Part 4

(_c_) The world endeavours to draw away our allegiance from God to it. The world has formed its own moral code, an easy one, indulgent to our corrupt nature, it glosses over faults, and permits laxity. It does not enforce self-denial, but, on the other hand, encourages indulgence and extravagance. A very great number of people take public opinion as their rule of life, and so long as they conform their lives to what society expects and demands, regard themselves as in the way of salvation. Now the social code is well enough as far as it goes, but it is not intended to be the supreme code. The law of God is that which we must obey first, and that always points out to us a higher life, a purer life, and an unselfish one, whereas the world insists on a life which is selfish, and without any noble aims.

Third Sunday in Lent.

_THE GENESIS OF SIN._

1. We will now consider the way in which Sin is engendered, and takes upon it form and guilt. As already said, the knowledge of Sin is not in itself sinful. Nor is the sensation of pleasure that arises on the occurrence of a sinful suggestion necessarily so. Sin does not spring into deadly reality till the will has given its consent.

2. The _intelligence_ proposes the evil thought to the will; it counsels the will to agree to some sensible good, which it sees, to the disobedience of a divine law, the existence of which it recognizes.

That is to say, we see that a course of action lies open to us, which, as we admit is forbidden by God's law, yet this course of action will, we feel assured, bring to us some great advantage. For instance, a manufacturer sees how that, by the adulteration of his goods in a certain manner, not liable to detection, he may be able to save himself several thousand pounds, which sum he will net as a profit. Having seen his opportunity, he either accepts it or he rejects it; he turns the suggestion of his mind into a sin, or an occasion of victory over temptation.

3. The _imagination_ represents in lively colours to the will the charms, the delights of some action which the Conscience recognizes as forbidden. Not only so, but the imagination exaggerates these charms, these delights, so as to form a most alluring picture which the will has a difficulty in rejecting.

4. _Ignorance_ conceals from the will the inherent evil of a course of action proposed. A Conscience that is not keenly alert to duty, and has not been disciplined in right, sees a course of conduct before it, and sees that it will conduce to great advantage, but is too blunt or gross to be able to distinguish any right or wrong in it. It acts in obedience to the impulse to gain a promising temporal end, without perception of the true nature of the act. This often happens. We do not have our eyes opened to what we have done till after the thing is done, and then, and then only, discover how wrongly we have acted.

5. _Bad habit_ encourages the will to consent to evil by recalling the pleasure or advantages obtained by past yielding to temptation, and invites it to a continuance. Moreover bad habit blunts Conscience, and removes all sharpness of perception as to the right or wrong of an act. Bad habits are easily acquired, and when once they get hold of a man are eradicated with difficulty. Everyone therefore should be watchful against the beginnings of a habit that may be bad, that is not assuredly good, for what may be bad will in the long-run become actually bad. Bad habit grows through carelessness, and a constant watch against its rooting itself and ramifying must be maintained.

6. We have seen now how that the will is urged to consent to evil, either through the intelligence advising it, or the imagination alluring to it, or through ignorance, blinding to its nature, or through bad habit, which has weakened the power of resistance in the will. Now Sin only begins when the will has given consent. S. James says, "Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (S. James i. 14, 15.) First the _suggestion_ of Sin comes from the Intelligence, or from the imagination. Then the _will consents_ to the suggestion. Sin is then in conception. Then it is carried forth into _execution_. Sin is accomplished. It has become a fatal fact. Lastly comes the judgment on sin, the result that follows sin as a shadow follows a body--Death. "The wages of sin are death." "By sin came death."

We must therefore keep a watchful guard over the thoughts and imaginations, and let the will be under the absolute control of the Conscience, so that it may not give consent to the evil suggestion. If it has given consent, sin has begun to live; it may, however, again be checked before it proceeds to act.

Third Monday in Lent.

_ON ORIGINAL SIN._

1. The subject for meditation to-day shall be the nature and effects of Original Sin, which is that Sin committed by our first parents, and of which we inherit, _not the guilt of the act of Sin_, but the _consequences of the act_.

God is just, and God would not condemn to everlasting death men because their first parents had broken His commandment. But the consequences of Adam's sin passed on all his descendants. By his disobedience he had disturbed the Divine Order, lost his original innocence, introduced a dislocation into his nature. We will now consider what the results of that transgression were.

