> as lemmas

1564 T. Harding Answere to Iuelles Chalenge i. f. 26 Now for the seruant, it is a streight case that so holy and so great a Patriake and bishop of so populouse a citie..shuld haue none of his spiritual flocke with him at so weightie a matter of conscience, but one onely, and him his owne houshold seruant.

1602 W. Watson Decacordon Ten Quodlibeticall Questions 171 The seculars..made it a matter of conscience, thereby to retell, infringe, and abrogate all such premunireall treachery.

1672 A. Marvell Rehearsal Transpros'd i. 104 He had intangled the matter of Conscience with the Magistrates Power.

1702 Eng. Theophrastus 298 Tho' they are not matter of conscience, simply and apart, they are so reductively, with a regard to other considerations.

1729 W. Law Serious Call ix. 128 To make their use of liquors a matter of conscience, and allow of no refreshments, but such as are consistent with the strictest rules of Christian sobriety?

1799 tr. J.-F. de Bourgoing Hist. & Philos. Mem. Pius VI II. xvii. 23 He would communicate all such of the nuncio's papers as solely related to matters of conscience.

1829 L. J. A. de Potter Mem. Scipio de Ricci I. i. 6 Regalists..make of religion what it really is, a matter of conscience, and leave the care of government to those who are charged with it.

1861 R. F. Burton City of Saints (1862) x. 380 It would become a matter of conscience with them, and a part of their religion, and they would be bound to exercise their faith in this doctrine, and practice it, or be condemned.

1930 G. S. Counts Amer. Road to Culture iii. 36 They [sc. Americans] maintain that there are certain matters of conscience in which the state must not interfere.

1970 E. B. Greenberger Arthur Hugh Clough iii. 112 The idea that he might eventually have to give up his tutorship as a matter of conscience had been present in Clough's mind..since the time he undertook it.

2009 A. J. Shaw Crisis of Conscience iii. 93 Leaving the matter of conscience to the individual, rather than making non-resistance a point of doctrine, forced an objector to rely upon his own convictions.