Peace of conscience

“ Your conscience is at least your own, and to follow it is to be a man; to follow the conscience of another is to be a slave. You will have many falls, will suffer many wounds, will endure many buffetings for a time, but press on in faith, believing that sure and certain victory lies ahead. Search for a rock, a principle, and having found it cling to it ”

“ Thus, throughout the whole of life, some means or other are devised for stifling the voice of conscience. “We cry peace while there is no peace;” and both to ourselves and others that complacency is furnished, which ought only to proceed from a consciousness of being reconciled to God, and a humble hope of our possessing his favour. ”

“ But neither can peace ever be found while self is indulged and the world retained. True peace is found only in Christ—peace of conscience in His finished work—peace of heart in His blessed Person. All this is clear enough. But how comes it to pass that hundreds of people who know, or profess to know, these things have no settled peace, and never seem to take a single step in advance? ”

“ It remains—and it is the only supposition left to us—that peace of conscience must have been the result of another revelation, simultaneous with the covenant of the Law, but differing from it in purpose and instruments. ”

“ Would to God, as I know that what I say is true, that I might satisfy my conscience by not saying what I am going to pass over in silence, and that I might be in peace; for I desire this more than to see myself in the midst of disputes and hard feeling. ”

“ How different the peace of God from that of the world! It calms the passions, preserves the purity of the conscience, is inseparable from righteousness, unites us to God and strengthens us against temptations. The peace of the soul consists in an absolute resignation to the will of God. ”

“ O ye esteemed ones who are pioneers among the well-wishers of the world of humanity!... At present Universal Peace is a matter of great importance, but unity of conscience is essential, so that the foundation of this matter may become secure, its establishment firm and its edifice strong.... Today nothing but the power of the Word of God which encompasses the realities of things can bring the thoughts, the minds, the hearts and the spirits under the shade of one Tree. ”

“ The journalist holds up a moral umbrella, protecting society from the fiery hail of conscience. The baser sort of clergyman will take up the parable and begin advocating a servile peace, glibly misinterpreting the divine teaching of love to prove that the lamb should lie down inside the lion, and only so can it be saved soul and body, forgetful that the peace which was Christ's gift to humanity was the peace of God which passes all understanding, and that it was a spiritual quietude, and that on earth—the underworld—the gospel in realization was to bring not peace but a sword. ”

“ The peace of God which it will introduce into your conscience, and the love of God which it will shed abroad through your soul, will be the most convincing of all proofs that the act of faith in the great Atonement does no violence to the ideas and principles of the human constitution. No act that contravenes those intuitions and convictions which are part and particle of man's moral nature could possibly produce peace and joy. ”

“ But the answer of a good conscience toward God,—that is, that you feel your conscience to be rightfully at peace within you, that it stands in harmony with God, and can say, "He has promised to me that which He will fulfil, for He cannot lie." ”

“ Peace be with you, that you may listen to his Word with attention and humility. Peace be with you, that you may speak wisely and well, and that you may escape from your enemies. Peace be with you, that you may learn how to be silent with advantage; for whoever listens with humility never disputes evil-mindedly with any one; he who speaks prudently triumphs over the fool; and he who is silent in proper season, rarely acts against his conscience.
On account of all these things, may peace, grace, and mercy be with you! peace, that you may have a tranquil conscience ”

“ God forbid, I should need to exhort you to peace, which is the bond of perfection, and by which all good is tied together, and without which it is scattered. Have peace with God first, by faith in his promises, good conscience kept in all things, and oft renewed by repentance ”

“ Independently of these things, there are other considerations more solemn,—more solemn, because more true,—there is our conscience; there is our peace; there is the dignity of our whole spiritual nature; there is reverence for duty; there is the power to enjoy what is pure and beautiful; there is fitness for communion with God, with all the righteous and the excellent,—these may be lost, or clouded by sin ”

“ And others have a dark, and hardened conscience. They are so deceived, that they “cry peace, and safety, when destruction is at the door.” They are “past feeling, having the conscience seared as with a hot iron.” ”

“ Freedom of conscience, which forms the basis of every religious organization at its birth, means the freedom to act according to our convictions of duty, however they may conflict with our own will, or the judgment of others, yet so imperative that only in yielding obedience to them can we obtain the peace of mind essential to happiness. ”

“ Peace with God is the treaty: peace with conscience is the publication of it. Peace with God is the fountain, and peace with [116] conscience is the crystal stream which issues from it. There is a peace decreed in the court of divine justice in heaven; and then there follows as a necessary consequence, as soon as the news is known, a peace in the minor court of human judgment, wherein conscience sits upon the throne to judge us according to our works. ”

“ I know myself now, and I feel within me A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience. ”

“ Man’s conscience was at peace with God; and internal peace implies external peace as well. Paradise was a place of perfect peace, for the elements were tranquil, the animals were in subjection, nourishment was in abundance. ”

“ After having admitted that one, who can keep himself far from the strifes and struggles of modern thought, will find solitude, prayer, and calm activity, pursued under the guidance of conscience, most conducive to unquestioning faith and religious peace, he says: "But we are not masters of our own ways, and the circumstances of the present times impose on us special duties. ”

“ The fact that believers have found joy and peace in believing gives us the right to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and pleasant to the soul; but it does not give us the right to say that it is true. And the question which [31] our conscience is always asking about that which we are tempted to believe is not, ‘Is it comfortable and pleasant?’ but, ‘Is it true?’ That the Prophet preached certain doctrines, and predicted that spiritual comfort would be found in them, proves only his sympathy with human nature and his knowledge of it; ”

