A Good Conscience

Paul laboured to keep a good conscience in all things. 'Herein I exercise myself, to have a good conscience towards God and men' (Acts 24:16). It is easy for a man to desire to depart, who has his conscience sprinkled with the blood of Christ (Heb. 10:22), free from a purpose of living in sin. But where there is a stained, defiled, polluted conscience, there cannot be this desire; for the heart of man, naturally, as the prophet said, 'casts up mire and dirt' (Isa. 57:20). It casts up fears, and objections, and murmurings. Oh, beloved, we think not what mischief sin will do when we suffer it to seize upon our consciences. When it is once written there with the claw of a diamond, and with a pen of iron (Jer. 17:1), who shall get it out? Nothing but great repentance and faith, applying the blood of Christ. When conscience is not appeased, there will be all clamours within. It will fear to appear before the judgment seat. A guilty conscience trembles at the mention of death. I wonder how men who live in looseness, in filthiness, in debauchery of life, who labour to satisfy their lusts and corruptions, I wonder how they can think of death without trembling, considering that they are under the guilt of so many sins. You have a company of wretched persons, proud enough in their own conceits, and censorious. Nothing can please them, whose whole life is controlled by the lusts of their flesh, and they do nothing but build the sting of death every day. They arm death against themselves, which when once it appears, their conscience, which is a hell within them, is wakened, and where are they? They can stay here no longer; they must appear before the dreadful Judge; and then where are all their pleasures and satisfactions, for which they neglected heaven and happiness, peace of conscience, and all? Oh, therefore let us walk wholly with our God, and maintain inward peace all we can, if we desire to depart here with comfort.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Christ is Best, pp. 21-24
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