scruple-shop

plural scruple-shops

1. obsoleteA place where religious matters are debated, particularly with the aim of relieving participants of their scruples of conscience.

   The cure for diseased consciences is not to be found in a “scruple shop,” but in the love and care of the great Physician.

   1771, John Wesley, Works, volume 2, page 129

   3 more examples

   Elinor, on the other hand, bred up amid a clamour of perpetual contention,—for the house of her mother’s family, in which her first years had been passed, was, in the language of the profane of those times, a scruple-shop, where the godly of all denominations held their conferences of contradiction,—had her mind early awakened to differences of opinion, and opposition of principle.

   1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. […], volume IV, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 223

   Others are standing at the cross-roads of duty, and are perplexed with interesting questions of casuistry. One of the great divines of the seventeenth century was said to “keep a scruple-shop.” The Barclay had “a scruple-shop,” and the business done in it was considerable.

   1904, James Wells, The Life of James Hood Wilson, D.D., page 157

   The world is not a scruple shop, said Carlyle; and Cornewall Lewis could speak of Government as a rough business in which they who practise it cannot always adhere to the morals of the classroom.

   1945, A. C. Hill, Democratic Realism, page 132