(_a_) It disturbed the direct relation of the soul to God. It obscured its vision of God, and all certainty as to God's Nature and Will. This we see from the history of mankind. We find that the vision of God by the soul was so clouded that men fell into ignorance of God, and into false conceptions relative to the Nature of God and the Will of God. All the wanderings of the human mind in idolatries and mythologies are the result of the loss of clear perception of God's Nature. Not only so, but the mistakes men made relative to the law of God, so that they did many things that were evil, believing them to be good, was the result of the obscuration of the spiritual vision so that it could not see what was the Will of God.

Again, all the errors and uncertainties into which men fell relative to the future state was due to the clouding of the spiritual eye, so that it could no longer see what was the Purpose of God relative to man.

(_b_) The intelligence was darkened. Adam and Eve saw what was before them, Death the consequence of Transgression, but allowed themselves to be confused by the pleadings of the serpent, disputing the consequences. Ever since, a confusion of the intelligence as to consequences resulting from acts has existed in men; a lack of sharp and decisive vision as to the relation of effect to cause, as to the relation of result to act.

The confusion and obfuscation of the intelligence is removed to a large extent by education, but only by such education as broadens the mind. A narrow, illiberal education may do much harm by throwing partial lights which tend the rather to confuse.

(_c_) The weakening of the human will. The will is not only inherently weakened by having given way to evil, but it is continuously weakened by the uncertainty it is in how to decide, by the darkening of the understanding, so that duties are not always clear, nor consequences certain. The will to do what is right is by no means strong, since Adam and Eve turned their will away from God; the human will has acquired a bent that inclines it not always to follow the right.

(_d_) And the undue elevation of sensuality tends to deceive the will and induce it to follow the appetites of the body instead of the promptings of the understanding. Adam and Eve went against Reason when they partook of the fruit of the tree to satisfy a carnal curiosity and gratify an animal appetite. Ever since then carnal curiosity and animal appetite have obtained a dominating power in man, composed of body, soul, and mind, quite out of proportion to what was purposed. This undue elevation of Sensuality leads man to seek the gratification of those appetites he shares with the beasts, at the expense of his intellectual and spiritual powers.

(_e_) One other result of the Fall affects man's body. God made man to be healthy, strong and happy. By his turning away from God, the source of life, strength and blessedness, he became liable to decay, sickness, pain, sorrow, and death.

2. We see, then, that the fall of man has led to the disturbance of man's nature, and it has left man in such a condition that of himself he is unable to attain to the knowledge of God and His Will, and unable to fulfil God's Will even when He knows it. Consequently he fell more or less completely under the dominion of the Evil One, who prompted to error, and to that of Sensuality, which promised happiness to man in the pursuit of his inferior appetites.

Third Tuesday in Lent.

_THE EVIDENCE FOR ORIGINAL SIN._

1. The existence of Original Sin in man is proved to us in the first place by our very constitution. We have only to look into our own selves to discern its presence. S. Paul, speaking of himself in his condition under the law, says, "When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin ... did work in our members." (Rom. vii. 5.) "That which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.... To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.... I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin that is in my members." Who does not know this truth by experience? Who has not felt the conflict; realized that there are different and opposing elements in his nature? There is a mixture of dignity and meanness, of nobility and baseness, of the knowledge of what is right and a love of what is evil, in all men. They have but to look steadily into themselves to see that it is so.

2. Scripture affirms the existence of Original Sin. "Man born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble ... who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." (Job xiv. 1, 4.) "Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Ps. li. 5.) "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Rom. v. 12.)

3. The Church has always taught the existence of Original Sin, and the Sacrament of Baptism, ever ministered, is a witness to this, for Baptism is the means whereby men pass out of a condition of natural incapacity to fulfil God's law into a state of grace in which they are able to do those things God has commanded. The Sacrament of Baptism was instituted as a corrective to Original Sin, to remedy the defects produced in man by his filiation from Adam.

By nature--that nature degraded and corrupted through the fall--we can do no good thing; but by Baptism we pass into the Kingdom of Grace, and therein are enabled to stand, are strengthened, enlightened, and cleansed.

4. Reason, moreover, assures us of the existence of Original Sin. In the first place, we know that God is good, and we cannot understand that a good God should have created man, the noblest of the works of creation, to suffering and misery. We feel assured, if we recognize God as good and loving to all His works, that He did not make man to be what he is, full of infirmities, ignorances, narrownesses, liable to suffering intensely acute, to continuous trouble, to decay, to diseases most painful, distressful in every way, loathsome, and finally to complete dissolution. Again, we have but to look at history, to read the daily records of crime in the papers, to see that there is a frightful amount of evil among men, and always has existed, and this cannot proceed from a good God.

