C.H. Spurgeon – Words of Warning for Daily Living

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May 3

Running for a Purpose
There is yet another class; and when I have referred to them, I will mention no more.
These are the people who take up with religion for the sake of quieting their
conscience; and it is astonishing how little of religion will sometimes do that. Some
people tell us that if in the time of storm men would pour bottles of oil upon the
waves, there would be a great calm at once. I have never tried it, and it is most
probable I never shall, for my organ of credulity is not large enough to accept so
extensive a statement. But there are some people who think that they can calm the
storm of a troubled conscience by pouring a little of the oil of a profession about
religion upon it; and it is amazing how wonderful an effect this really has. I have
known a man who was drunk many times in a week, and who got his money
dishonestly, and yet he always had an easy conscience by going to his church or
chapel regularly on the Sunday. We have heard of a man who could "devour widows'
houses" — a lawyer who could swallow up everything that came in his way, and yet
he would never go to bed without saying his prayers; and that stilled his conscience.
We have heard of other persons, especially among the Romanists, who would not
object to thieving, but who would regard eating anything but fish on a Friday as a
most fearful sin, supposing that, by making a fast on the Friday, all the iniquities of all
the days in the week would be put away. They want the outward forms of religion to
keep the conscience quiet; for Conscience is one of the worst lodgers to have in your
house when he gets quarrelsome: there is no abiding with him; he is an ill bed-fellow;
ill at lying down, and equally troublesome at rising up. A guilty conscience is one of
the curses of the world: it puts out the sun, and takes away the brightness from the
moonbeam. A guilty conscience casts a noxious exhalation through the air, removes
the beauty from the landscape, the glory from the flowing river, the majesty from the
rolling floods. There is nothing beautiful to the man who has a guilty conscience. He
needs no accusing; everything accuses him. Hence people take up with religion just
to quiet them. They take the Sacrament sometimes; they go to a place of worship;
they sing a hymn now and then; they give a guinea to a charity; they intend to leave a
portion in their will to build alms-houses; and in this way conscience is lulled asleep,
and they rock him to and fro with religious observances, till there he sleeps while they
sing over him the lullaby of hypocrisy, and he wakes not until he shall wake with that
rich man who was here clothed in purple, but in the next world did lift up his eyes in
hell, being in torments, without a drop of water to cool his burning tongue.