“ He will easily be content and at peace, whose conscience is pure. ”

“ He said himself, one day: "What is there that can possibly disturb our peace? If all the world were in confusion, I should not be troubled; for what is all the world worth in comparison with peace of heart?" ”

“ Thy human heart to pitying gentleness, Looking on wrong, and hate, and ceaseless stress? O thou who wouldst teach men of Peace! Hast thou crossed the wide ocean of strife? Hast thou found on the Shores of the Silence, Release from all the wild unrest of life? From thy human heart hath all striving gone, Leaving but Truth, and Love, and Peace alone? ”

“ Let men, therefore, cease from vain and passionate arguments about Truth, and let them think and say and do those things which make for harmony, peace, love, and good-will. Let them practice heart-virtue, and search humbly and diligently for the Truth which frees the soul from all error and sin, from all that blights the human heart, and that darkens, as with unending night, the pathway of the wandering souls of earth. ”

“ Until this principle is realized, the soul is not established in peace, and he who so realizes is truly wise; not wise with the wisdom of the learned, but with the simplicity of a blameless heart and of a divine manhood. ”

“ Lift your soul up to its height, now and then, and breathe a thought of the heart that may grow into a prayer as you recall the great Circle of which you are a member. Think in silence of their multiplied and varied circumstances, perils, temptations and necessities. Think of the disheartened, the bereaved, the suffering, the doubting; those who have great power, but do not know how to use it; those who are sick of sin and worldliness, and do not know how to get into the path of holiness and peace. ”

“ Serve his free soul, which rests serenely lord,
Lo! such a man comes to tranquillity;
And out of that tranquillity shall rise
The end and healing of his earthly pains,
Since the will governed sets the soul at peace.
The soul of the ungoverned is not his,
Nor hath he knowledge of himself; which lacked,
How grows serenity? ”

“ What balance of mind, what reticence and self-control, what peace resulting from deep and settled faith, is there in this history, and what a cooling power it must have to the hot and fevered human heart that burns in view of the much that is to be done to bring the world right! ”

“ All your sins and sorrows, your fears and anxieties are your own, and you can cling to them or you can give them up. Of your own accord you cling to your unrest; of your own accord you can come to abiding peace. ”

“ But, in a serious people, where every one has to choose and strive for his own order and discipline of religion, the contention about these non-essentials occupies his mind. His first crude notions about the one thing needful do not get purged, and they invade the whole spiritual man in him, and then, making a solitude, they call it heavenly peace. ”

“ Men cry peace! peace! where there is no peace, but on the contrary, discord, disquietude and strife. Apart from that Wisdom which is inseparable from self-renunciation, there can be no real and abiding peace. The peace which results from social comfort, passing gratification, or worldly victory is transitory in its nature, and is burnt up in the heat of fiery trial. Only the Peace of Heaven endures through all trial, and only the selfless heart can know the Peace of Heaven. Holiness alone is undying peace. ”

“ We do not hear their voices—certainly not with our outward ears; yet they converse with us during all our waking hours. Through the intricate and mysterious galleries of the soul they whisper to us a blessed gospel of peace and good will—thoughts of kindness, usefulness, justice, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, and willing self-sacrifice for the good of others ”

“ And so I really, if vaguely and dimly, believe in my fellows before I learn explicitly to believe in myself. In their will is my earliest peace, and in this peace my own strength grows, until I later learn to strive myself. ”

“ The realization of divine knowledge, selfless Love, utterly destroys the spirit of condemnation, disperses all evil, and lifts the consciousness to that height of pure vision where Love, Goodness, Justice are seen to be universal, supreme, all-conquering, indestructible.
Train your mind in strong, impartial, and gentle thought; train your heart in purity and compassion; train your tongue to silence and to true and stainless speech; so shall you enter the way of holiness and peace, and shall ultimately realize the immortal Love. So living, without seeking to convert, you will convince ”

“ For such alone can cheer us on our way along the rugged path that leads to the blissful goal of internal and spiritual peace, which will essentially contribute to give a solid basis to the public and social tranquillity, and to insure its permanence. ”

“ All the discords of our nature and circumstances can be harmonized by that grace which is ready to flow into our hearts. Peace with God, with ourselves, with our fellows, repose in the midst of change, calm in conflict, may be ours. ”

“ Side by side with this slow process lies always the present heaven into which at times the soul enters and finds perfect peace,—a peace which embraces past, present, and future, time and eternity. We study and practice obedience, diligence, patience; and at unforeseen moments, under shocks or in highest tranquillity, comes the divine revelation. ”

“ Bring every thought, every impulse, every desire into perfect obedience to the divine power resident within you. There is no other way to peace but this, and if you refuse to walk it, your much praying and your strict adherence to ritual will be fruitless and unavailing, and neither gods nor angels can help you. ”

“ One who is in the family pattern (as most people are) finds inner peace in the same way that I found it. Obey God's laws, which are the same for all of us - not only the physical laws, but also the spiritual laws which govern human conduct. ”

“ and, in all fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real message of creation, or of revelation, you may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required,—and content that He should indeed require no more of you,—than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk humbly with Him. ”

“ Compare their lives and teachings, and you will find the same simplicity, the same self-sacrifice, the same humility, love, and peace both lived and preached by them. They taught the same eternal Principles, the realization of which destroys all evil. Those who have been hailed and worshiped as the saviors of mankind are manifestations of the Great impersonal Law, and being such, were free from passion and prejudice, and having no opinions, and no special letter of doctrine to preach and defend, they never sought to convert and to proselytize. ”