We must either deny the goodness of God, and say that man has been created by a capricious Deity--a mixture of benevolence and malevolence, of goodness and of evil--_or else_, we must allow that God created men good, but that His purpose has been hindered, and partially made ineffectual through the introduction into man's nature of something that was alien to it at first. The introduction of this alien element can only be attributable to man himself, who, having a _free-will_, could turn away from the course ordained for Him by His Creator, could deflect from the direct line, could bend from the way of happiness to that of misery.

5. A state of Original Sin is not a condition of guilt for act done, but a condition of impotency or partial impotency towards good; and Baptism affords supernatural assistance towards the undoing of those bad effects produced by the Fall, and transmitted through all generations. It places man in such a condition that little by little he can recover himself, and be restored to the original condition of innocence, vigour, and vitality of the first man as he left the hands of God.

Fourth Wednesday in Lent.

_ACTUAL SIN._

1. Having seen what Original Sin is, we come now to Actual Sin. Original Sin, we have seen, was a partial paralysis of man's better nature, a confusion of his faculties, and a rendering him incapable of, by himself, attaining a recovery. It is a passive state of inability towards good, and of subjection to evil. Actual Sin is quite other--it consists in sinning voluntarily.

Original Sin is a hereditary condition; Actual Sin is personal. Original Sin is involuntary; Actual Sin is voluntary. Original Sin is a state; Actual Sin is an act which throws us into a state of sin.

A guilty act carries with it guilt to the soul of him who commits the act, but it may also entail a consequent state on others. For instance, a father by his vices may so corrupt his blood that his children have sickly constitutions. They inherit the _consequences_, but not the _guilt_. This is analogous to Original Sin, the state we are in through the fault of Adam. Or, again, a father may squander an ancestral estate. His children are born in penury, and are incapable of ever recovering what their father has lost. His is the guilt, theirs the condition into which his act has thrown them.

2. Actual Sin is of various degrees of guilt; according to the state of knowledge of him who commits it, or according to the heinousness of the sin committed, or according to the amount of deliberation and wilfulness with which it is committed. Where there is complete ignorance of the nature of the act, so long as that ignorance is not voluntary, there the guilt of the act is not mortal, though the act itself may be a grave offence. So also the manner in which the will gives its consent materially aggravates or lessens the guilt of a sin. If the act be known beforehand to be forbidden, and yet the will consents to it, it violates Conscience, and the guilt is grave; but when a transgression is the result of unpremeditation, a surprise, and the will has not had time given it to act, there the guilt is slight.

And once more, there is a difference in heinousness in sins. It is wrong to strike another violently; it is worse to strike with purpose so as to permanently injure.

3. Sin is a violation of the Commandments of God, and as such is incited to either by the Devil, who is the enemy of God, or by the carnal nature which desires its own ends regardless of what conduces to the exaltation of the superior nature, or by the world, which desires to lower the general moral tone of men to a vulgar and easy level. It is therefore a dereliction from God's Law, a turning away from God's Order, a choosing of what is either against His Will, or not wholly in accordance with His Will. It is therefore always evil, and always deserves punishment, and always leads to suffering.

God has set before man, as the end of his existence, the attainment of perfect happiness, by complete though gradual recovery from the effects of the Fall. Every sin is a slipping back into the condition from which we ought to strive ever to escape, if it be not, what it is in some cases, a going down into an even worse condition, by making our original sinful condition an excuse for becoming actually sinful.

4. For the avoidance of sin we need supernatural aid, and this is Divine Grace. By Baptism we are placed in the Spiritual Realm, in which we are furnished with sufficient help to enable us to resist all temptations, overcome all bad habits, discipline all inclinations till they take the direction of good in place of evil, and obtain a clear illumination of our intellect, so that we can see, and see distinctly, what is God's Will for us. Moreover, we obtain the faculty of judging proportions, and of estimating what is near and transitory at its proper value, as also what is far off and enduring. Naturally we over-estimate what is close before us and is temporal, and hardly see at all and value what is far off and eternal, but by the gift of Divine Grace our spiritual vision is enabled to judge distances and judge values correctly.

Fourth Thursday in Lent.

