can bind the conscience under pain of sin by its laws, if it so choose, for God bids us obey lawful authority. It is clear, too, that if the civil authority transgresses the limits assigned to it, and makes laws which conflict with the law of God, or with the law of the Church in her own sphere, such civil ordinances have no binding force. Laws, then, which affect to dissolve the bond of marriage, which refuse to acknowledge rights of religious granted by the Church, and others of a similar nature, are no true laws at all, and need not be regarded, except in so far as is necessary to avoid greater evil.
2. With regard, however, to such laws as it is within the competence of the State to make, conscience obliges us to pay loyal obedience to those which urge and apply the law of nature. Near relatives are bound to support the indigent poor because it is their natural duty, and also because the State commands it; and, similarly, ' crime must be avoided because it is wrong, and because the State forbids it. Where the law of nature is indeterminate and vague, but where the positive law has stepped in to define rights for the common good, conscience must also submit to the civil law. Unless we admit this, we shall have to say that in such matters there is no certain and definite rule for conscience to follow; rights and obligations will be left in uncertainty, to the serious disturbance of men's consciences and the public inconvenience. Laws, therefore, which govern prescription, the rights of inventors and authors, the distribution of the property of intestates, the property rights of married women, the capacity of minors, and contracts, will have binding force in both the external and internal forum. [1]
3. Certain laws merely refuse an action to vindicate a claim or bar the remedy. Such laws do not annul or invalidate any natural right which may exist in the case; the law cannot produce an effect which was never intended by the legislator, and which is repudiated by those who administer the law. A debt, then, which is barred by statute still remains a debt, and must be paid; an unstamped document may suffice to prove an obligation in conscience, though it would not be admitted in a court of justice until the defect was made good; contracts seriously entered into and completed will bind the conscience, even though the law will not enforce them because they are not in writing, or because there is not the consideration which is required by law.
- ↑ D'Annibale, i, n. 206. Codex juris canonici, passim. See Slater, Points of Church Law, 35.
