The power of conscience

Here's a quote fromExpository Thoughts on the Gospels by J.C. Ryle. This is from John 8:1-11 where the Scribes and Pharisees bring to Jesus the woman caught in adultery. Here Ryle shows the usefulness of conscience in preaching, teaching and raising children.

“We learn, for one thing, the power of conscience. We read of the woman's accusers, that when they heard our Lord's appeal, "being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last." Wicked and hardened as they were, they Felt something within which made them cowards. Fallen as human nature is, God has taken care to leave within every man a witness that will be heard.

Conscience is a most important part of our inward man, and plays a most prominent part in our spiritual history. It cannot save us. It never yet led any one to Christ. It is blind, and liable to be misled. It is lame and powerless, and cannot guide us to heaven. Yet conscience is not to be despised; It to the minister's best friend, when he stands up to rebuke sin from the pulpit. It is the mother's best friend, when she tries to restrain her children from evil and quicken them to good. It is the teacher's best friend, when he presses home on boys and girls their moral duties. Happy is he who never stifles his conscience, but strives to keep it tender! Still happier is he who prays to have it enlightened by the Holy Ghost, and sprinkled with Christ's blood.”