_THE CONDITIONS OF SIN._

1. Every sin is an act done by man endowed with free will, in the exercise of his freedom, and with consciousness what he is about. That is to say, certain conditions are requisite in order that an act may be really sinful, and these conditions are, a knowledge of what is proposed to be done, liberty to do it or to forbear, and the will engaged to accomplish what is proposed.

2. _Knowledge._ An act is only culpable when he who commits it knows what he is about, knows the character of his act, or has at all events a strong suspicion that the act is contrary to the law of God. This is what S. Paul repeatedly urges. "The law entered, that the offence might abound." "The motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death." "I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." "Without the law sin was dead." The measure of sinfulness is largely the knowledge possessed by the doer of the deed. To such an extent is this the case, that S. Paul supposes the case of one who commits an act that is in itself harmless, but it becomes sin to him because he thinks it is forbidden.

A corollary to this is that the degree to which an act is sinful depends largely on the degree of our knowledge. For instance, to one who knows that it is his duty to God to attend public worship every Sunday it is sinful if he, without excuse, stays away; but the sin is by no means as great to him who has never been taught his duty to God, and thinks that going to Divine worship is optional, and is merely for the sake of hearing a sermon, which very probably, and perhaps reasonably, he thinks he can do without.

3. _Liberty._ An act is only culpable when the person who does the act is free to do it, or to refrain from doing it. It is only when the will is free that it can act so as to make what is done guilty or innocent.

Take the converse. A man may speak the truth, or give a large sum in charity, because he is forced to do this, not because he wishes to do it. He acts against his intention and desire. The act is good, but there is no merit in what he has done, for it is done under constraint. So it is possible that an act in itself wrong may be done under such overwhelming compulsion that all exercise of freedom and determination is impossible. If any freedom remains, if there be any chance of escape from doing what we know to be wrong, then it is, to us, more or less sinful, if we yield to force.

4. _Will._ This is the main faculty that determines the sinfulness of an act. If we will to do an act which is a violation of a commandment of God, or which may give occasion to the violation, then the consequence is mortal sin. An act done by a child before it has attained the use of its reason is not sinful, nor is an act done by anyone without the exercise of the power of determination sinful. Thus homicide is not murder. We may take what belongs to another person in ignorance that it belongs to another, or also, without the wish of defrauding another, and in either case the act is not sin.

The reason why eternal darkness and separation from God is possible to devils and man is that the will may become so turned away from God, and so diametrically opposed to Him, that the faintest stirring of a wish to return to obedience is absent. If any lost spirit could at any time repent, its salvation would be possible. Eternal death is due to the fact that men may become so alienated from the life that is in them, so full of hatred of good, that they cannot turn to God, and hereafter, when they view the consequences, may still never _will_ the return, but persevere in their rebellion and hatred of what is good.

It is consequently of the utmost importance that we should watch over our wills, and strive to bring them to perfect conformity with the Will of God, for in that alone lies our security, in that alone true blessedness.

Fourth Friday in Lent.

_CONDITIONS THAT DIMINISH GUILT._

1. We have seen that in order that sin may be deadly, it must have been committed with knowledge of what was proposed, in the exercise of liberty to act or not to act, and with deliberate determination of the will.

Now it is obvious that the same act may be very much less guilty in one man than in another according as these faculties exist in more or less activity.

We will now consider some of the more simple extenuating causes that may make a sin really to be--to the soul of him who has committed it--a fault only.

(_a_) _Excusable ignorance._ As has been pointed out, a man is only guilty of mortal sin, when he is ignorant that the act is forbidden. S. Paul says, "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law." And our Lord Himself, "That servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." (Luke xiii. 47, 48.) But the ignorance must be excusable, that is to say, he who is in ignorance must not be in _wilful_ ignorance.

(_b_) _Fear._ In certain circumstances the mind may be in such a state of alarm and disturbance that its power of judgment is paralyzed, and the will is overborne by the fear which has become dominant. It is said of those who are out of their minds that they are not accountable for their actions, and there are cases in which terror is so acute, and so overmastering, that a man or woman ceases to be morally responsible for what he or she does.

(_c_) _Compulsion._ As already shewn, liberty is essential to qualify an act as either culpable or not culpable to the person who is the agent. An act may be in itself wrong, but the guilt entailed on the soul of him who does it depends on whether he be a free agent or not. For instance, it often happened that a martyr was forced to offer incense to idols. The grains were thrust into his hand, and the hand was extended by violence over the fire of the altar. But as the soul of the martyr never yielded consent, no guilt of apostasy attached to it.