thomas Brooks 04

He takes the best and the wisest course under heaven to preserve his good name in the world and to maintain the peace of his conscience, who is most studious and industrious to abstain from all appearances of evil (1Th 5:22).

David Dickson

Conscience, as it doth respect ourselves is … the understanding power of our souls examining how matters do stand between God and us, comparing his will revealed with our state, condition and carriage in thoughts, words or deeds, done or omitted, and passing judgment thereupon as the case requires.

Edmund Calamy

In these unconscionable days … most people make no conscience to sin against conscience; some have sinned so long against conscience that they have lost all conscience of sin ...

William Gurnall Extended Quote

Though some precious souls that have closed with Christ, and embraced the gospel, be not at present brought to rest in their own consciences, but continue for a while under some dissatisfactions and troubles in their own spirits, yet even then they have peace of conscience in a threefold respect; In precio, in promisso, in semine.

1. In precio; the gospel puts that price into his hand, which will assuredly purchase it, and that is the blood of Christ. We say that is gold which is worth gold, which we may anywhere exchange for gold; such is the blood of Christ; it is peace of conscience, because the soul that hath this may exchange it for this. God himself cannot deny the poor creature that prays on these terms: Lord, give me peace of conscience; here is Christ's blood, the price of it. That which could pay the debt, surely can procure the receipt. Peace of conscience is but a discharge under God's hand that the debt due to divine justice is fully paid. The blood of Christ hath done that the greater for the believer, it shall therefore do this the less. If there were such a rare potion that did infallibly procure health to every one that takes it, wo might safely say, as soon aa the sick man hath drunk it down, that he hath drunk his health: it is in him, though at present he doth not feel himself to have it; in time it will appear.

2. In promisso. Every true believer hath peace of conscience in the promise, and that we count as good as ready money in the purse which we have sure bond for. Ps 29:11 The Lord will bless his people with peace. He is resolved on it, and then who shall hinder it? ... Nothing more hard to enter into the heart of a poor creature (when all is in an uproar in his bosom, and his conscience threatening nothing but fire and sword, wrath, vengeance from God for his sins), than thoughts or hopes of peace and comfort. Now the psalm is spent in shewing what great things God can do, and that with no more trouble to himself than a word speaking. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty, etc ... This God that doth all this promiseth to bless his people with peace, outward and inward; for without this inward peace, though he might give them peace, yet could he never bless them with peace as he there undertakes. A sad peace ... to have quiet streets but cutting of throats in our houses ... yet infinitely more sad to have peace both in our streets and houses but war and blood in our guilty consciences. What peace can a poor creature taste or relish while the sword of God's wrath lies at the throat of conscience? Not peace with God himself. Therefore Christ purchased peace of pardon, to obtain peace of conscience for his pardoned ones, and accordingly hath bequeathed it in the promise .. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you John 14:27. Where you see he is both the testator to leave, and the executor of his own will, to give out with his own hands what his love hath left believers; so that there is no fear but his will shall be performed to the full, seeing himself lives to see it done.

3. In semine. Every believer hath this ... peace in the seed. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart Ps 97:11. Where sown, but in the believer's own bosom, when principles of grace and holiness were cast into it by the Spirit of God? Hence it is called the peaceable fruit of righteousness Heb 12:11. It shoots as naturally from holiness as any fruit in its kind doth from the seed proper to it. It is, indeed, most true, that the seed runs and ripens into this fruit sooner in some than ... in others. This spiritual harvest comes not alike soon to all, no more than the other that is outward doth; but here is the comfort - whoever hath a seed time of grace ... shall have his harvest time also of joy.

Michael Novak

Atheists in our midst are proof that all consciences can be accommodated here, even those that have no ground for holding that conscience is sacred, inalienable, and prior to civil society.

Evan Esar

Conscience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does.

Joseph Caryl

In his farewell sermon in 1662 Caryl said

The heart or conscience is a busy faculty, and hath many offices, it records what we do, and comes as a witness. The conscience is judge of what we do, and accordingly reproves what we do amiss; therefore saith Job, “I will take care of this:” I am more afraid of the reproach of conscience, than of any man whatsoever; therefore I will not do any thing that may cause my conscience to reproach me as long as I live. This is upon the heart of God's people, they are resolved, let men reproach and rail against them as much as they will, their hearts shall not reproach them.

John MacArthur

The conscience is a built-in warning system that signals us when something we have done is wrong. The conscience is to our souls what pain sensors are to our bodies: it inflicts distress, in the form of guilt, whenever we violate what our hearts tell us is right.

Benjamin Beddome 04

Sometimes he [Jesus] knocks by the law ... Sometimes by alarms of conscience which says as Nathan to David Thou art the man. When conscience speaks by commission from God it will make the deaf to hear. Those who will not hearken to the voice of parents, ministers, law or gospel shall be made to hear the voice of conscience and in the great day it will speak so loud that both heaven and earth shall hear.

Benjamin Beddome 03

(The Spirit works on) The conscience, stirring it up to the faithful and vigorous discharge of its duty to instruct, reprove, applaud and condemn as the case requires and occasions offer. The Spirit of man, that candle of the Lord, often gives but a faint and glimmering light but the Spirit of God snuffs it that it may burn brighter. It is he that sets conscience to work at first making it fly in the face of the sinner saying, as Nathan to David, Thou art the man .And to him we owe all that facility and ease, faithfulness and integrity with which it acts in after life. It is he that makes the conscience tender and keeps it tender, bids it speak when it ought to speak and inclines us to hearken to its voice. To approve that which is right and condemn that which is otherwise is natural to and inseparable from every man's conscience. ... But then its ability and readiness to exercise this approving or condemning power is encreased by the quickening influence of the divine Spirit. He is the Lord of conscience and all its motions, like those of the wheels, are under his direction.