A Conscience Cold as SteelTHE QUOTABLE SPURGEONThe goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.… I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.
1 Timothy 1:5, 18-19
It is a very terrible thing to let conscience begin to grow hard, for it soon chills into northern iron and steel. It is like the freezing of a pond. The first film of ice is scarcely perceptible; keep the water stirring and you will prevent the frost from hardening it. But once let it film over and remain quiet, the glaze thickens over the surface and it thickens still, and at last it is so firm that a wagon might be drawn over the solid ice. So with conscience, it films over gradually, until at last it becomes hard and unfeeling and is not crushed even with ponderous loads of iniquity.