Conscience and Sin: Daily Meditations for Lent, Including Week-days and Sundays. S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

obtain a Direct or sound Conscience. These are many, but a few of those that are principal and fundamental must suffice.

      (a) The study of God’s Word, especially of the words of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His Apostles. Nothing is more calculated to give a healthy and straightforward Conscience than this.

      (b) Experience. We must bring our intelligence to bear on our acts; Conscience was never meant to be blind instinct, but a bright, fresh, enlightened faculty, assisted at every step by the intelligence, and the intelligence will work on the facts of experience, and shew us where we have been doing what is right, and where we have been going wrong.

      (c) Hold to first principles. Self-love is very much disposed to lead us into a maze of lines of conduct, and to encourage us to adopt that most easy, most flattering, most profitable to take. It brings up side duties, and exaggerates them to obscure broad principles. As a man when travelling, on coming to cross lanes, ascends a height to get a clear idea as to the main line, the direction in which he is going, so must we ever go up to the broad first principles to obtain a general survey, and follow the direction thus indicated.

      Second Wednesday in Lent.

       Table of Contents

      THE FALSE CONSCIENCE.

      1. That Conscience may be perverted so that it allows those things that are wrong, and forbids those things that are right, is, alas, very true. S. Paul speaks of this. “Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and Conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” (Titus i. 15, 16.) And again, he speaks of those whose Consciences are seared with a hot iron (1 Tim. iv. 2); and again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, he speaks of evil Consciences. Now an evil Conscience can only be such an one as—originally good and sound—has been turned about so as to be bad and diseased, allowing such things as it should condemn, and condemning such things as it should allow.

      2. Now a False Conscience may be either invincibly wrong, or vincibly wrong, that is to say, incurably bad, or curable.

      It does not by any means follow that he who follows his Conscience, invincibly false, commits sin. Not only does he not commit sin, but he is probably doing what is the best for his spiritual condition under the circumstances.

      For instance, take a man who has been born and brought up in Dissent, into whose mind has been inground the maxim that he must fight against the Church. So long as he does resist the Church by fair means he is not sinning, the Devil cannot count on him as fighting in his army against the Kingdom of God, as an enrolled soldier of evil. That he is not. He is doing right, according to his lights. But, supposing he has recourse to illegitimate means of defaming and undermining the Church, such as spreading scandalous stories against its members or ministers, knowing them to be false, then his resistance to Christ’s kingdom becomes sinful. Prejudice, the result of a false education, has become so enrooted that his error is invincible, except by some supernatural illumination. It was so with Saul. He fought against the Church, but he did it from a right motive. As soon as God miraculously converted him to a knowledge of the truth, then he became an Apostle under that Gospel which he had formerly resisted.

      3. Now let us consider the case of a Conscience in a condition of vincible error. As a vincible condition of error is one from which nearly any man may free himself if he takes the pains, he sins if he follows a false Conscience, without making any effort to set it right. The error being voluntary does not excuse the act. Through indolence, or indifference, or prejudice, he does not attempt to give himself a direct and sound Conscience, and he sins in following his Conscience when he commits something wrong, or omits something right, not because he is following his Conscience, but because he has made no endeavour to educate his Conscience to discriminate rightly.

      As this is the case, we see how important it is for us to avoid narrowness, and to cultivate broad and liberal views. Narrowness is ignorance, and it petrifies the Conscience into a perverted direction. Everyone is morally bound to endeavour to the utmost of his power and opportunities to lay aside error, and to rectify his Conscience. This he can do by examining every question presented to him in all its aspects, for till he has so done, he cannot be sure that his view is the right one.

      Again, he must pray for guidance. The Holy Spirit is given to the Church to guide all the members of Christ into truth. Lastly, he must submit his opinion to that of the holy, undivided Church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth.

      4. It sometimes happens that in spite of efforts made to attain to a right Conscience, it remains in the same distorted and false condition as before. Either the mental faculties are insufficient to rectify it, the judgment is cramped, and habit or prejudice has obtained too strong a hold to be overcome. In such a case the Conscience is invincibly wrong, but nevertheless, its promptings must be obeyed. God, Who sees all things, and is full of mercy, will make allowances, only not for disobeying the mandate of Conscience.

      Second Thursday in Lent.

       Table of Contents

      THE SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE.

      1. The Scrupulous Conscience is a niggling Conscience that vexes itself about inconsiderable matters, and magnifies trifles into things of importance.

      The Scrupulous Conscience is that which has no sense of proportion. In a large number of cases it is vastly particular over matters of indifference, and supremely indifferent about matters of importance. It is a Conscience that never goes back to first principles.

      This was the sort of Conscience possessed by the Scribes and Pharisees, who tithed mint, and anise, and cummin, and passed over the weightier matters of the law. (Matt. xxiii. 23.) By Scrupulous Conscience is not meant a tender Conscience, but an itchy one. It is one that is ever suffering from vain apprehension, and regards things harmless and licit as though they were forbidden.

      A sound and direct Conscience is necessarily a tender one. It sees what is right and what is wrong, all in due proportion; and shrinks from what is evil as from a serpent, and also is never at rest if it does not fulfil those obligations which it sees are enjoined. A Scrupulous Conscience is one that sees everything topsy-turvy, it magnifies trifles, and passes by without seeing them the more plain and obvious duties. It is influenced, not by its knowledge, but by its fears, and this allows it to strain at gnats and swallow camels.

      The Scrupulous Conscience often causes quite as much scandal as the erroneous Conscience, for people see it making much of small matters, and are led to despise or disregard Conscience as an unreliable guide.

      2. That a Scrupulous Conscience may be brought to a right perception of the relative proportions of duties, it must, or at all events, it is most advisable that it should be put under directions by a wise Confessor, who will labour to give it robustness, will strive to drag it out of its confusion, and set it well aloft, where it may be able to survey the whole map of the county of duty, and orientate itself accordingly.

      A right Conscience is also a tender one, but the converse is by no means true, that a tender Conscience is always a right one.

      3. A Scrupulous Conscience is often a companion to extraordinary self-conceit. To bring it into healthy condition, and remove its distortion of view, humility must be very resolutely practised. Even where there is not self-conceit, there is generally self-centredness, the mind is for ever turned in on self, and occupies itself with probing all its tender places, and fretting it into sores. The best, if not the only