(c) After an action, Conscience recompenses us by the satisfaction we feel, the approval it accords to us for having either accomplished what it advised, or for having abandoned that conduct which it disapproved. So S. Paul speaks of people being “a law unto themselves,” shewing “the work of the law written in their hearts, their Conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing, one another.” (Rom. ii. 14, 15.) This is the “testimony of the Conscience,” “the answer of the good Conscience” to which both S. Paul and S. Peter appeal.
3. We have seen that Conscience instructs, judges, and rewards or punishes; but we must consider further, that Conscience does not control the will of man, it merely dictates to the will what is right, and warns it as to what is wrong. It uses no constraint. Man’s will is free; Conscience clears the eyes of the mind, and shews it what conduces to welfare, and what to destruction, but it neither impels man irresistibly into the former course, nor holds him back forcibly from taking the other. It shows man what is medicine and what is poison, but it does not compel him to take one and reject the other, for the will of man is absolutely free.
First Friday in Lent.
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE.
(Continued.)
1. Conscience, in the order of religious life, is that which the Court of Justice is in the order of public life, a court that has been instituted by the legislature to keep discipline and well-being in the State, to protect the individual in his person, his property, and his repute.
Thus Conscience takes the general laws of God and explains them in their bearings on our own conduct, and applies them to our several cases. Also, Conscience sees to the execution of the law—that it shall be obeyed as well as acknowledged. Also, Conscience punishes every infraction of the law.
In other words, Conscience is the interpreter of the law of God, it is the judge sitting in judgment on us for our observance or non-observance of the law, and it is the executioner carrying out the sentence against us. As interpreter, Conscience enlightens us as to the requirements of God, explains to us what is obscure, and smooths the way so that our wills, enlightened and ready to act without impediment, may take a direction one way or other.