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Cf)c Ipul^can lecture^ for 1874
SIN
AS SET FORTH
IN HOLY SCRIPTURE
r
GEORGE M. STRAFFEN, M. A.
VICAR OF CLIFTON, YORK
NEW YORK
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY
J VI Broadway
1876
To the Reader.
THE HULSEAN LECTURES for 1874 were ordered
tOL be preached before the University in the spring
of 1875. This is mentioned to explain the seeming
delay in the appearance of this volume.
The writer is aware that the Lectures are
shorter than usual ; but his regret is that he has
not beeft able to make them shorter still.
York :
July, 1875.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Works on sin ..... ... vii.
LECTURE
I, The sense of sin 9
II. The nature of sin 23
III. The organ of sin 39
IV. The consequents of sin 61
v. The disclosure of sin 73
VI. The propitiation for sin S9
LIST OF BOOKS.
The following are the principal works on sin
which have been consulted^ and the editions used:
King (Abp.) An Essay on the origin of evil : translated and
edited by E. Law. 2 Vols. Ed. 4. Cambridge, 1758.
Miiller (Julius) Die Christliche Lehrevon derSilnde. 2 Vols.
Ed. 5. Breslau, 1867.
Krabbe (Otto) Die Lehre von der Siinde iind vom Tode.
Hamburg, 1836.
Klaiber (C. B.) Die Neictestamefitliche Lehre von der Siinde
nnd Erlosung. Stuttgart, 1836.
Tholuck (A.) Die Lehre von der Siinde tuid vojn Versohner,
Ed. 6. Hamburg, 1839.
Umbreit (F. W. C.) Die Sunde. Hamburg, 1853.
Ritter (Heinrich) Uber das B'dse und seine Folgen. Gotha,
1869.
Manning (Abp.) Sin and its consequences. Ed. 2. London,
1874.
LECTURE I.
THE SENSE OF SIN.
Ov juev yap rl ttov Igtlv oiCvpurepov avSp6c.
HOM. //. xvii. 446.
Ouam timeo miser !
Nihil est miserius quam animus hominis conscius.
Plaut. MosteL iii. i. 12.
THS0LOGIC&L
THE SENSE OF SIN.
|f lljaw Wst n0t fotll, exit littl^ at tl^^ Wor.
Gen. iv. 7.
The Speaker is the Lord God ; the person spoken
to is Cain. And the words are remarkable, as in
other respects so in this, that in them for the first
time in our Bible there occurs the word Sin.^ A
short word, but a terrible ! Who can think of it
without emotion. For consider what it represents.
Consider what sin has caused, is daily causing, in
this our world. Nay, think even of the speculative
interest pertaining to the word. What bewildering
questions cluster around it! What eager contro-
versies have raged concerning it ! Whence came
sin .? Who is the author of it .? When, and how, did
1 On the etymolog)' of the word sin [A. S. syn, Germ.
Siinde\ and on the principal Biblical words for sin, see Julius
Miiller, Die Christliche Lehre von der Silnde, vol. i. pp.
114-121. (5th Ed.)
J 2 THE SENSE OF SIN.
it begin ? Are sin and evil identical ? If not, how
are they related ? How can the existence of sin be
reconciled with God's character and sovereignty ?
Is sin anything but an eternal necessity ? Nay, is
it anything but good in another form ; a potency
without which good could not be, or would be less
good ? Or, lastly, is sin anything whatsoever ? is it
not a mere bugbear which men have foolishly raised
and which they refuse to see laid ?
Such, and such like, are the questions which in
all ages have been asked in connection with sin,
which have given rise to the keenest and wildest
speculations. And still are such questions as rife
among men as ever. What shall we say to them ?
Shall we, as is so often done, denounce them as
barren and dangerous ? No : for they are not neces-
sarily such, at least not all of them. If reverently
pursued, they may yield profit instead of harm.
And the very fact that the questions have been so
persistently and universally asked testifies to two
things : first to their naturalness, and secondly to
men's innate conviction of their importance.^ Yet
1 Compare, both as regards universality and intensity, such
an enquiry as {e. g\) that concerning the Pkirality of Worlds.
THE SENSE OF SIN. j^
certain it is that speculations concerning sin have
too often proved not merely unprofitable but peril-
ous and impious. They have led to God's ar-
raignment at the bar of man's understanding, yea
even to His condemnation ! Let us eschew such
folly and wickedness. And in order thereto, let us
leave aside the inquiry concerning the origination
of sin.^ One thing only we are quite sure of, and
that is, that God is not the author of sin.^ He is all-
1 ' Ouaerebam Unde Afalum, et male quserebam, et in ipsa
inquisitione mea non videbam malum.' — Aug. Confess, vii. 5.
One reason why the Fathers set themselves against such
discussions was that they had come to identify them with
Gnostic error and impiety : cf. Tertul. De Prcese?\ HcEret. c.
vii. : ' Unde malum et quare ? et unde homo et quomodo ? et>
quod maxima Valentinus proposuit, imde E>eMS ? '
2 .... /cat Ti^v [i£v ayaduv ovdiva aXXov alriaTEOv^ tuv 6e
KaKuv aA/l' arra Sec t^r/relv ra alria, aTJC ov rbv Oeov. Plat. Z)e
Rep. ii. 379 c. This fundamental truth has not by any means
been always firmly held, even in the Christian Church, Ire-
n^us found it necessary to write ITf/^t //omp.t'^C, V '^^P'- ™^ i^V
elvai Tov Qedv ■K0L7]Tyv KaKuv (Eiiseb. Hisf. Eccl. V. 26.) Basil has
left a homily on the same subject (Op. Tom. ii. p. 72 sqq. Ed.
Gamier). And, to come to more modern times, at the Refor-
mation one of the leading religious bodies were charged with
making God, by its teaching, the Author of sin : a charge
which it repudiated in a singular fashion. (See the Confessio
Helvetica 11. cap. viii.) The charge has been often repeated
since.
I . THE SENSE OF SIN.
holy ; He could never have caused it. For wise, though
to us mysterious, reasons. He has been pleased to
permit it, both among men and antecedently among
angels, but He never caused it. Further than this we
shall in vain try to penetrate : we shall only lose, and
probably endanger ourselves. Sin, we know, is there ;
but why it is there, and how it came to be there,
no human being can tell us ; and God has not been
pleased to tell us, probably because we could not
understand. Sin is there, and there with God's per-
mission ; but why God gives this permission, why
He ever gave it, is an enquiry utterly beyond us.
But if we may not penetrate in this direction,
there are other directions in which we are invited,
and should strive, to penetrate. For no subject
concerns us more than the subject of sin. Sin is
the grand theme of Holy Scripture ; and, accord-
ing to our views of sin, will be our personal religion,
will be the color and complexion of our spiritual
life. As with churches, so with individuals, the
estimate of sin determines everything.^ And for a
1 The real difference between the Pure faith and the
Romish faith on the one hand, and the Rationahstic faith on
:the other, is constituted, not so much by particular dogmas,
THE SENSE OF SIN. i ^
right estimate of sin we must turn to the Bible.
We need not turn thither to learn the fact of sin.
That is palpably before us. We cannot separate
ourselves from life's dread realities. Whether or
not we are persuaded with the prophet that because
of sin tJie earth motirneth and fadetJi away; is. xxxiv. 4.
or, with the psalmist, that because of sin Ps. ixxxii.
all the foundations of the earth are out of
course ; or, with the apostle, that because
of sm the whole creation groaneth and 22,
travaileth in pain together tmtil now : yet the fact
of sin is unmistakeably before us. And few indeed
think of disputing this fact ; though some try to
rob it of all its significance. Some say: ^ there is
no evil ; what seems so only seems so ; the suffer-
ings and sorrows of life are only means to greater
good.' But how hollow such professions are, is
generally best shown by the utterers themselves.
For wait till life's heavier trials come upon them,
till their health fails, or their schemes miscarry, or
want overtakes them, or death desolates their home,
and where is their consolation } Their own hearts
as by the conception of sin. For the conception of sin de-
termines the conception of redemption.
J 5 THE SENSE OF SIN.
mock them.^ Does any father, for instance, who is
burying a beloved child, ever accept his lot as
normal and proper? Nay, does any one, when
brought into real personal contact with death, ever
regard it otherwise than as evil ? Men may speak
of it as a natural necessity, 'or as
kind Nature's signal of retreat,' 2
but the heart revolts at it. And no optimism and
no philosophy will avail to efface its dread sig-
nificance. The lip may cry, 'It is well,' but the
wounded spirit will groan for anguish.
But the generality of men make no pretence to
hide their convictions on this matter. They may
not be able nicely to discriminate or define, but
they know full well that they have to do with
deadly potencies. They know that they are con-
stantly bringing themselves into collision with God
and his law, and that the consequences are always
1 ' Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky :
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter,
When leaves fall and cold winds come.'
Shelley, The Flight of Love.
2 Johnson, Va?iity of Hiunan JV/shes, end.
THE SENSE OF SIN. i 7
disastrous : far more disastrous than immediately
and outwardly appears. And innumerable are the
proofs which they give of the strength of this con-
viction. The poor say of one who has addicted
himself to evil courses, ' He is gone to the bad,' ^
plainly, though indefinitely, intimating their sense
of the direfulness of his choice. And there is
scarcely any one, however ill-instructed, who does
not instantly and instinctively distinguish between
misfortune and misconduct — between, say, the loss
of a limb and the betrayal of a trust — and who
does not recognise something at least of the dread
significance of the latter. And even those who
have gone astray themselves will not unfrequently
try to keep others from following their example.
Many a drunken father will do his utmost to save
his son from drunkenness, and will grieve bitterly
if his efforts are unavailing. And so in more gen-
eral matters. How profound, for example, and how
universal is the horror which a great crime excites !
1 It is to be regretted that we have not kept the use of the
noun ' bad ' as equivalent to both sin and evil, like the Ger-
man '■ Bose.' — Bad is probably derived from the verb to bay:
bad = bayed {i.e. barked at), defied, spurned, abhorred. See
Tooke, Diver, of Pur ley ^ vol. 2. pp. 79, 80. (Ed. 1829.)
I 8 THE SENSE OF SIN.
And how all but indelible is the memory which it
leaves behind ! Generation after generation will
treasure up the deed, and account the very spot
accursed that witnessed it ! ^
But the highest tribute to the actuality of sin is
furnished by the individual conscience.- Men are
conscious not only of a disturbance and conflict
within, but of personal shortcoming and unworthi-
ness. They feel that they are not only to be pitied
but blamed, not only unfortunate but culpable.
This sense of guilt exists in various degrees, and
sometimes may seem to be entirely wanting. But
in the great majority of instances it is undeniably
there. All testimony and all literature certify to the
fact. And a truly momentous fact it is, a primor-
dial fact with regard to man's constitution and being.
It witnesses to that religious nature which is man's
great glory, and which forms his great security.
Could you extirpate this internal sense you would not
1 The writer once accompanied some school children on an
excursion. They were exceedingly merry and noisy, But
when, on coming to a certain spot, he said : ' Here a murder
was once committed,' it was striking to see the instant change.
Solemnity and awe were on every face.
^ See Lecture V.
THE SENSE OF SIN, Iq
only abolish all morality, but you would overturn
the very foundations of society. But this sense can-
not be extirpated. Many have tried to do so : ^ to
argue it away, and scoff it away, and even jest it
away : but in vain. There is something in man
that testifies of Duty and Order and Beauty and
Excellence, and that reproves him when he violates
them or falls short of their requirements. And what
is very remarkable, the sense of falling short — of
failure — is even deeper and more oppressive than
the sense of transgression.^ Who ever realised the
dreams and aspirations of his youth } Let a man
have succeeded never so well in life, even beyond
his own expectations, still he is not satisfied. His
visions of what might be, and should be, his visions
of Beauty and Nobleness and Loveliness, never
receive an adequate embodiment. Whence this
ideal .? and what its meaning t It comet h
down from the Father of lights ; and it
^ ' arctis
Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.'
