I

XVI

THE MEANING OF SIN

T requires no deep or prolonged study

of the Book of Common Prayer to convince us that its offices are intended to deal with sin. Sin, it is felt, is the great disaster separating the soul from God. The danger of sin, its nature and its remedy, is pointed out again and again, and the members of the Church are exhorted to avail themselves of God's mercy whether in the way of forgiveness for the sins of the past, or as aid and strength against the assaults of sin in the future. The Sponsors of the child to be baptized are told that our Lord Jesus Christ "hath promised in His Gospel" to release the child from sin; and after the baptism when the child is declared to be "regenerate thanks are given for the gift and prayer is made that he "being dead unto sin" may live the new life of the regenerate. Later, in the Confirmation Office, the bishop referring to this fact, prays that those whom God has regenerated, and to whom He has given "forgiveness of all their

sins" may now be strengthened with "the Holy Ghost, the Comforter." The daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer provide in the General Confession and Absolutions forms for the acknowledgment of sinfulness and the assurance of God's willingness to receive the sinner who repents. This form is repeated in the Communion Office, and while it is not sacramental, that is, does not convey the grace of pardon, it is of comfort to those who do "truly and earnestly repent" as bringing to them the offer of acceptance by God whenever they do truly repent. The meaning of repentance is the message of the Exhortations which are from time to time read as a warning and stimulus to those who are lax in making their communions. One of the long exhortations points those who are unable to quiet their own consciences, that is, those who are in mortal sin, to the "minister of God's Word " as an aid to the "quieting of his conscience, and the removing of all scruple and doubtfulness." This is softened from the English Book which plainly says that the reason of his coming is that by "the Ministry of God's holy Word he may receive the benefit of Absolution." In the Office for the Visitation of Prisoners the prisoner is exhorted to repentance and told, "except you repent, and believe, we can give you no hope of

salvation." Repentance is also urged upon the sick person, in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick. There can be no doubt about the seriousness of the Church's thought about sin and its danger.

It may seem unnecessary to stress such obvious facts; but the truth is that to-day there is a growing restlessness under the Church's teaching about sin. The movement of "liberal thought " is easily followed; it has moved steadily during the last century. There was first an attack on the personality of the devil, and it was insisted that what the Gospel meant by the devil was not a person at all but an evil influence; in any case, whatever the Gospel taught, that was all that an enlightened person could believe. The next step was the denial of eternal punishment. The Gospel seemed explicit enough about this, but again, it was explained that we were quite mistaken in our understanding of it. That in any case, the most the modern man could believe in was some sort of temporary discipline after death; so, for the liberal man, hell followed its lord the devil into the realm of exploded superstitions. Today, we have moved forward another stage and the present attack is on sin. The modern mind is prepared to grant temporarily, at leastthat man is imperfect, but it does not see its way

to granting more than this; and it cannot conceive of this imperfection as entailing disastrous spiritual consequences in another sphere of existence.

This teaching, or at least most features of it, is rather widely preached to-day, and therefore it is well to be clear that the Book of Common Prayer holds quite another doctrine about sin. It still holds the doctrine of sin which has been the teaching of the Church from the Apostles' days onward. We are not here concerned to defend it; we are only concerned to state it as the teaching of the formularies of the Church to which we belong.

Traditional Christianity teaches that sin is lawlessness. It is deliberate violation of the known will of God, and, as such, carries with it spiritual consequences. The effect of baptism is to cleanse the soul and to bring it into union with God; to make the baptized person, in S. Peter's words, "a partaker of the divine nature." The union of man with God in Christ lasts as long as the man wills it to last; until, that is, he breaks the union by his own deliberate act by which he sets himself against the will of God.

The sin which attacks this union may be of various degrees of intensity, and is described by theologians with reference to this intensity as mortal or venial sin. It is to be remembered that

such classification is ideal, and that what is easily described on paper is not always easy to be disguished in life. Yet speaking broadly, there is not very much difficulty in judging of the nature of our sins, except certain that lie on the border line.

A mortal sin is one that puts the soul in a state of spiritual death, that is, that destroys the union that there is between the soul and God. Such a sin, therefore, must be, in technical language, grave matter; that is the act must be something of great importance. It is obvious that if I am irritated at the interruption of my work by, let us say, the telephone ringing, that is sin, but it is not a grave matter. If, however, I am so annoyed by some occurrence that I strike and injure a person, that is grave matter. If a child steals a handful of peanuts from a fruit stand that cannot be grave matter; but if a man breaks into a house and steals, that certainly is. That, then, is the first mark of mortal sin, that it is grave matter.

The second is that the sin be committed with full knowledge of the nature of the act. Under the present educational dispensation in Church and State there is a very widespread ignorance of sin. There is no doubt a good deal of violation of God's will which is quite unintentional; that