A few years ago I came across a quotation from an English Elizabethan bishop. I’ve since misplaced it and can’t remember the bishop’s name, so if anyone can help me find it again, I’d appreciate it.
It sounds like it was a response to a hyper-critical co-religionist, all on fire to judge other Christians. The bishop replied that he (the bishop) was so busy trying to obey the dictates of his own conscience that he didn’t really have time to worry too much about other people’s consciences. Put that way it sounds harsh, but I took it to mean that he was telling the other person to back off a bit, and to trust individuals to act conscientiously.
It sounds like something Matthew Parker might have said, but darn if I can find any quote similar to that, uttered by him. The phrase “dictates of my own conscience” does appear in Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, but it refers to a saying by John Huss.
Probably not what you are looking for, Northern Piper, but your question reminded me of Oliver Cromwell’s letter in 1650 to the Kirk of Scotland, which had been suppressing Cromwell’s papers while he had been publishing their correspondence: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”