Lucret. De Rcr. Nat, iv. 6.
2 Corresponding herewith is the fact that the most com-
mon word in the New Testament for sin is dimprla — a missing
of the mark.
20 THE SENSE OF SIN.
testifies to an infinite capacity and an infinite des-
tiny. And because a man feels that he has fallen
short, and is continually falling short of
2 Pet. i. 10. ., 1 r 1
his calling and election, he blames and
condemns himself, he is uneasy and unhappy. In
early life, indeed, there is httle of this feeling. For
then the trial has not been made, the failure has
not been felt. But a short trial suffices to teach
and to sadden. Man goes confidently forth to the
conflict of life, with endless visions of conquest and
glory, but Jiis cojcntenajice soon falls. Why
Gen. iv. 5. r r
does it fall } Because of his sense 01
shortcoming and of blameworthiness, in other words
his sense of sin. He may call sin by what name
he pleases — and it is generally a long time before
he recognises its full significance ^ — but he knows
that there" is something unclean and menacing
croncJiing at his door, and that he has
brought it there himself. Hence he is full
of misgivings and forebodings. Others may praise
and extol him, or, if there has been some fault, may
1 '
To paint this baseness nature is too base :
This darkness yields not but to beams of grace.'
Sir John Beaumont (ti628).
THE SENSE OF SIN. 2 1
make the fullest excuses for him, but he himself
mentally adds the damning But ! ^ And thus a con-
stant conflict goes on within. And unless an extra-
neous omnipotent Power intervenes to rescue him
from himself, and to raise him above himself, he
falls farther and farther away : and knows it. Life
may wear outwardly a smiling aspect, he may learn
to tutor his face, and neither by word nor sign
betray his uneasiness : but a worm is gnawing
within, its foul trail is everywhere visible. His
eyes see it, if others see it not. And, what espe-
cially grieves him, this trail is most conspicuous
among his choice flowers. For every man has a
little garden of the soul which he tenderly cherishes.
Why do its flowers grow so ill } Why will they not
blow } Why does the worm appear with the bud,
and even before } And — strangest thing of all —
why, instead of pitying himself, does the man
reproach and condemn himself ? Why cannot he
take things as they are ? Why must dread precede
and regret follow so many of his actions .'' Why, in
1 TPO. 'A}'mc /U£v, w TTOf, Xeipag alfiaroq (pipeic
4>AI. Xelpe<; /u-ev dyval, (ppyv & ex^i fJ^lafrtm ti.
Eurip. Hippol. 316.
2 2 THE SENSE OF SIN.
short, cannot he do as he pleases, and be what he
Acts. xvii. pleases ? . . . Because he is tJie offspring of
^ ' ^^' God. Because even in his lost estate, and
worst estate, God will not leave him to himself.
Because the shadow of Eternity, if not its radiance,
is evermore upon him.
And thus, in spite of himself, man bears con-
tinual testimony to his own greatness.^ His very
inquietude is more precious than all the animal
enjoyment in the world. For if it witnesses of a
Fall and of Sin, it witnesses also of a divine origi-
Phii. iii. ^^1 ^'^^ of a heavenly Father. It tells of a
^^ vocation on high? It prompts to a heavenly
quest. It points the harassed and mournful soul to
its true and only rest. . . . Fecisti 7tos ad
Confess. Xe, ct tnqnieUiin est cor nostnmi donee
reqiiicscat in Te.
1 ' Toutes ces miseres-lk memes prouvent sa grandeur. Ce
sont miseres de grand seigneur, mis^res d'un roi ddpossddd.'
—Pascal, Pensees, vol. ii. p. 173 (Ed. Astie).
2 . . . TTiq avu K'ki]oeu£ tov Qeov.
LECTURE II.
THE NATURE OF SIN.
Tqvto 6' EGTLV b ?Jyov(nv of ^i7.of avrC) Tvag avOpurtog (piaec
re earc Kal bpOug exei to Se'iv elvat rotovrov ■ to 6e a7.T]deia ye
TvdvTQV d/j.apTfjfj.dTO)v did ttjv a^odpa eavTov (^uliav oltlov indaTU)
yiyvETai eadaTOTe. tv^Iovtcl yap Ttepl to (piTiovfievov 6 (^l7mv • uaTe
rd diKata koI Ta ay add Kal ra KaAd KaKug Kp'ivei^ to avTov irpo tov
alrjdovg del Ttfxav delv rjyoviievog.
Plat. De Legg. v. 731 e.
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung —
Scott, Lay of Last M. vi. i.
THE NATURE OF SIN.
#^, W not tlji^ HbommaliU lljmg lljcit | \)nh,
Jer. xliv. 4.
If it were possible to give a definition of sin, this
sentence would furnish one. ' Sin is an abomina-
tion that God hates.' But in truth this is only to
say, ' Sin is sin.' The greatest things, on which-
ever side of the eternal boundary line, cannot be
defined. Ask for a definition of joy or of hate,
and what will you get } You will get verbal
descriptions more or less suggestive, but you will
get no proper definitions.
So of sin. Sin, when defined, is always defined
out of itself : in equivalent, not really interpreta-
tive, terms. And this is true of those seeming
definitions of sin which meet us in Holy Scripftire.
They are descriptions and intimations, rather than
definitions, though one of them, at least, has all
26 THE NATURE OF SIN.
the form of a definition.^ And yet it is of the
greatest importance that we attend to these scrip-
tural indications. For they will enable us, not
indeed to understand sin — for sin cannot be under-
stood — but to apprehend something of its fearful
nature, to bring home to us the fact that sin is
Rom. vii. indeed exceedinor sijiful.
13.
I John iii. Sin, says the Apostle John, is the
4-
transgressi07i of the law {a'M)fj.ia). And in
I John V. another place he says, All unrighteous-
ness (ddczio) is sin. If to these declara-
tions of S. John we add the declaration
Rom. XIV.
23- of S. Paul, zvJiatsoever is not of faith
James iv.
17. {ly. ruareu)^) is sin ; and the assertion of
S. James, to him that knoweth to do good aiid
doeth it not, to him it is sin ; we shall have furnished
ourselves with the main New Testament answers
to the question. What is sin }
And it is plain that these Scriptures point not
^ Bp. Pearson insists that i John iii. 4 is ' a proper defini-
tion of sin' (^On the Creed, Art. x. pp. 360, 361, Ed- 1669).
But, not to mention other considerations, it must be remem-
bered that ' lawlessness ' is only one of the aspects under
which Scripture presents sin to us.
THE NATURE OF SIN. 27
only to separate acts of sin but also to a state of
sin. Sin is every act and every state which is
contrary to God's law. For we are all subject
to God's law : the whole creation is. God made
all beings and all things, made them of and for
Himself : because of TJiy will tJicy were^ ^^^ l^
a7id they were created. Consequently what- "*
ever laws God might be pleased to assign to His
creatures, those laws they were bound to obey.
Now two parts of God's creation, the inanimate and
irrational parts, do obey His laws. The stars never
leave their orbits ; plants grow and bloom as He
wishes ; the birds of the air, the beasts of the field,
the fishes of the sea all do and are what God wills :
they cannot be and do otherwise. But to us His
rational creatures God has left it optional, though
optional at our own peril, whether we will be and
do according to his will or not : in other words,
whether we will obey His laws or not. Nay, not
only need we not obey God's laws, but we may, if
we please, set ourselves deliberately against them,
may resist, break, defy them. To do this, or any
part of this, is to sin. And the mere surface
presentment of the matter ought to give us some
2 S THE NA TURK OF SIN.
notion what sin is, as well as excite in us some
dread of sin. That the supreme God, the all-wise
Ruler of the universe, should say, ' This shalt thou
do, and thus shalt thou be ! ' and that man, miser-
able man, the creature of a day, should presume to
say, ' I will not ! ' must surely strike us as something
very abnormal, very portentous. Were we to see
some puny child questioning the propriety of its
father's commands, and resolutely setting itself
against them, we should not be long in forming
and expressing an opinion. Yet what is this to
man settins: himself asfainst God, a finite and fallen
creature opposing the Infinite and All-glorious
Creator !
And yet it may obviously happen that man's
opposition to God may be unconscious on his part.
He may break God's law, not only without wishing
to do so, but without knowing that he is doing so.
T> •• In that case his sin is said to be ' dead : '
Kom. vii.
°- yy^p'-^ 'm')ij.oo diiapria vf/.pd. But we must
guard ourselves from supposing that such dead, or
unconscious, sin is no sin ; in other words, that it
has no guilt. Numbers have fallen into this mis-
take. They have failed to distinguish between the
THE NATURE OF SIN. 29
existence of sin and the consciousness of sin.^
Now undoubtedly the Scripture says sin ^^^^ ^^
is not imputed {od/. iUuysirac) where ^3-
there is no law : but it says not that it is not extant,
nor that it is not noxious. And Scripture says also,
and says nakedly, As many as have sinned ^^^^^ ii.
withont law shall — not, be excused, but ^^"
— -perish without law.
Look at lower analogies. A man who unwittingly
breaks the law of the land is not, because of his igno-
rance, held to be innocent, or exempted from pun-
ishment. And, to take a different illustration, a
man may be infected with a dangerous disease and
yet know nothing of it, nay think himself quite
well.^ So in the spiritual world. Whatever, and in
whatsoever, God's will is violated, there is sin and
guilt, whether the violation be known or not.
1 S. Paul, referring to his persecution of the Church,
said, / did it ignoraiitly in U7ibelief, and yet he professed
himself the chief of sinfters. (i Tim. i. 13, 15.) — See more
in Lecture IV. p. 63 f.
2 And thus in fact be do7ibly afflicted. Bacon {Advance-
ment of Lear7iing), in quoting the aphorism of Hippocrates,
' Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non sentiunt, iis mens
aegrotat,' adds the remark : ' they need medicine, not only to
assuage the disease, but to awake the sense.'
20 THE NATURE OF SIN,
Still, it is with conscious sin — live sin — that we
are more particularly concerned. And, when we
come to analyse it, we find it in two things: (i) a
will set against God's will ; and (2) this will exerted
for self.
(i) There is a perverse will, a will contrary to
God's will.
It is the will of man which determines what he
is. For the will is the very ground of personality,
and according as it is, must a man be. And this
will of man is free : has the power of self-determi-
nation. Were it otherwise, were there an over-
whelming necessity upon us — no matter whence —
there could be no responsibility and no culpability,
no merit and demerit, no virtue and no vice.^ But
men are free, and they know it. How far indeed
they themselves may have abridged their own
freedom, and brought themselves under a kind of
necessity ; and how far also, being what they are,
they have need of God's enabling grace effectually
1 EI yap tljiapraL r6v&z riva ayadbv elvat Kal rdvSe ^av?iOV, ovff
ovTog CTrodc/croc ovS' eKelvoc fiefiTrreog. Kal av, el fi^ Trpoaipiaec
eXevBepa Trpog to o/. i. 43.
THE NATURE OF SIN. ^I
to will and do what He wills : ^ these are different
questions, to which I turn not now aside. The
primary fact of human liberty is certain, or all
consciousness is a delusion, and there is no foot-
hold anywhere either for religion or for morality.
But, I repeat it, men are free. They cannot
' justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate.' ^
They know that however strong outward temptation
may be, or however urgent their own corrupt solic-
itations may be, the will is not forced to consent.
And when the will consents, when it chooses what
it ought not, when, in short, it sets itself against
God's will, then there is sin.
(2) This will is exerted for self. It is a self-will.
And this brings us to the very root of the matter,
lays bare to us what may be called the principle of
sin, viz. selfishness.^ Selfishness is always fatal.
Before examining it in its higher manifestations let
1 The well-known Synergistic Controversy (a.d. 1555-
1577) was on this subject.
2 Milton, Par. Lost, iii. 112.
3 ' Das innerste Wesen der Siinde, das sie in alien ihren
Gestalten bestimmende und durchdringende Princip, ist die
Selbstsucht.'— Jul. MuUer, i. 178.
^^ THE NATURE OE SIN.
lis look at it in two lower domains, in the family and
in national life.
1. Family life is ruined by selfishness. Its worst
evils and its worst imhappiness spring hence, spring,
that is, from an overweening regard to self, and a
corresponding and consequent disregard of others.
Avi I my brothers keeper f is the significant ques-
tion associated with the first sin committed
Gen. iv. Q. , . , r- • , i
out of Paradise which Scripture has re-
corded for our instruction : and that sin was fratri-
• cide. And the same question is virtually repeated
whenever in family life selfishness asserts itself.
And whenever it does so, the harmony of the f am-
james iii. ity is disturbed if not destroyed : there is
1 6. co7iftLsion and every evil work.
2. Look at selfishness again in national life.
Nothing is more fatal whether to rulers or to the
ruled. When that French king exclaimed, ' The
state, it is I ! ' he pronounced the death-sentence on
his house, and indeed on French kingship generally.
And so too with regard to the ruled : in proportion as
selfishness is operative among them, that is, in pro-
portion as a nation thinks and acts solely for itself,
in the same proportion is there national declension
THE NA TURE OF SIN. ^ ^
and ruin. Such selfishness may hide itself — it con-
stantly does — under the name of patriot- prov. xiv.
ism, but the end thereof are the ways of 12.
death}
3. But it is when we come to the highest domain
of all, the domain of religion, that the full baneful-
ness of selfishness appears. A heathen writer has
defined religion to be the proper regard and service
of the Divine Being.^ But selfishness has no re-
1 ' Le patriotisme exclusif, qui n'est que I'egoisme des
peuples, n'a pas de moins fatales consequences que
I'egoisme individuel : il isole, il divise les habitants des pays
divers, les excite k se nuire au lieu de s'aider; il est le p^re
de ce monstre horrible et sanglant qu'on appelle la guerre.'
Lamennais, Le livre du Peuple, p. 81. The Abbe adds a
warning which was never more needed than at present : " Le
peuple qui souffre pres de soi I'oppression d'un autre peuple
creuse la fosse ou s'ensevelira sa propre liberte.'
The writings of another French author, who has lately at
tracted much attention, abound in striking remarks on the
duty of supplanting selfishness by ' altruisme.' We even find
him maintaining 'que notre harmonie morale repose exclu-
sivement sur I'altruisme.' {Catechisute Positivisie, p. 278,
Ed. 2.) But Comte's altruisme, besides utterly discarding
God, has reference only to a fictitious humanity.
2 'Religio est quae superioris cujusdam Naturae, quam
Divinam vocant, curam caerimoniamque affert.' Cic. De In-
vent. ii. 53. ' Qui omnia, quae ad cultum Deorum pertinerent,
diligenter retractarent et tanquam relegerent, sunt dicti reli-
34
THE NATURE OF SIN.
gard and service but for itself. The gratification
of self, whether in the lower sphere of sense or the
higher sphere of mind, the aggrandisement of self, the
glorification of self, these are its objects, and these
alone. And what religion then can there be ? what
regard to the Supreme Being? what homage and
Rom, viii: service to Him ? There is none, and there
^' can be none. The mind of the flesh (rd
S THE NATURE OF SIN.
ye who know differently, who l'7iozu tJie plague
I Kings of your own hearty who know God's loving-
viii. 38. kindness in Jesus Christ, be ye very fearful,
very jealous. Hate sin with unmitigable hatred ! It
is the only thing you should thus hate, because the
only thing that is essentially evil. Suffering need
not be an evil ; calamity need not be an evil; death
need not be an evil : but sin is always an evil, it is
THE EVIL THING. Hate it therefore, hate it bitter-
ly ' Hate it for God's sake, for it assails His life.
See Heb. Hate it for Christ's sake, for it ' crucifies
Heb. X. Him afresh.' Hate it for the Spirit's sake,
^^" for it ' does despite unto Him.' Hate it for
your own sake, for it degrades and ruins you. Hate
it for its sake, for it is most hateful, most damnable.
And, hating it, fight against it, and in the strength
• of God overcome it. And your rezvard
Luke VI. -^
35- shall be great, and you shall be the sons of
the Highest,
LECTURE in.
THE ORGAN OF SIN.
Facillimum est exsecrari carnem, difficillimum autem non
carnaliter sapere.
Aug. De Vera Rel. xx. 40.
THE ORGAN OF SIN.
"^d not mx tl^mioxz rtigtt xit gour moxtnl bobg i\nt gje
n^ianUi 0bg it m t^t lusts tijmof. — Rom. vi. 12.
The mortal body is at once the seat of sin and the
organ of sin. Sin has usurped possession of it, and
uses it for its own unlawful purposes. And hence S.
Paul calls it the body of sin: the body, that
is, in which sin works and by which sin
works. He also, and as equivalent thereto, ^^^^ vii.
calls it the body of death. Yet of course, ^^'
in such expressions there is always an inclusive
reference to the indwelling soul.^ Man's body,
says the Apostle elsewhere, is a physical i Cor. xv.
44.
body {nihim 4>oyu6^) and man himself a v. 45, and
... J , ' V -, . . , Gen. ii. 7.
living soul {4>oy7) Zaxra) a bemg with an
^ To oo>aa ovx afiaprdvu Kad' eavTO^ oA/ld Slcl tov cC>}iaroq rj
'^^XV- — Cyril. Catech. iv. 23.
. ^ THE ORGAN OF SIN.
immaterial as well as material part, a being that
thinks, discerns, wills. Now, originally, the harmony
between man's body and soul was complete. The
body was the efficient, yet subordinate, handmaid
of the soul ; the soul the willing, alacrious, loving
handmaid of God. But the Fall brought about a
mournful change. The body became the seducer
and taskmaster of the soul, and both soul and body
lost their glory. Man's carnal nature, in fact,
attained the supremacy. So completely was this
the case, that the designation which the Holy One
gave to the fallen race of man was Flesh. The
Lord said., My Spirit shall not always
strive with man, for that he also is Jlesh.
. . . God looked ttpon the earth, and
Gtu.\\. 12. behold it was corrupt., for all flesh had
corrupted his zmy upon the eai'th. Man
no longer deserved to be called after his higher
nature, no nor, properly speaking, after his bodily
nature, but only — flesh. The mere stuff of the
body, its material substance, was a sufficient, was
the proper, designation for man.
And this humiliating designation is not only
continued in the New Testament, but receives
THE ORGAN OF SIN.
43
there peculiar prominence and emphasis. Man's
body is called the body of thejlesh} Man Coi. 2.11.
himself, as he is by nature, is called fleshly
-^ Rom. vii.
{(jdpxv^uq and (Tapy.ixoq).^ He is said to H; i Cor.
be in the flesh {Iv Gapv.i) and after the
flesh {y.azd Gdpy,a). His mind is the mind Rom. yii.
of the flesh {(ppovrum rrjq ffapxoq) ; his will the Rom. viii'.
wt/lof the flesh {oa-qixa); his thoughts the fohn, 1 1^,
thoughts of the flesh (dm.ocac) ; his de- Gal v"'i^6;
sires the desires of the flesh (l-tOoiuat). Jj^^^' "*
And even when he seems to be acting
contrary to the flesh, yea, punishing it, he
is only, says the Apostle, vainly puffed tip Coi. ii. 18.
by the miud of his flesli {yizd zoo vodq rr^q
aapxoq).
Such is man's state by nature: the flesh Eph. ii. 3.
supreme, and soul and body subordinate, humihated,
vitiated. Could anything be more grievous .? If
you were possessed of a costly vase, wrought
1 The reading (Ju^iaToq tt/c aapKog, instead of a. ruv dfiap-
Tco)v rriq aapKoq^ is given by Lachmann and Tischendorf, and
is doubtless the right one.
2 The former, capKivoq^ is the milder term, and indicates
man's natural evil state ; whereas aapKCKog indicates, so to
speak, his personal appropriation of this state, his subordi-
nation of himself to ' the law of sin which is in his members.'
. . THE ORGAN OF SIN.
exquisitely within and without, and if by some
mishap this vase were to be defaced by fire, you
would feel keen regret. And if, in addition, a
treasure had been deposited in the vase, and this
treasure had become so tarnished as to be all but
worthless, your regret would be keener still. But
what a poor representation is this of that deface-
ment and ruin which have taken place in man!
Phil. iii. -^^^ body has become a body of hitinilia-
Rom vi tio7t^ yea a body of sin. And his soul has
^- become darkened, dazed, disordered, de-
graded. The living Temple of the living God has
become a ruin, and unclean birds and beasts have
taken up their abode therein.^
And all men are more or less conscious of this,
though it is only the spiritual man who is fully
1 See the noble passage in Howe's Living Te^nple, Pt. ii.
chap. iv. Only part of it can here be quoted : " The state-
ly ruins are visible to every eye, and bear in their front,
yet extant, this doleful inscription: j^ClKC (DCDD ©tlCC
JDlDCil^. Enough appears of the admirable frame and
structure of the soul of man to show the Divine Presence did
sometime reside in it, more than enough of vicious deform-
ity to proclaim He is now retired and gone. The lamps
are extinct, the altar overturned, the light and love van-
ished". . .
THE ORGAN OF SIN. ^q
conscious of it.^ It is only the spiritual man who
can understand that scripture, / am carnal, ^^^ ^.j
sold tinder sm; or who, with proper sig- ^4-
nificance, can use the other scripture, / Rom. vii.
know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good
dwelleth not. Yet others also are conscious of a
disturbance and derangement within. They can
see, and do see, that their lower nature has the
ascendant, yet ought not to have it ; that the flesh
is perpetually gratified at the expense, and to the
hurt, of the soul. And not only so, but, occasionally
at least, they resent the body's usurpation and
tyranny,^ and long for deliverance. They long to
live worthy of themselves, of their higher and
nobler nature. Oh no,, man is not so fallen that he
has quite forgotten his original, that he has lost all
sense of the good, the beautiful, and the divine.
Even the most abject occasionally cast longing eyes
1 ' How great a distance parts us ! for in Thee
Is endless good, and boundless ill in me :
All creatures prove me abject, but how low
Thou only know'st, and teachest me to know.' —
Sir John Beaumont.
2 ' This body that does me grievous wrong.'
Coleridge, Youth and Age.
^5 THE ORGAN OF SIN.
towards the Mountains of Perfection. And ordinary
men do this more than occasionally. They realise
keenly and sadly what is, and what might be —
what should be. They can enter, and warmly, into
those words of the poet :
■* Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array,
Why- dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay ?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess.
Eat up thy charge ? is this thy body's end ?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss.
And let that pine to aggravate thy store ;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross
Within be fed, without be rich no more :
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And, d^ath once dead, there's no more dying then.'^
Good and needful advice this ! But ah, the mind
may be willing, but the flesh is weak, is rebellious.-
However the better self may sigh, and grieve, and
aspire, it is powerless against the might of indwell-
^ Shakspeare, Sonnets, cxlvi.
2 TJj jiiv vol C\ov7xviJ vojiu) Ocoi', rij Se capKt rSfiu dfiapriar.
(Rom. vii. 25.) This antagonism of the aop^ and vovc in the
natural man becomes in the renewed man the antagonism of
crdpf ) is present with me,
but how to perfo7in that which is good, -^^^ ^,jj
is 710 1. . . I see a different law in my ^^' ^3-
members, warring against the lazv of my mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the lazv of sin which
is in my member's}
This being so, it is obvious that if any one
wishes to get the better of the flesh, to escape the
degradation and misery of the worst of bondage,
he must get a help extraneous to himself. And
that help can be but one, even the help of the
Spirit of God. By that Spirit alone can anyone be
renewed within" — in his soul's soul — and so become
master of himself, and successful in his struggle with
self. And the Spirit's aid is refused to none who
sincerely seek it. Nay, every baptised person has
1 It is important to note that a/iapria is represented as
ruling h Tolg iikXtat^ but not tv to) vol. — On vovr^ ' der geistige
Seelensinn,' see Beck, Umriss der Bibl. Seelenlehre^ § i8,
etc. (Ed. 3.)
2 This is indicated in that much misunderstood passage,
Eph. iv. 23 : the Holy Spirit acting on, and with, man's spirit,
renews him within, so that his naraior-qq rov vo6g (v. 1 7) becomes
an avaKaivoaig rov voog (Rom. xii. 2).
. g THE ORGAN OF SIN.
a direct claim upon it, as well as direct guarantee
that it shall be fully given. But, unhappily, all bap-
tised persons do not use their privilege. Worse
still, numbers of them * resist ' the Spirit, ' grieve '
See Acts Him, and, as far as they can, * quench '
^pj^^^iy Him. And accordingly they are left to
3°5 themselves. The difference between men
I 1 hes. V.
'9- in the visible church is this : some have
cherished the grace given unto them, and some
Gal. ii. 21. have made it void. Some have yielded
themselves tip to God, as alive from the dead, and
Rom vi their members is instruments of rigJiteons-
^3- ness uiito God ; and some have lived unto
I-. * ' themselves, and made their members iii-
om. VI. strume7tts of iijirighteonsness iLnto sin. In
Rom viii. short, some have walked after the Spirit,
4 and some after the flesh. And, by con-
sequence, some are the children of life, and some
the children of death. For the mind of
Rom. viii. ^/^^ ji^sh is death, bnt the mind of the
Spirit is life and peace. Because the
mind of the flesh is enmity agaijist God,
for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be ; and they that are in the
THE ORGAN OF SIN. ^g
Jlesh cannot please God. But ye are not in thejlesk,
but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you.
And the vital question, therefore, with all of us
is : How are we walking ? in other words, Whom
are we serving ? Holy Scripture does not suffer us
to lose ourselves in generalities about sin. It asks
us plainly : What is sin to you personally ? does it
rule over you, or, by the grace of God, do you rule
over it ? And, in order to decide this, Scripture
points us to the mortal body and its deeds. Just
as at the last day we shall be judged for 2 Cor. v.
the things done in {through) the body, so ^^•
now we are to judge ourselves by the same things.
For they will enable us to determine whether we
have Christ's Spirit or not, and conse- See 2 Cor.
quently whether we are reprobates or not. ^"^- 5-
Let us not then think lightly, as so many do, of
the mortal body. Still less let us make it the excuse
for sinning, or even the unavoidable cause of sin.
Many have done this last. They have made the
body, as such, the source and originating cause of
sin. But if this were so, if sin were necessarily
connected with our physical and senuous organisa-
4
^Q THE ORGAN OF SIN.
tion/ three things would follow : (i) God the Creator
would be the real Author of sin ; (2) God could not
summon men, who cannot separate themselves from
Heb. ii. their bodies, to put away sin ; and (3) Jesus
^4- Christ, who, like ourselves, took part in
flesh and blood, would have had sin. But no, man's
lower nature is not, as such, evil, nor the source of
evil. Even those outcomes of it which seem most
earthly and sensual are not of necessity evil.
* Nature,' says TertuUian, ' is to be reverenced, not
blushed at.' ^ Yet true it is that man's lower nature
is a source of great peril to him. The body's
commonest appetites and wants may become per-
1 We are much in want of a word to express man's nature
so far as it is constituted and characterised by the bodily
senses. The word ' sensationalism,' which Bp. Ellicott and
others have tried to introduce, will not maintain itself : least
of all now that the adjective ' sensational ' has acquired so
definite and different a meaning. — Ernesti has written a
special treatise on Die Theorie vojn Urspriinge der Siinde
aus der Sinnlichkeit (Gott. 1862).
2 ' Natura veneranda est, non erubescenda.' (Tertul. De
Anima, c. xxvii.) Yet it must not be forgotten that man's
nature is no longer his God-given nature, but his own nature.
Until renewed by the Spirit of his viind man's kTziOvfiiai are
Idiai eTTidvuiai^ that is to say, capKiKai (i Pet. ii. 11) and KoojucKal
.(Tit. ii. 12).
THE ORGAN OF SIN. ^ I
verted and hurtful and shameful. Even hunger and
thirst may be made, and constantly are made, min-
isters of sin, and so made to bring forth j^^^ ^.^
fruit unto death} 5-
And hence holy Scripture is continually warn-
ing us to be on our guard with respect to the body.
If it does not bid us ' buffet and bruise ' ^
See I Cor.
the body, it bids us keep it in strict sub- ix. 27.
jection. Let not sin reign in your mortal l^om. vi.
body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof. ..
. . . Abstain from fleshly lusts which war n-
against the soul. . . . Make dead your Col. iii. 5,
members which are up07t the earth. And
yet, on the other hand, Scripture is equally careful
to remind us of the body's dignity, and of the solemn
duties we owe to it. The body is not, as some have
held, the mere shell of the soul ; still less is it the
tomb of the soul ; ^ nor even, rightly considered, the
1 'Q.V 6 debg t} KoiXia (Phil. iii. 1 9).
2 Ka'i yap a^fid Ttvig (paaiv [to Gcbfio] elvai ttjq ipvxvc^ "? reda/u,-
fievTjg kv Tu vvv izapdvTi. — Plat. Crat. p. 400 C. Cf. Gorg. p. 493
A. — In Shakspeare {King Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 2) —
' As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable'—
the reference is not to a tomb but to a castle.
^2 THE ORGAN OF SIN.
prison of the soul.^ But the body is the soul's
co-ordinated associate and helpmate. How the two
are united, no human being can explain. But cer-
tain it is that neither of them is independent of the
other, nor complete without the other. The soul,
no doubt, is the nobler, because immaterial ; but the
body is very noble also. And to speak disparagingly
of the body, is to speak unchristianly, as well as
unphilosophically.^ No one who properly meditates
on his own existence will identify himself with the
soul rather than with the body, but will recognise
1 ' Si enim corpus istud Platonica sententia career, ceterum
Apostolica Dei templum, cum in Christo est ' . . . (Tertul.
Ve Animd,C2.p. liii.) — The representation of the body as a
' garment' to the soul is scriptural : see Ps. xxxix. ii. Yet it
is not correct to speak of this garment being ' borrowed ' by
the soul : e. g. Charron, De la Sagesse, L. iii. ch. xxii. § 4 :
' Ce corps n'est qu' vne robe empruntee pour en faire
paroistre pour vn temps nostre esprit sur ce has et tumul-
tuaire theatre.' The soul is as much lent to the body as the
body to the soul. — The wrong apprehension of the relation-
ship of body and soul has been the cause, among other
things, why descriptions of death, even in Christian writers,
are so seldom scriptural.
2< Quod nonnulli dicunt, malle se omnino esse sine corpore,
omnino falluntur. Non enim corpus suum, sed corruptiones
ejus et pondus, oderunt.'— Aug. DeDoctr. Christ, i. 24.
THE ORGAN OF SIN. -^
himself as constituted by the two/ Yes, and no
man, however spiritual, ever comes to feel himself
independent of the body, and so to speak, beyond
the body. Even when through disease the body has
become a hopeless wreck, a burden and torment, it
is never, even in thought, dissociated from the true
Self. A good man may feel — he generally does —
that he ' owes God a death ; ' ^ h'e may also feel
that his earthly tabernacle has become so 2 Cor. v. i.
tainted by leprosy, that it can only be fully cleansed
by being taken down : ^ yet even then, the inner-
most desire is not to be unclothed but
clothed upon, that what is mortal may be " '^' '^'
swallowed up of life.
Let us then be very reverential to the body ;
and very solicitous how we treat the body. It is
no sign of spirituality, but the reverse, to pretend
1 . . ' Ich : denn dabei denken wir immer an die Identi-
tat von Leib und Seele, und heben den Gegensatz auf . . . Ich
stellt sich weder auf die eine noch auf die andere Seite, son-
dern ist das Zusammenfassende von beiden,' Schleiermacher,
Psych. '^. 8.
2 See Izaak Walton's account of Hooker's death-bed.
3 ' This leprosy hath taken so deep root in the walls of this
house that it cannot perfectly be cleansed till it be taken
down.' Abp. Leighton, Works, vol iii. p. 202 (Ed. Pearson).
c^ THE ORGAN OF SIN.
to scorn the body.^ And no one in sincerity does
Eph. V ^^' ^^ wan, says the Apostle, ever hated
^9- his ownJiesJi, biU nourisheth it a7id cherish-
eth it. And no man is called upon to hate his own
flesh, save only in the sense in which he is called
See John ^P<^^ ^^ ^^'^^^ ^^^^ ^"^^^ soiil. The Gospel
xii. 25, etc. ^^^gj^jf^gg the body. It tells us indeed
what, owing to sin, the body empirically is, but it
tells us also what, through grace, the body may be-
2 Cor. vi. I. come, and will become, unless g7'ace is
received i7t vain. And the Gospel solemnly calls
upon us to s^lorify God in onr body : to
I Cor. VI. o ^^
20. present onr bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
Rom. xii. o j ^
I. well pleasing ttnto God. For this, it as-
sures us, is our rational service. Rational indeed, and
blessed indeed ! Whosoever offers unto God this
sacrifice receives an unspeakable reward. He re-
ceives not only an earnest of his acceptance, but an
earnest of his renovation. If the Spirit of Him
Rom. viii. ^^^^^ raised Up yes7is from the dead dzvell
"• in yojiy He that raised up Chiistfrom the
^ Almost all the early Gnostics vilified the body. The
Priscillianists also, in the fourth century, held the body to be
the work of the Author of evil.
THE ORGAN OF SIN. cc
dead shall quicken even your mortal bodies by reason
of His Spirit that dwelleth in you. These words
point to something more than the future glorification
of the body. They point to a present vivifying
process which the Holy Spirit carries on in the
bodies of the faithful.^ And they are not the only
words in the New Testament that do so. The New
Testament plainly intimates that even on earth
Christ's Spirit does great things for the body of the
believer.^ It even speaks of the life of 2 cor iv
yesus being made manifest, not in his body ^°' "•
merely, but in his mortal flesh. What this fully
means, we know not ; perhaps, in our present state,
1 Calvin, in his comment on the words, says : ' Non de-
ultima resurrectione, quae momento fiet [habetur sermo], sep
de continua Spiritus operatione, qua rehquias carnis paulatim
mortificans, caelestem vitam in nobis instaurat.' — De Wette
(quoted by Olshausen) says : ' Es ist hier von einem innern
leibleich-geistigen Process die Rede, nicht von einem von
aussen kommenden Ereigniss, wie man die Auferstehung
gewohnlich auffasst' — Olshausen's own comment is : ' Unsere
Stelle hat ihren Commentar in Joh. vi., wo Christus als die
Cw^ nach alien Beziehungen hin Sich darstellt, auch der
Leiblichkeit.'
2 ^0 Xpiarbg KecpaX?) TTJg EKKlrjaicQ^ avrbg vxr/v.
56 THE ORGAN OF SIN,
cannot know. It may be one of those things
Heb. vi. which necessarily remain hidden till we
^9- enter within the veil. But whatever it
means, our duty and wisdom are plain : viz., to
glorify God in our body, and by the Spirit to mor-
tify our corrupt affections. For, if we do this, we
Rom.viii. 13.] are assured that we shall live. If, hy the
Spirit, ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live :
live now and live for ever. Already on earth we
share in our Master's life, and that probably in
Col. iii. 4.] more than a spiritual sense ; and when
Christ, who is (^His people s) life, shall be manifested,
then shall we also be manifested with Him in glory.
Our hidden life shall be fully seen. All that Christ
has done for our souls and bodies shall be made
Comp. 2 manifest, and shall be the admiration of
Thes. i. 7,
10. samts and angels.
To like purpose are the words of S. John.
J ^^^^ ... Beloved, now are zue the children of God,
-• redeemed, regenerate men, and it is not
yet manifested zvJiat we shall be, but zue knozu that,
wJien it shall be manifested, we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is: see Him in His own
transcendent glory, and find ourselves to our ador-
THE ORGAN OF SIN. c-j
ing joy partakers thereof.^ But, after stating this,
St. John is careful to add, every man that v. 3.
hath this hope in Hint, picrifieth Jiii^tself, even as He
is pure. And what is this but to repeat to us what
we have ahxady heard ? What is it but to reaffirm
the indefeasible connection between sonship and
saintship ? * Think not ' — we are warned in effect
— ' that ye can belong to God, and yet live after the
flesh : no, if ye live after the flesh ye imtst Ro"^- ^iii-
die : and what has God to do with death ? ^^^ Matth.
xxii. 32.
Think not that ye can belong to Christ
without having the Spirit of Christ : no, if Rom. viii.
any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he ^'
is none of His. Think not that ye can
have Christ's spirit, and yet remain the bondmen
of sin : no, where the Spirit of the Lord is, ^ ^-^j. j-^^
there is liberty. Think not that ye can be ^7-
glorified hereafter without being sanctified and 'made
meet ' now: not so! withottt holiness no man Heb. xii.
shall see the Lord ; tJiere shall i7t no wise J^g^_ ^xi.
enter into {the heavenly city) anything that ^7-
defileth, or that worketh abomination orfalseJiood!
Let us then lay this to heart. Let us keep
1 . , . Iva Kal avv6o^aado)i^ev (Rom. viii. 1 7),
5 8 '^HE ORGAN OF SIN,
^ . . firm hold of the immutable truth : whatso-
\jz.u VI. 7-
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap ;
he that soweth to his own Jlesh shall of the flesh
reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life eve^dasting. And if
Tit.iii. 3. any one, unhappily, is sowing to his
Roni/i. ' flesh ; is serving divers lusts and pleas-
^■5" ures ; is walking according to the course
of this world ; is worshipping and serving the C7ra-
ture rather tJian the Creator ; let him seriously pon-
der what the Scripture says of his state and pros-
pects. He is an outcast from life, and he is an heir
of death. Already death * worketh ' in him ; and this
death, unless removed, shall be more and more devel-
oped and intensified, until it issues in the ivorvi that
Mark ix. 48. dietJi iiot and the fire that is not quencJied}
Up ! then, thou that steepest, and arise from the deady
Eph. V. 14. and Christ shall illumine thee. Cry earnest-
' Prayers there are idle, death is woo'd in vain ;
In midst of death poor wretches long to die;
Night without day or rest, still doubling pain ;
Woes spending still, yet still their end less nigh ;
The soul there restless, helpless, hopeless lies :
There's life that never lives, there's death that never dies,'
P. Fletcher, Purple Island, vi. 37.
THE ORGAN OF SIN. ^9
ly for the Spirit's aid, that thou mayst be delivered
Vlll.
from the bondage of corruption into the ^^^
liberty of the glory of the children of God.
And whosoever, by God's grace, has attained to
this liberty, has renounced the hidden 2 Cor. iv.
things of shame and the tmfruitful works Eph. v. n.
. . Eph. V. 15.
of darkness, let him walk with strictness, Rom. xiii.
as one who is wise. Let him make no
provision for the flesh tmto the lusts thereof. Let him
hate even the garment spotted by the flesh.
Let him mortify that self-will which is
the cause of so much failure and sorrow, and set
himself to discern what is that good, and ^^^ ^jj^
well-pleasing, and perfect will of God. -•
In short, the life which he now lives in the Gal. ii. 20.
flesh, let him live in the faith of the Son
of God, who loved him, and gave Himself for him.
This if he do, his Saviour shall more and more
own, more and more honour him. He shall in-
creasingly know the greatness and blessedness of
his inheritance. And, beholding with tm- 2 Cor. iii.
18.
veiled face in a mirror the glory of the
Lord, he shall be transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit.
LECTURE IV.
THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN,
HoM. //. V. 178.
Culpam poena premit comes.
HoRAT. Carm. iv. 5. 24.
Here men may see how sinne hath his merite :
Beth ware ! for no man wot whom God wol smite
In no degree, ne in which maner wise
The worme of conscience may agrise
Of wicked lif . . .
Therfore I rede you this conseil take :
Forsaketh sinne, or sinne you forsake.
Chaucer, The Doctoures Tale, end.
THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN.
Wit mt ronsnmeb bg C^ine nn^tx, mxb bg ST^g foratl^
art ioz txouhlzH, — Ps. xc. 7.
The consequents of sin are guilt and punishment.
Guilt is the dark shadow which sin — all sin — throws ;
and the blighting effects of this shadow — the bane
it causes and the reaction it calls forth — is the
punishment of sin.
I. Guilt. I
If a sotil sin, and commit any of these l^^ ^
things which are forbidden to be done by the ^''' ^^
commandmejit of the Loi'd, though he wist it not, yet
is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity: .... Jie
hath certainly trespassed against the Lord.
^ Guilt is most probably derived from the A. S. gildan, to
pay, to requite, to return an equivalent : guilt = that which
must be paid for, made good, atoned for.
54 THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN.
Guilt then may exist without the consciousness
of guilt.^ And guilt always exists where sin exists :
the two can no more be separated than the shadow
and the substance. When a man breaks God's law,
Jam. ii. 9. he is convicted by the law as a transgres-
soi'p- He himself may not be conscious of his guilt,
Lev. V. 19. or of the offence that caused it, but he hath
certainly trespassed against the Lord. He has vio-
lated Eternal Law, and he must take the con-
sequences.
Now guilt has two aspects : one turned to the
sin committed, the other to the penalty incurred.^
A guilty person, in the first place, has the imputa-
tion and appropriation of the deed done ; it becomes
1 It is remarkable how many writers make guilt to be con-
ditioned by the consciousness of guilt. Nitzsch, for instance,
defines guilt to be ' die bewusste Yerhaftung unsers Lebens
unter das Genugthuung fordernde Gesetz : ' Systan der
Christ. Lehre, p. 249 (Ed. 6). The Jews crucified Christ
Kara ayvotnv (Acts iii. 1 7) ; had the Jews then no guilt ?
2 And hence is v-6SiKnr -u Oefj (Rom, iii. 19).
3 The German word Schuld gives at once the double aspect
of guilt : I. schuldig an etwas (retrospective) ; 2. schuldig
z?t etwas (prospective). — The expression in our English Bible
' guilty of death ' seems at first sight idiomatic ; but it was
taken from Wiclifs version, and is only a translation of the
Vulgate ' reus mortis.'
THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN 5^
his with all its pollution and degradation.^ A guilty
person, in the second place, is under an obligation to
suffer the just penalty attached to his sin ; he is ' in
danger of ' and obnoxious to (Ivoyoc) condign pun-
ishment.' ^ The guilt incurred may be greater or
less : but all guilt involves personal defilement,^ and
all guilt exposes to punishment.^ An offender not
1 It is important to emphasise the personal nature of guilt.
Nothing could be more unscriptural than (e.g.) the representa-
tion in Goethe's well-known lines in Wilhehn Meisier, where,
addressing the heavenly Powers, he says —
* Ihr fiihrt in's Leben uns hinein
Ihr lasst den Armen schuldig werden,
Dann iiberlasst ihr ihn der Pein :
Denn alle Schuld racht sich auf Erden.'
Guilt, questionless, avenges itself, at least to some extent*
even here on earth, but this guilt is of man's own causing :
6 Qeoq aireipaGToq hoTL Kaicuv, Treipd^et 6e avrbc ovdeva (Jam. i. 1 3).
Even a heathen could teach : alria eTio/nevov, Qedc avalriog.
2 See Bp. Pearson's comprehensive Note on evo^og {Creed^
Art. X. p. 362).
^ This is what the Schoolmen call the ' macula,' and our
own early divines the * blot ' or ' spot ' or ' stain ' of sin : see
Hooker, EccL Pol Bk. VI. ch. vi. 8. But, as Bp. Jeremy
Taylor has pointed out {Works, no\. iv. p. 247 f., Ed. Eden),
the Schoolmen are ver}' indefinite in their use of ' macula.'
* The distinction between ' reatus culpse ' and ' reatus
poenae ' is well given by Hollaz (quoted by Hase, Hutterus
Redivivtis, § 82) : ' Reatus culpae est obligatio qua homo,
propter actum legi morah difformem, sub macula quasi con-
5
56 THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN,
only forfeits innocence with all its blessings, but he
brings himself ujider a curse. And the effects of
See Gal. ^^^'^ curse he must bear. He has meshed
111. lo, 13. hijYiself with terrible consequences, and,
unless the mercy of Omnipotence release him, he
Prov V. niust for ever remain Jioldcu with the
^^' cords of his sin- For he has wronged and
insulted God, and he owes satisfaction to God's jus-
tice and holiness.^ And such satisfaction God never
fails to exact. And the exacting of it constitutes
II. The punishment of sin.
When a man sins he promises himself an aug-
mentation of life ; ^ but the result is a diminution
strictiis tenetur, ut ab illoactu peccatordetestabilis censeatur
Reatus poense est obligatio qua peccatora Deo, judice irato,
obstrictus tenetur ad sustinendam vindictam culpae non
remissae.' — In the marginal notes to Part II. of Baxter's
Catholick Theologie (London, 1675) are many discriminating
remarks on the confused use by Romanist writers of ' reatus
culpae ' and 'reatus pcenas.'
1 Hence h^tD^i (Luke vii. 41 ; xvi. 5 ff .) ; o^tLkhrjq (Matth.
xviii. 24; Luke xiii. 4) ; o^>aA?/ ^Matth. xviii. 'i^i)-^ o^tL7J]iiaTa
(Matth. vi. 12).
2 It is assumed that the maxim is true : voluntas in nihil
potest tendere nisi sub ratione boni.' This is not the place
to discuss the maxim.
THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN ^^
and deadening of life. For God blasts all life that
is sought out of Himself. God chases sin with
His vengeance through the universe/ so that what-
ever momentary or temporal advantages it may yield,
its sure end is destruction and misery P" It ^^^ jjj
is true indeed that God's 'goodness/ no less ^J ^om
than His ' severity,' is conspicuous in His ^^- 22.
treatment of sin. For by the punishment of sin (i)
God seeks to deter men from sin, that is from their
own ruin. By the punishment of sin (2) God brings
home to men the heinousness of sin, [jer. ii. 19.
makes them knoiv and see that it is an evil thing
and bitter to forsake the Lord their God. And by
the punishment of sin (3) God, in the case of his own
penitent people, augments life : He -drawls them
closer to Himself, and blessetJi tJieir latter jq^^ ^j-^
end more than the beginning. But though ^^^
this is so, though God's mercy is thus signally dis-
played in bringing good out of evil, we must not
1 His enei7iies He pursiieth with darkness. (Nahum i. 8).
2 <■ For whoso maketh God his adversary,
As for to werken any thing in contrary
Of His will, certes never shall he thrive,
Though that he multiply term of his live.'
Chaucer, The Chan. Yem. Tale, end.
5S THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN
lose sight of the great primary fact that God really
Rom. i. i8.] and fearfully punishes sin.^ The wrath of
God is revealed from heaven against all imgodliness
and tinrigJiteoits7iess of me7i. God, it is true, is
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abunda7it
Exod ^^^ goodness and triUh, but God is also all-
xxxiv. 6, 7. j^Qjy ^^^ all-just; Hq zvill by no means
clear the guilty. God suffers no violation of His law
to pass unpunished.^ And the punishment begins
Eph. V. 6.] instantaneously with the offence.^ The wrath
of God Cometh instantly ^if/^;/ the sons of disobedience,
John iii. ^^^ ^^ \oxig as they are impenitent,it abideth
3^- 071 them, troubling them and undoing them.
They may not recognize this wrath, nor even for a
while be conscious of its effects, but it is surely and
fatally operative. The worm has begun to gnaw, the
1 ' Le mal ne serait point mal s'il n'engendrait le malheur ;
et en livrant le pdchd au malheur Dieu ne fait que rendre un
objet k sa nature, le marquer de son vrai sceau, et dire que
le mal est 7nal.^ — Vinet, Nouveaux Discoiirs, p. 60.
2 TC> [9c(p] ael ^vvETrerai dUrj rcov aTroXei-ofiivuv rov Oetov v6juov
Ttficjpdg. — Plat. De Legg. iv. 716 A.
8 On John xv. 6, Hengstenberg says : ' Die beiden Aoriste
kfilfjdT] und f f^^pnv^'? weisen nachdriicklich warnend darauf hin,
dass mit der Schuld unmittelbar auch die Strafe gegeben
ist . . . Die das Gesetz Gottes brechende Seele its mit dem
THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN. ^g
cancer to spread, the fire to burn, and in due time the
full result shall be seen. Is not this laid -^^^^
up iji store with Me, and sealed up ^^^^^' 34' 35-
among My treasures'^ To me belongeth vejigeance
and recompense ; their foot shall slide in due time;
for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the
things that shall come upon them make haste.
And the effects of God's wrath, so far as the
sinner is concerned, are summed up in one word,
Death. The wages of sin is death. The ^
^ -^ Rom. 23.
soul that sinneth it shall die. Sin, when it Ezek.
xviii. 4.
is finished, bringeth forth death. As life Jam. i. 15.
and good are inseparably connected, so also are
death and evil.^ Whosoever commits evil cuts him-
self off from the source of life. He poisons his own
existence. He allies himself with, and subjects
himself unto, the Powers of destruction. What
those powers are, and how they operate, is only
dimly revealed to us. The realm of death is a
realm which mortal eye may not survey. God
alone can search it out. And God has job xxviii. 3.
Momente des Brechens selbst schon ausgerottet.' — Das
Evang. Joh. vol. iii. p. 83.
iSee Deut. xxx. 15, 19.
yo THE CONSEQUENTS OF SIN
seen fit to tell us little concerning it. Holy
Scripture, even when speaking most plainly on the
subject, seems, as it were, to hold back, to shadow
forth rather than to declare. Yet this at least we
I Cor. 15, know, that the death of which sin is ' the
56- sting,' and which punishes sin, is a death
which undoes both body and soul, a death which dis-
integrates more and more in man all that is good
and god-like, and which accumulates instead all that
is hateful and destructive ; and a death that con-
summates itself in irretrievable loss and ruin and
woe — in the second death.^
Ought we not then greatly to fear sin, and Xojlee
1 The designations of the Second Death are : 8.
the law had not said. Thou shalt not covet. But sin^
seizing the occasion, by means of the com^nandment
zvivught in me all maujier of coveting. In other
words : the divine prohibition gave occasion for my
evil nature to display itself ; it called forth and ex-
posed that innate corruption which is man's fatal
characteristic ; it shewed that man's natural de-
sires (kniOoiuui) are no longer natural, but vitiated and
go THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN.
T^ ••• perverted ; ^ shewed, in short, that themmd
7- of the flesh is enmity against God.
And of similar significance and efficacy was the
law generally. The law revealed to man ' the radi-
cal evil ' that was in him.^ It shewed him the cor-
ruption of his nature, and the exceeding sinfulness
of sin. It shewed him that there was a might within
hostile to the rule of God, and most tyrannous in its
operation. It shewed him that his will was so en-
Rom vii feebled and corrupted that though he
^^' might wish to do zvhat zvas good, evil was
present with him. More terrible fact still, the law
Sec Rom. made sin 'to abound : ' for it furnished some-
^' ^°' thing whereon it might fasten ; it fanned
into activity the slumbering sparks of evil. And thus
Rom. iv. ^^i<^ ^'^"^ worked wrath and death. And yet
15; vii. 13. ^^ i^.yAi was not with the law but with
1 Hence the expression emOvfiia kgk?} (Col. ii. 5); e-n-idv-
fiiai rrj^ aTrdrrjq (Eph. iv. 22) ; h nddet eTriOvfiiag (i Thes. iv.
5); Trddr/ dri/iiag (Rom, i. 26) ; TraOijiiara ribv dfiapricjv (Rom.
vii. 5).
- Kant's celebrated treatise Vom radicalen Boseit did
much, especially amongst his own countrymen, for ' the dis-
closure,' if not 'of sin,' yet of something very like it. Kant's
services to religion have not been sufficiently acknowledged.
THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN. gj
man. The law was spiritual, but man was Rom. viL
carnal, sold under sin. Man had so cor- Gen.vi.
12.
rupted his ways that the very commandmejity Rom. vii.
which was ordained to life, was found to
be unto death. And thus a fearful but needful de-
monstration was furnished to man of his ruined and
helpless condition by nature. The law proved con-
clusively that all flesh, i. e. all men in their ^^^ -.
natural condition, were out of the way, and ^°' ^"^ '2-
could not get back into the way ; that they had fallen
short of God's glory, and, left to them- Rom. 3.
selves, must for ever remain short of it.^ ^^*
And as God's ancient law proved and accom-
plished all this, so still more effectually does God's
present law. For the Christian also is under a
law : not being law-exempt {avofioq) to God, ' Cor. ix.
but law-bou7zd (h'^o/xoc) to Christ. And the
Christian's law reaches much further than that
ancient law.^ It includes all that was spiritual
and essential in the Mosaic law, and it superadds
requirements and obligations of its own. It gives
1 Cf. I Cor. i. 29 : ottw^ htj Kavxvf^riraL naca aap^ h^mov
avTov.
2 See for instance, Matth. v. 27 ff.
6
32 THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN.
a knowledge of sin such as the Jewish law did not,
and indeed could not, give. For the Jewish law was
necessarily provisional and preparatory, whereas our
John i. 9. law is final. The true Light, ivhich light en-
1 John i. 2. eth every man., hath come into the world.
John i. iS. The Life hath been manifested, and we
have seen it. The only-begotten Son, ivJio
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared God
to us, and declared us to ourselves.^ More espe-
cially has He shewn us — and that in a manner the
most affecting possible — the exceeding sinfulness
T Tim. iii. of sin By displaying to us tJie mystery
2 Thes. ii. of godliness He has enabled us to judge
7.
of tJie mystery of lawlessness. And He has
furnished us with a Rule of conscience at once the
most comprehensive and the most precise, a Rule
which is always intelligible and always applicable.
And yet it need not be said that not all Christ's
i ' Non seulement nous ne connaissons Dleu que par
Jesus-Christ, mais nous ne connaissons nous-memes que par
Jesus-Christ . . . Hors de Jesus-Christ nous ne savons ce
que c'est ni que notre vie, ni que notre mort, ni que Dieu,
ni que nous-memes. Ainsi sans TEcriture, qui n'a que
Jesus-Christ pour objet, nous ne connaissons rien, et ne voyons
qu'obscurite et confusion dans la nature de Dieu et dans la
propre nature.' — Pascal, Pensccs, vol. ii. p. 274 (Ed. Astie).
THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN. 83
disciples fully receive His testimony^ and regulate
themselves accordingly. No, now as for- john iii.
merly, not all they who are of Israel, are RomT ix.
Israel. Many tttrn away from Him who ^^y^ ^^jj
speaketh from heaven. They heed not the ^5-
admonitions which by His word and providence He
gives them. But this does not release them from
their solemn obligation. Whether they will [Ezek. ii. 5.
hear or whether they will forbear, they are still under
Christ's law ; they are answerable to Him for all they
do, and for all they are. And, when conscience
awakes, Christ's law is sure to assert itself. To
show how it asserts itself, and also how it embodies
and enforces all previous law, take an illustration :
A young man has been leading a selfish, heed-
less, immoral life. By some providential circum-
stance — by reading a book or hearing a sermon —
he is brought to see his doings as he has not seen
them before. He becomes uneasy and concerned.
Conscience more and more agitates him. He
earnestly asks himself, What have I to expect at
the hands of my offended God } He turns to the
Bible to see what it says, but especially what the
Lord Jesus Christ says. A new perception comes
84
THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN.
to him. He recognises the righteousness and
reasonableness of God's requirements, and his own
baseness and ingratitude. His sin appears to him
exceeding heinous and loathsome. He longs to
be rid of it, and reconciled to God, longs for
Ps. li. lo. a clean heart a7ida steadfast spirit within.
And so, the Spirit being gracious unto him, he
turns to God with full purpose of heart, he seeks
Acts xi. help from the sole Helper, he obtains re-
pentance u7ito life.
This example will explain to us how, now
as formerly, the law discloses sin, and is the
I Cor. XV. strength {pwajuz) of sin. It will also ex-
^ plain to us that searching of the Scrip-
tures which in all awakened men is so remarkable
a feature. The awakened man longs for certitude.
His enquiry is, 'When and how has God spoken ?'
No matter whether it be to the Jews or to any one
else, if he is persuaded that the voice is God's
voice, he listens eagerly to it. Now the Bible is
known to be God's book, and by consequence to be
authoritative.^ To it therefore does the anxious
^ * Quia scriptura Deum atictorcm habet, inde atque ideo
divinam ajictoritatem obtinet.' — Joh. Gerhard.
THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN. gc
enquirer turn. And he soon finds that, in dealing
with it, he is not dealing with a common book,
finds that the word of God is livijig, and
Heb. iv.
active y and sharper than any tzvo-edged 12.
sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit,
as well as of joints and marrow, and is a discernerof
the thoughts and intents of the heart. Thus does,
Holy Scripture make good its own authority ; thus
by the manifestation of the truth does it ^
-^ J J 2 Cor. IV.
commend itself to every mans conscience 2.
in the sight of God.
Nor is it enquirers and novices only who have
recourse to Scripture for light and guidance. God's
advanced and faithful servants do so as well, and do
so continually. They turn to Scripture /(?r 2 Tim. iiL
doctrine, for reproof, for correction., for ^ '
discipline in righteousness. And they find Scripture
ever efficacious. But especially efficacious is it in
disclosing sin under all disguises, in bring- j Cor. iv.
i7tg to light the hidden thittgs of darkfzess, ^'
and making manifest the counsels of the heart. The
world may oscillate in its opinions and judgments,
i t may call evil good, and the good evil ; may Is. v. 20.
//// darkness for light, and light for darkness ; may
36 THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN,
put bitter for szvcct, and sweet for bitter: but the en-
lightened conscience is not deceived. It knows
James iv. that One only is the Lawgiver and yudge}
Rom. xiv. "^"^^ that to Him every man standeth or
4- falleth. Hence *what hath the Lord
spoken .'*' is the believer's invariable demand. And
1 Cor. ii. having learnt the mind of the Lord, he
i6.
judges and acts accordingly. He applies
himself with his whole heai*t to keep God's
Ps. cxix. -^
2. testimonies. And those testimonies prove
Ps. xix. II. his constant safeguard. By them he is
taught, and by them warned and restrain-
Jamesi.2i. ^^^ jy^^ implanted ze'^r^— implanted by
the Holy Spirit — becomes emphatically to him
Phil. ii. i6. the word of life? It reveals to him his
2 Pet. iii. own sin, and it keeps him from being led
away with the error of the wicked (dLOiafxm).
Ps. cxix. II. Thy word do I treasure up in viy heart,
that I may not sin against Thee . . .
Ps. xvii. 4. By the word of Thy lips I have guarded
myself against the paths of the destroyer . . .
Ps. xxxvi.
I, An oracle concerning the sin of the un-
1 Ka\ KpiT-fis must without doubt be added to the Text. Rec.
2 Cf. AJ70S ^u)y (I Pet. i, 23) ; A6yia (ui>Ta (Acts vil. 38).
THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN.
87
godly is within my heart} . . . I will never forget
Thy precepts, for with them Thou hast Ps. cxix.93.
quick cited me.
And by following on in the way of obedience,
the true disciple attains to ever clearer insight and
ever enlarging freedom.^ The Truth, practised in
the love of it, progressively emancipates and en-
nobles him.^ The law's restraint gives place to the
law's security. That awful Power which confronts
every one in life, and which may not be evaded,
becomes the believer's strength and rejoicing.''
Having subordinated his will to God's will, he
1 Some, however, make the true rendering to be : an
oracle of transgression hath the tmgodly hi his heart. See
De Wette, Comm. iiber die Psalmen^ ad 1.
^ See Bp. Jer. Taylor's sermon on John vii. 17, headed Via
intelligeiiticE. Concerning this sermon Bp. Heber says : ' I
am not acquainted with any composition of human eloquence
which is more deeply imbued with the spirit of practical
hoHness, which more powerfully attracts the attention of men
from the subtilties of theology to the duties and charities of
religion, or which evinces a more lofty disdain of those trifling
subjects of dispute which then and since have divided the
Protestant churches.'
3 Cf. John viii. 31, 32 ; James i. 25.
4 ' Jenes Gesetz, das mit ehrnem Stab den Straubenden lenket,
Dir nicht gilt's : was du thust, was dir gefallt, ist Gesetz.'
Schiller, Der Genitis.
gg THE DISCLOSURE OF SIN.
Is xlviii enjoys perfect freedom ;^ his peace is as a
i8. river, his righteousness as the waves of
the sea. He attains to that blessed state where
* Love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.' 2
^ * No man is truly free but he that hath his will enlarged
to the extent of God's own will, by loving whatsoever God
loves, and nothing else. Such an one . . . enjoys a bound-
less liberty, and a boundless sweetness, according to his
boundless love. He enclaspeth the whole world within his
outstretched arms ; his soul is as wide as the whole universe,
as big 2,% yesterday, to-day^ and for ever.^ — Cud worth, vol.
iv. p. 347 (Ed. Birch).
2 Wordsworth, Ode to Duty.
LECTURE VI.
THE PROPITIATION FOR SIN,
Unum pro multis dabitur caput.
ViRG. ^71. V. 815.
Salve, caput cruentatum,
Totum spinis coronatum,
Conquassatum, vulneratum !
Bernardus.
What comfort by Him do we win,
Who made Himself the price of sin.
To make us heirs of glory !
Ben Jonson, U'?ide?"woods.
THE PROPITIATION FOR SIN.
[preached on GOOD FRIDAY.]
ginh '§t k i\^t i^xopimtmx for out sins; anb: not iax
Dux» oxxlyi, but uba for i^z sins of tlj£ toljok foorlb. —
I John ii. 2.
In Henry Martyn's Indian Journal (March 1807)
we read as follows: 'Talking to the Moonshee/^
he cut me to the very heart by his contemptuous
reflections on the Gospel ; saying that, after the
present generation was passed away, a race of fools
might perhaps arise, who would try to believe that
God could be a man, and man God, and who would
say that this was the word of God. ... It shows
God to be weak, if He is obliged to have a fellow.
God was not obliged to become incarnate : for if
we had all perished. He would not have suffered
That is, his Mahometan teacher of languages.
g2 THE PRO PIT! A TION FOR SIN.
loss. And as to pardon and the difficulty of it,
said he, I pardon my servant very easily, and there
is an end of it.' ^
It is the concluding remark of the Moonshee I
wish you particularly to notice : * I pardon my
servant very easily, and there is an end of it.'
This remark gives in a pithy form one of the
commonest objections to the Christian doctrine of
the Atonement. ' Men,' say the objectors (and
never were they more numerous or more confident
than at present), * men, or at all events good men,
find no difficulty in freely pardoning those who
have injured or offended them, and that without
having received any kind of satisfaction ; and shall
the Most High God be less gracious and less plac-
able than His creatures ? ' But let me give the very
words of one of the best known objectors.
' It would derogate,* says Faustus Socinus,
'from God's majesty and. benignity if it were a
necessity with Him either to punish our sins or to
receive satisfaction for them : for it would mani-
festly follow that God either could not or would not
^Sargent's Memoir of Henry Martyn^ p. 221 (Ed. 16).
THE PROPITIA TION FOR SIN. g^
forgive and freely condone our sins.' ^ And again :
'There is no man who cannot with perfect justice
condone and remit injuries which have been done
to him and debts which are due to him, without
having received any true satisfaction on account of
them. Hence then, unless we would concede to
God less than we concede to men themselves, we
must by all means admit that God can justly forgive
us our sins without having received any proper
satisfaction for them.' ^
Now in all such objections the assumption is
one and the same : viz. that as it is natural and
proper for men to forgive one another, therefore it
must be natural and proper for God also to forgive
sinning men. Or, to quote once more the Moon-
shee, ' I pardon my servant very easily, and there
is an end of it.' But let us ask ourselves : Why is
it proper— I say nothing now about ' natural ' — but
1 F. Socinus, Christ. Rel. brev. Institutio (Bibl. Fratrum
Polon. vol. i. p. 665).
2 Idem, PrcBlect. Theolog., cap. xvi. — The Racovian
Catechism, as might be supposed, is very full on this subject ;
and very bitter also. See Guericke, Christ. Symbolik, pp.
355-357 (Ed. 3).
g4 THE PROPITIA TION FOR SIN.
why is it proper — suitable — that men should forgive
their fellows ? The answer comes at once : Because
they themselves have need of forgiveness. In
James many things we all offend, and that both
consciously and unwittingly. We frequent-
ly injure our neighbor, and still more frequently
fall short in duty towards him. And because a;l
men thus offend, because the best of us never per-
fectly and undeviatingly perform all our obligations
to others, therefore it is proper, when others trans-
gress against us, that we should forgive them, more
particularly if they acknowledge their fault. But
does this apply to God .'' Is He frail and peccant
like ourselves } Does He need, and know that He
needs, forbearance at the hands of others } The
very thought is impious. Hence then the above-
mentioned comparison and inference fails in an
essential particular. It is assumed, audaciously
assumed, that God and man are one in nature and
circumstance : whereas God is all-holy, and man is
grievously corrupt ; God is all-sufficient, and man
is miserably helpless and dependent.
But further : is it true that men can always
forgive without more ado, whenever they choose to
THE PROPITIATION FOR SIN. q^
do so ? Can a father, for instance, always pass
over his child's transgression, even when he believes
the child to be sincerely penitent ? Does he not
often feel compelled to punish the child ? And
why ? For the child's own sake, and for the sake
of his other children, and for the sake of his own
authority. The father, on full consideration, deems
punishment to be necessary, deems that the omis-
sion of it would give rise to grave mischief ; and
therefore, notwithstanding the pain it causes him, he
inflicts it. And is it then so incredible that God,
the Father ofall^ should visit for sin ? that He ^pj^
should exact something more than an acknowl- ^^' ^'
edgment of regret, and even than genuine sorrow ?
Or take another illustration, that furnished by
civil government. Does civil government pardon
offences without more ado ? Does it not rather set
itself systematically to punish them ? Civil govern-
ment has to watch over the rights and well-being
of the many ; and when any one violates those rights
and injures that well-being, civil government pun-
ishes him, or does its best to punish him. And, as
we all know, some of its punishments are final as
regards the offender. For not only is he deprived
q5 the propitia tjon for sin.
of bodily freedom for the remainder of his days, but
he even has life ignominiously taken from him.
And is it then so incredible that God, the Governor
of the universe, the Governor not of men only but
of all created intelligences, should punish man for
sin ? Is it so inconceivable that the general interests
of His creatures, to say nothing of the maintenance
of His own authority, should require Him to mark
with His displeasure insulted and violated law ? ^
So that, even on general considerations, the
pardoning of sin is by no means the easy, matter-
of-course thing which some have assumed it to be.
But in truth we have thus far touched only the
1 'Though we ought to reason with all reverence whenever
we reason concerning the Divine conduct, yet it is clearly
contrary to all our notions of government, as well as to what
is, in fact, the general constitution of nature, to suppose that
doing well for the future should, in all cases, prevent all judi-
cial bad consequences of having done evil or all the punishment
annexed to disobedience . . . And though the efficacy of re-
pentance itself alone, to prevent what mankind had rendered
themselves obnoxious to, and recover what they had forfeited,
is now insisted upon in opposition to Christianity, yet by the
general prevalence of propitiatory sacrifices over the heathen
world, this notion of repentance alone being sufficient to ex-
piate guilt appears to be contrary to the general sense of man-
kind.' — Bp. Butler, Analogy^ part ii. ch. v.
THE PROPITIA TION FOR SIN. gy
outside of the matter. For we have left unheeded the
vital consideration that an offence committed against
man and an offence committed against God are two
utterly different things, two incommensurable things.
And it is precisely this consideration which the
objectors in question studiously and persistently
neglect. They use indiscriminately the terms ' for-
giveness' and ' to forgive/ as though it were one and
the same thing for a man to forgive his fellow and
for the infinite God to forgive man. In short, they
do not recognise, and will not be brought to recog-
nise, the awful significance of sin.^
And yet, surely, the very doings of men might
afford them instruction, might suggest to them
something of that unspeakable difference which they
choose to ignore. Does any earthly judge, for ex-
ample, take cognisance, or profess to take cognisance,
of sin as sin t Or does he imagine that he has ju-
risdiction over the heart and the conscience "i He
never dreams of such a thing. What he regards,
what he only can regard, are outward acts, and their
1 'Sin, as commonly understood, is a chimera. . . The
source of all superstition is the fear of having offended God, the
sense of something within ourselves which we call sin.' —
Froude, The Ne?nesis of Faith, pp. 90, 92. (Ed. 2.)
7
gg THE PROPITIA TION FOR SIN.
obvious or probable consequences. No doubt he
can occasionally give effect, at least partially, to his
own personal persuasion as to the amount of a pris-
oner's moral culpability : but in the first place, this
is to go beyond his proper province ; and, in the
second place, he cannot, with the best will, go far.
He is bound down by strict regulations. The Statute-
Book says, * When such offences are proved to have
been committed, such and such penalties are to be
inflicted.' And in assigning and ordering these
penalties, the legislature never thought of estimating
and punishing moral guilt : it thought only of the
injury done to society, and of the best means of
checking and deterring from it.
But how different when we turn from men to
God ; when we grasp the meaning, the very faintest
■meaning, of the word sin. God is not a man like
unto ourselves. ^ He is the perfection of all per-
fections : the all-holy, all-just, all-wise, all-glorious
Ruler of the universe. And we men are the work
of His hands, His rational, moral, responsible crea-
tures. It is true we no longer have that pristine
1 To whom will yc liken Me, or shall I be equal? saith the
Holy 0/ie.— {Is. xl. 25.)
THE PROPITIA TION FOR SIN. qq
excellence which was originally given us — and the
very fact that we have it not is an accusation against
us, as well as an aggravation of our position — yet
have we the knowledge of good and evil, and the
power, the awful power, of self-determination. For
us, therefore, thus constituted, thus dependent, thus
accountable, to set ourselves against God — to sin — is
a wholly different thing from man offending against
man. Nay, all that is really significant in any offence
of man against man is due solely to the guilt incurred
with respect to God.^ And the removal of guilt, of
any guilt, is so far from being an easy, matter-of-
course thing, that, looked at from without, it is the
most improbable of things, not to say an utterly im-
possible tiling.^ Even if revelation had told us noth-
ing concerning the nature of sin and the consequences
of sin, the natural question would still be that ancient
^ Against Thee only have I sinned, and done what is
evil in Thine eyes. — (Ps. li. 4.)
2 And such, in fact, has come to be the opinion of the
leaders of modern infidelity. Instead of reproaching Chris-
tianity, as was formerly done, for representing God as vindic-
tive and implacable, it is now the fashion to denounce Chris-
tianity for presuming to teach that there is any such thing as
the forgiveness of sin. And truly it is a great word which
the Christian Church puts into the mouth of her children : ' I
believe in the forgiveness of sins.'
lOO THE PROPITIATION FOR SIN.
one, If a man sin against the Lord, zvho shall in-
I Sam. ii. 25. treat for him f
But once more : supposing even that God had
been able, consistently with His own perfections
and the claims of His moral government, to pardon
man off-hand, what would have been gained by His
doing so ? What likelihood was there that the rela-
tionship between God and man would be improved
thereby ? that, in fact, man would be a gainer by
God's clemency ? No likelihood whatsoever. Man,
with his miserably corrupt nature, would soon have
relapsed into his old estate — if indeed he could ever
have left it. And thus the end of all would have
been that man's criminality would have been greater
than ever, because of his new abuse of mercy. No,
man's condition, so far as he himself was concerned,
was desperate. He owed ten thousand talents, and
See Matth. ^^^d not a farthing to pay. He was guilty
xviu. 24, 25. Qfieze-majesty against the King of heaven,
and every day added to his criminality, because
every day saw some new violation of duty, some
fresh act of defiance and iniquity. And conse-
quently wrath, and nothing but wrath, seemed to be
man's heritage for ever.
THE PROPITIA TION FOR SIN. j q j
Now from this terrible state it was — this state of
enmity, condemnation, and hopelessness — that Jesus
Christ, God's only-begotten Son, delivered man.
And He did so in a manner truly wonderful. Had
we not the plain assurances of Scripture on the
subject, we might well hesitate to believe any-
thing so extraordinary. Jesus Christ, the Scripture
teaches us, delivered man by putting Himself into
man's place, by performing man's obligations, and
by suffering for man's siru Having assumed human
nature in the womb of a Virgin, Jesus Christ lived,
obeyed, suffered, and died in man's stead and as
man's propitiation.^ And this He did in accordance
with the loving * will ' and ' purpose ' of His heav-
1 The three terms more particularly used for Christ's work
of atonement are aTroPirpwcff, i?Mafi6c, and Kara/Jiayrj. I. 'Atto-
Ivrpuaiq (redemptio) is the most general term, and points
specially to the ransom Qvrpov) which Christ paid for {vivep^
Trep/) men : the ransom being His own blood (i Pet. i. 19,
Ep. i. 7). — 2. 'I/lacr^oc (expiatio) points to the mystic oblation
which our 'Apxtepevg j^ieyar offered once for all, and which
availed lldaKeadaL rag dimpTta^ (Heh. ii. 1 7), yea availed e}g
aOhrjOLV dfiapriag (Heb. ix. 26). — 3. KaraAAay^ (reconciliatio)
indicates the result effected by Christ's sacrifice and media-
tion : the removal of the enmity between mankind and God
(Rom. v. 10), the establishment of peace sttI yfjq h avOp^noig
evdoKiag (Luke ii. 1 4).
J Q2 THE PROPITIA TION FOR SIN.
Heb X. enly Father, i God so loved the world that
5-10 ; Eph.
iii. II • etc. He gave His only-begotte7i So7i. . . that
16. 17 ' the world through Him might be saved.
And the Son so loved the world that He humbled
Phil. ii. 8. Himself and became obedient even nnto death,
yea death on the cross. And by this ineffable sacrifice,
this sacrifice made to God and coming from God,
the world's salvation and reconciliation
Rom V.
1°- were achieved. Being enemies, we were
7'cconciled to God through the death of His Son.
In short, sin, the sin of the whole world, was met
T3 and atoned for. Where sin aboimded,
Rom. V. - '
20. grace did beyond measure abound. God,
R m viii Sending His own Son in the likeness of
3- ^ tJie flesh of sin. aiid for si?t, condemned
2. Cor. V. ♦' -^ -^
21- sin in the flesh. God made him, zvho knew
7iot sin, [to be] sin for 7cs^ that zve might become the
right eonsfiess of God in Him. In a way to us
incomprehensible, the everlasting Son of the Father
took upon Him man's sin, and atoned for it ; through
"■ '■ C'est dans le coeur de Dieu meme qu'il faut chercher la
raison de ses misencordes, et les causes du salut. Le pre-
mier des dons de Dieu c'est son amour ; le premier don de
son amour au pecheur c'est son Fils.' — Quesnel, Reflexions
Morales, \o\. iv. p. 44 (Ed. 1727)-
THE PROPITIA TION FOR SIN. j 03
the eternal Spirit He ojfercd Himself zvith- ^^^b ix.
out fault to God ; and, being made perfect, Heb v. 9
He became the originator of etejiial salvation ttnto
all them that obey Him ; He obtained an j^^r .^
eternal redemption. And through Him, ^-•
and along with Him, His faithful people receive all
good things : from God He is made nnto them
wisdom, and rigliteoiisness, aiid sanctifica- ^ q^^ -^
tion, and redemption. 3°-
Such is the redemption that is in Christ ^^^ .-
yesus. Such the Gospel proclamation -4-
concerning reconciliation and the Reconciler, con-
cerning the removal of sin and the bringing in of
rierhteousness. Through this One is s*^^ ^^"^
° "^ ix. 24.
preached unto us forgiveness of sins. Acts xiii.
Through this One is offered unto us all 2 Pet. i. 3.
things that pertain nnto life and godliness, all things
needful for our present and eternal blessedness.
What we could learn nowhere else, we learn from
the sure word of testimony, yea from the Rev. 1. 5.
faithful Witness Himself, from the Apos- Heb, Hi. i.
tie and High Priest of our confession, the Victor
and Victim combined,i Who made His soul a guilt-
^ ' Pro nobis Tibi victor et victima, et ideo victor quia
104 THE PRO PI TI A TION FOR SIN.
offering ; ^ Who with His blood blotted 02tt the
Is. liii. lo. handivriting — the guilt-record — in force
° ' "' ^^' against its ; Who put away the curse by
bearing it, yea by Himself becoming it.^
And to this great sacrifice, this all-determining,
all-procuring sacrifice of the Son of God, our
thoughts are irresistibly drawn tc-:lay. Jesus Christ
Gal. iii. i.] is again evidently set fortJi crucified amongst
us. We are in spirit in the city of Jerusalem. We
see the mournful procession pass out of the gate of
the city ; see it halt at Calvary ; see the Holy One
nailed to the Cross ; see the cross with its awful
burden raised in the air. We gaze at the surround-
ing crowd : at the weeping women, at the callous
soldiers, at the malignant, exulting Jews. We be-
hold the consternation and horror of nature ; we
listen to the words of anguish that come from the
victima; pro nobis Tibi sacerdos et sacrificium, et ideo sa-
cerdos quia sacrificium.' — Aug. Confess, x. 43.
1 See on the passage Delitzsch's Comm. iiber Jes. p. 549
ff. (Ed. 2).
2 yev6uevog vTTsp T//iicjv Karapa (Gal. ifi. 1 3). ' Ouis auderet
sine blasphemire metu sic loqui, nisi apostolus pra^iret ? ' —
Bengel, Gnomon^ in 1.
THE PR OPITIA TION FOR SIN. j q .
Sufferer ; we shrink together as we see the spear
pierce His side ; we feel almost a relief when we
see the head bowed, and know that -all is finished.
But how do we regard these things ? Do we gaze
as we should gaze if one of the sons of men, some
exemplary, devoted man, were unjustly and cruelly
sacrificed by his enemies ? If we do, we profane
that scene at Calvary. For no other death may be
compared with that death, no other sufferings with
those sufferings, no other sacrifice with that sacri-
fice. For that death was a death of expiation and
atonement ; that sacrifice a sacrifice for See Dan.
sin; that Sufferer was 'cut off' not for J'^^pef'^i
Himself but for others. He suffered the ^^*
yust for the unjttst, He poured out his so7il unto
death, and was numbered amongst the [Is. liii. 12.
transgressors, while He bare the sin of many., and
interceded for the transgressors.
Till we believe this, we are, at best, but imper-
tinent spectators at the Crucifixion. We had bet-
ter pass on, and gaze at something else : at the
glory of the setting sun, or at some flower which is
gathering itself up for sleep. But if we do believe
this, believe that that death was for us, that tlie
1 06 THE PROFIT/ A TION FOR SIN.
eternal Son of God zuas wounded for our transgrcs-
Is. liil. 5, sions and bruised for our misdeeds, and
that tJie Lord laid on Him the iniqnity
of ns all : then, surely, our contemplation should
produce in us something more than sentiment, and
even than sorrow. It should produce in us a pro-
found dread of sin, and a profound hatred oi sni. It
should stir us up to a life of devotedness and love
to such a Friend, such a Saviour. The mystery of
Christ's sacrifice we shall never, on this side of the
grave, fathom. Perhaps even on the other side of
I Peter i. 12.] the grave we shall still be like the angels
who desire to look into these things But the cost
Cmnp. 2 of Christ's sacrifice, the graciousness of
Cor. viii. ^
9. His sacrifice, the marvellous love to man
which it displayed, these at least are in our appre-
hension, and these, if we are true disciples, will be
a perpetual check upon us,^ as well as a per-
petual incentive to action, and a perpetual theme
Rev. V. 12. of adoration and praise. Worthy is the
Lamb that zuas slain to reeeive the pozven
vv. 9, 10. cind riehes^ ajid zuisdom, and strength, and
1 II yap a^oTr;; rov Xpiorov owex^i w'l^ (2 Cor. v. 14).
THE PROPITIATION FOR SIN. jq^
honour, and glory, and blessing ! For Thou
didst redeem us to God by Thy blood . . . . and
didst make ns to our God a kingdom and
priests.
^y^r"*"^ ^MBP
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