Tim Challies interviewed our editor over a period of eight weeks on the final eight chapters of A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, and placed these articles on the Challies blog. We are printing them in this periodical with his permission. All eight articles deal with how the Puritans brought theology into practice. This article deals with the conscience in Puritan thought.
1. In order to ensure we are all on the same page, can you define conscience? What exactly is it the Puritans were talking about when they discussed matters of conscience?
The conscience is an echo in the human mind of the verdict of the righteous Judge. William Perkins said that “conscience is a part of the understanding” that sets itself either for or against one’s actions.1 William Ames, a student of Perkins, wrote that conscience is “a man’s judgment of himself, according to the judgment of God of him.”2 Regardless of what we love with our affections or choose with our will, there is a part of our understanding that judges us and gives us a sense of moral approval or guilt according to our understanding of right and wrong. So when the Puritans considered cases of conscience, they were discussing questions about how to know what is pleasing to God in specific situations, and, more importantly, how to know that the divine Judge accepts you as righteous in His sight.
2. What would the Puritans identify as the function of conscience? Why do we need it and what does it do for us?
Conscience impresses a man’s mind with the moral authority of God, and as a result produces a sense of anxiety and misery, or peace and joy, that anticipates eternity. Ames said that conscience binds a man with such authority that no created thing can release him from it.3 Though our conscience may be misinformed, it still speaks with a divine authority that we can disobey but we find difficult to ignore. It reminds us that God sees all we do and is either delighted or angry with us, and pleased or displeased with our deeds.
Much Puritan literature aimed to direct people to find peace of conscience through the blood of Christ, and to walk in good conscience day by day. Richard Rogers said that the purpose of his Seven Treatises of spiritual guidance was to show a person how to live such that “he may find a very sweet and effectual [powerful] taste of eternal happiness, even here.”4 Richard Sibbes said that a good conscience is “a continual feast,” because knowing that God is pleased with us, has forgiven our sins, and delights in our obedience, enables us to suffer and even to die with comfort, freedom, and joy.5
3. What would the Puritans want us to know about the effect of the fall into sin on man’s conscience?
The fall of man brought us under the condemning wrath of God and the enslaving darkness of sin. The first disturbs and terrifies the conscience insofar as it senses the coming judgment; the latter disorders and confuses the conscience.
Perkins taught that though a “remnant of God’s image” persists in man’s mind through “certain notions concerning good and evil,” mankind has fallen into much ignorance of the truth and inability to understand spiritual realities (1 Cor. 2:14), futility in not distinguishing truth from falsehood (Eph. 4:7; Prov. 14:12), and natural tendency to follow evil and lies (Jer. 4:22). This distorts the conscience, though it still retains a degree of its power to rebuke and restrain sin (Rom. 2:15). Fallen conscience tends to excuse inward wickedness if it is covered in outward worship (Mark 10:19-20). It also tends to falsely accuse a person when he fails to follow the traditions and doctrines of mere men (Col. 2:21± 22). Sometimes conscience may accuse and terrify a person for his sins (Acts 24:26), and yet consciences may be seared to numbness by habits of sinning (Eph. 4:19; 1 Tim. 4:2).6
4. Where might the Puritans warn us about our use or misuse of conscience?
The Puritans warned against subjecting conscience to any ultimate authority besides the Bible. They particularly emphasized liberty of conscience in matters of religion.
The Westminster divines wrote, “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to His Word; or beside it, in matters of faith and worship.”7 Similarly, the Particular Baptists wrote, “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.”8
The Puritans also warned against resisting one’s conscience when it speaks according to the Word. Ames taught the unconverted to seriously consider the law so that it would convict him of sin; show him he cannot save himself; and bring him to grief, fear, and confession of specific sins. He must also renounce his own righteousness and fix his mind upon the righteousness of Christ crucified as presented in the promises of the gospel.9
Christians too must not resist conscience. If a Christian finds his conscience accusing him, Ames counseled him to: first, feel the burden of sin (Matt. 11:28-29); second, detest all sin (Rom. 7:15); third, be careful not to fulfill his sinful lusts (Gal. 5:16); fourth, work to put those lusts to death (Rom. 8:13); fifth, to consider God’s promises, flee to Christ, and cling to Him more and more (Rom. 7:25; Phil. 3:9); and sixth, get rid of gross and heinous sins that shake their consciences and call into question their very salvation (Isa. 1:16-18).10
5. What can a Christian do to repair his conscience or to help his conscience overcome the effects of the fall?
The restoration of the conscience is part of the process of sanctification that begins with regeneration and does not end until we enter glory. It is a work of God’s grace that we must seek in prayer. The most significant means is to place ourselves under the sound and searching preaching of both the law and the gospel. As Sibbes said, the steps to a good conscience are, first, to be troubled by our sins; second, to find peace by trusting in Christ; and, third, to resolve to please God in all things. With these three elements active in our lives, we are positioned to grow more in a good conscience as we live by faith for God’s pleasure.11 The most important attitude is honesty and humility before God, for conscience always confronts us with the truth that God is Lord. For more details on restoring the conscience, see A Puritan Theology (pp. 919-25).
1. William Perkins, A Discovrse of Conscience: Wherein is Set Downe the
Nature, Properties, and Differences Thereof: As Also the Way to Get and Keepe Good Conscience (London: Iohn Legate, 1596), 1.
2. William Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof (1639; facsimile repr., Norwood, N.J.: Walter Johnson, 1975), 1.1.
3. Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, 1.3.4.
4. Richard Rogers, Seaven Treatises, 4th ed. corrected and enlarged (London: Felix Kyngston for Thomas Man, 1616), 1.
5. Richard Sibbes, Exposition of Second Corinthians Chapter 1, in The Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (1862-1864; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1981), 3:223.
6. William Perkins, A Golden Chaine, or The Description of the Theologie,
Containing the Order of the Causes of Saluation and Damnation, According to Gods Word, 2nd ed. (London: Iohn Legate, 1597), 27-29.
7. Westminster Confession of Faith (20.2), in Westminster Confession
(Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1994), 86.
8. Second London Confession (1.1), in A Confession of Faith, Put Forth by the Elders and Brethren of Many Congregations of Christians (Baptized upon Profession of Their Faith) in London and the Country (London: Benjamin Harris, 1677), 1.
9. Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, 2.4, 6.
10. Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, 2.19.
11. Richard Sibbes, The Demand of a Good Conscience, in Works, 7:484-85.
Dr. Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thanks to Rev. Paul Smalley for his research assistance on this article.