Conscience is a feeling of the human spirit, subtle, bright, distinguishing good from evil.
This feeling distinguishes good from evil more clearly than the mind.
It is more difficult to deceive the conscience than the mind.
And the conscience struggles for a long time with a deceived mind, supported by a sin-loving will.
Conscience is a natural law.
Conscience guided man before the written Law. Fallen humanity gradually acquired an incorrect way of thinking about God, about good and evil: the false mind communicated its wrongness to conscience. The Written Law has become a necessity for guidance to true knowledge of God and to God-pleasing activities.
The teaching of Christ, sealed by holy baptism, heals the conscience from the wickedness with which sin has infected it ( Heb. 10:22 ). What has been returned to us, the correct action of conscience, is supported and elevated by following the teachings of Christ.
A healthy state and correct action of conscience is possible only in the depths of the Orthodox Church, because every accepted wrong thought has an impact on the conscience: it deviates it from correct action.
They darken, dull, muffle, lull the conscience - arbitrary sins.
Every sin that is not cleansed by repentance leaves a harmful impression on the conscience.
Constant and arbitrary sinful life, as it were, kills it.
It is impossible to kill your conscience. She will accompany a person until the Last Judgment of Christ: there she will expose her disobedience.
According to the explanation of the Holy Fathers, the “rival” of man mentioned in the Gospel is conscience ( Matthew 5:25 ) 407 .
That's right: she's a contender! because it resists every illegal initiative of ours.
Maintain peace with this rival on your way to heaven, during your earthly life, so that he does not become your accuser while your eternal fate is being decided.
The Scripture says: “A faithful witness will deliver a soul from the wicked” ( Prov. 14:25 ). The faithful witness is an immaculate conscience: it will save the soul that listens to its advice from sins before death and from eternal torment after death.
Just as the blade of a knife is sharpened by a stone, so the conscience is sharpened by Christ: it is enlightened by study and refined by the fulfillment of the Gospel commandments.
A conscience enlightened and sophisticated by the Gospel shows a person in detail and clearly his sins – even the smallest ones.
Do not do violence to your opponent - conscience! Otherwise, you will lose your spiritual freedom: sin will captivate you and bind you. The Prophet complains on behalf of God about those who trample on conscience and slander themselves: “Ephraim has overcome his adversary, trampling down judgment, because he began to walk after vain people” ( Hos. 5:11 ).
The edge of conscience is very tender; it must be preserved and preserved. It is kept when a person fulfills all the requirements of conscience, and the violation of any requirement, due to weakness or passion, is washed with tears of repentance.
Do not think about any sin that it is unimportant: every sin is a violation of the Law of God, opposition to the will of God, a violation of conscience. From trifles, from seemingly insignificant sins, we gradually move on to great falls.
What does it mean? – is this sin great ? – what kind of sin is this? – this is not a sin! - this is how someone who is negligent thinks about his salvation when he decides to taste the sinful food prohibited by the Law of God. Based on such an unfounded judgment, he constantly violates his conscience.
Its edge becomes dull, its light dims; darkness and coldness of negligence and insensibility spread in the soul.
Insensibility finally becomes an ordinary state of mind. She is often satisfied with him; often recognizes it as a state pleasing to God, peace of conscience, and this is the loss of the sense of one’s sinfulness, the loss of the feeling of grace-filled, spiritual life, the lull and blindness of conscience 408 .
In such a state, with terrible darkness and insensibility, various sins freely enter the soul and make a lair for themselves in it. Sins, ossified in the soul, turn into habits that are as strong as nature, and sometimes stronger than nature. Sinful habits are called passions. A person does not notice this, but he is inconspicuously shackled by sin everywhere, in captivity, in slavery.
Whoever, neglecting the constant reminders of his conscience, allowed himself to fall into the slavery of sin: only with the greatest difficulty, with the assistance of God’s special help, will he be able to break the chains of this slavery, defeat the passions that have turned, as it were, into natural properties.
Dearest brother! guard your conscience with all possible attention and care.
Keep your conscience towards God: fulfill all the commandments of God, both visible to everyone and invisible to no one, visible and known only to God and your conscience.
Keep your conscience towards your neighbor: do not be content with the mere plausibility of your behavior towards your neighbors! seek from yourself, so that your very conscience is satisfied with this behavior. It will then be satisfied when not only your deeds, but also your heart are placed in the relationship towards your neighbor commanded by the Gospel.
Keep a conscience towards things, avoiding excess, luxury, negligence, remembering that all the things you use are God’s creations, God’s gifts to man.
Keep your conscience towards yourself. Do not forget that you are the image and likeness of God, that you must present this image, in purity and holiness, to God Himself.
Woe, woe! if the Lord does not recognize His image, He will not find in it any resemblance to Himself. He will pronounce a terrible sentence: “We do not know you” ( Matthew 25:12 ). The obscene image will be thrown into the unquenchable flames of Gehenna.
Infinite joy will embrace that soul upon which the Lord, having looked, recognizes in it the similarity with Himself, sees in it the beauty that He, in His infinite goodness, assimilated to it at creation, restored and multiplied during redemption, which He commanded to preserve in immaculate integrity by removing from all sin, keeping all the gospel commandments.
The incessant, impartial guardian and reminder of such removal and storage is conscience. Amen.
Source: https://azbyka-ru.translate.goog/otechnik/Ignatij_Brjanchaninov/tom1_asketicheskie_opyty/40?fbclid=IwAR3o7WLsin2cmPpa9CQeAutpn1YRKUpiTpK0yCYO3xy3oTO6ELmrM5RmaiU&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp