Seven Deadly Sins!
Seven Deadly Sins!
Morgan Dix, 1888
1. General Introduction
2. Pride
3. Anger
4. Covetousness
5. Lust
6. Envy, Gluttony, Sloth
To all those who dread the power of sin and, by the grace of God, desire to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world — this little volume is affectionately written.
1. General Introduction
"Hear this, all you peoples; listen, all who live in this world, both low and high, rich and poor alike. My mouth will speak words of wisdom; the utterance from my heart will give understanding." Psalm 49:1-3
Many years have passed away since I preached on the subject of the Seven Deadly Sins . Requests have been repeatedly made that, at some convenient time, the subject would be resumed; and although it does not seem expedient to say over again, word by word, what was then said, nor to reproduce those instructions in their original form — yet there is no reason why we should not come back to the general theme, and keep it before us.
For of the urgent questions of the time, none are of such universal urgency as those concerning the sins of men. The shadow of sin lies as heavy on the earth as in former years; nor is there any life which is not, to some extent, overcast by that horrible cloud of sin. The misery which extorts complaints in every part of the land and from every grade of society — is the outcome of sin in some of its protean shapes. Trouble which, fourteen years ago, could merely be traced on the horizon, like a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand, and now fills the heavens with storm-signals and the gathering rack of the tempest — is distinctly the result of the sin of man against his fellow-man. Offences against morals which were then denounced, continue — and perhaps with less apology on the part of the offenders — and those ill-doers whom we then tried to restrain, have asserted their independence of our attempt at control, and exalt themselves, and smite us on the face!
The time will never come when this dreadful subject will be out of order, until God arises to judgment, and sinners shall be consumed out of the earth, and the ungodly shall come to an end. There is abundant reason why the Seven Deadly Sins should be brought before the congregation from time to time.
To begin with: The question meets us, What is sin? And that question must be put and answered, because, strange as it may sound, there are people in the world who declare that there is no such thing as sin. Evil, according to them, is not evil, but imperfect or incomplete good; and sin is "the shadow of moral excellence and goodness cast upon the ground." It is hard to conceive of the intellectual state of people who hold such opinions, or to imagine in what a confused maze they must be walking; still, there are men who teach that strange doctrine, who think that conscience is merely a bundle of prejudices , and seem unable to pronounce the word "sin," without an intonation expressive of contempt.
No doubt the common-sense of mankind is the sufficient defense against these wild speculations. When we are told of the house-breaker and midnight assassin, whom we see dashing out the brains of his victim and rifling his drawers — that the acts should not be regarded as sinful , but as incompletely good and worthy. Or when, as some profligate man accomplishes the ruin of a victim whom by force he has overpowered — we are informed that he has done no evil, but merely cast "the shadow of moral excellence" upon that blighted life — we know where to place, well up in the scale of fanatics, and possibly at the very top, the people who can so interpret crimes at which the moral sense revolts, and which the law justly pursues with avenging hand.
But there are many whom absurdities like this confuse and startle; wherefore it is well for us all to know what sin is , and what we mean when we use the word. We have a definition in the Apostle's language: "Sin is the transgression of the law." And the law here spoken of is that eternal law, whose seat is the bosom of God and whose voice is the harmony of the world.
God is, from eternity, the same — yesterday, and today, and forever. And God's will is like Himself, unchanging from age to age, and to ages of ages. And what we call the moral law is the expression of that eternal will of God, made known to us men as our rule and guide of action. Truth, purity, love; these are divine attributes, never-failing, never-varying. And the law — which is God's will and Himself expressed — requires in us love, purity, truth; no lying, no falsehood, no sensual passion, no impure thought, no anger, no envy or hatred. Whatever things are true, honest, and just, whatever things are pure, lovely, and of good report — these and the like are enjoined in the law.
Man was made in the image of God and in His likeness — the created nature was intended to be a reflection of the Divine nature. The soul of man ought to be in perfect harmony with the Spirit of God. The will of the Lord ought to be the law and rule of our existence. Now, sin is the transgression of that law. It is the revolt of man from the line marked out in his creation. It is the rebellion of man against the Sovereign ruler above him. It is the refusal to do God's will. It is the result of a change in us, whereby we abandon the true, the pure, the lovely — and follow after the unlovely, the impure, and the false. Sin is the deliberate choice of whatever things are false, dishonest, and unjust, of whatever things are unclean, unholy, and of evil report — it is the deviation from the path whereby we should have walked with God. That is sin.
And the conscience , while alive and sensitive . . .
will inform men of each instance in that transgression,
upbraid them with their folly,
and warn of just retribution.
The trouble with those people who deny the possibility of sinning is this: That they have lost the true idea of God; knowing not God, they know not His will. Their God is that "philosophic God" of whom one of our anarchists spoke last year — a God who never troubles Himself about us men, and has no will or wish concerning us one way or the other. The only law they know is the law of nature; and they say that so long as a man follows the natural law, or can show that in whatever he does, he obeys his natural instincts — he must be in the right. No wonder that the knowledge of sin is lost to men who have lost the knowledge of the Eternal God and of that perfect law which is the expression of His will. It is the just penalty on naturalistic speculation, that its votaries can no longer see the calm, clear heavens above them — but take their place, by preference, among the beasts that perish! Nor can men come to a more appalling state, than when they become a law unto themselves.
Perhaps I have dwelt too long upon this part of my subject; perhaps I have given to this stupendous folly more time than it deserved — for it is, it can be, none other than a fool that has said in his heart: "There is no such thing as sin!" Nero sat and played the fiddle while Rome was burning; and when the black pestilence was raging in Florence, a little knot of people were shut up in a villa outside the walls, passing their time in carousing and feasting, as if to forget the horrors around them. It will not do.
Sin is an awful fact — the most conspicuous, the most dreadful thing with which we have to deal! Sin is a plague in every heart — and a cancer in society! Herein is no change from one generation to another. The history of the human race in its present condition, began with an act of disobedience , with an infidelity, with the listening to a falsehood told to draw men off from God. That history was continued in a murder . It has gone on from violence to violence, with wars and fightings, in sorrow and tears. It is proceeding toward one last and overwhelming judgment on an apostate world!
The consciousness of sin, and the dread of having to atone for it, are the dominating ideas in the religions of the world. The rite of sacrifice, common to all, tells the story of the hopes and fears of the universal heart. The glorious Cross of Christ , upraised as an ensign to the nations, and irresistibly attracting men to it — denotes the presence of sin, its horrible ravages, and the incredible mode of its expiation.
This subject of sin is always before us in some shape or other. It is one in which every human being has a direct personal interest. It disturbs the order of the nations, and the peace of every individual. It is the cause of every grief, of every wrong, of every pain — lying back of these as their fountain and source.
There is question how long this fabric of the earth has stood; how old is the race which now occupies it; whether there were what they call pre-Adamic or pre-historic men. However these questions may be answered, they do not affect this subject. We can go back about six thousand years, and be sure that, so far at least, beings like ourselves have inhabited this planet. All that time this human race has been substantially what it is — always in trouble, always at war, always lifting hand and voice toward the God of Heaven in deprecation of His supernatural powers, always seeking a medicine for bodily and mental distress. The victim, or the willing slave, of some mortal malady, of some horrible demon, in consequence of which its history has been written, not in gold and mirthful, bright colors — but in darker hues, and, as it were, with pigments moistened with blood.
Look back to those six thousand years, see that dark procession of the forms of men, traveling on their hard road, coming up out of dimness, passing out into clear view, descending to their own place , and always and everywhere overhung by clouds; clouds condensed from the vapors of that heart which is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked."
Sin is not outside the man — it is within him. There is no eternal principle of evil ; nor is evil a real thing detachable from personal agency. But sin is just what the apostle says it is: The transgression of the law, by angel and archangel first, by man afterward. And the deep cloud which overhangs that long procession is cast, not by moral excellence and goodness — but by the transgressions of men rendered back a hundred-fold, a thousand-fold, into their guilty souls.
This, then, must be fully understood at the outset, that sin, whatever shape it takes, begins within the man himself. Every sin is at bottom selfishness — every sin can be traced straight back to self. Sin is, at the last analysis, self-will, self-reliance, self-love. Nothing but self-will, or self-esteem, or self-reliance could have led any created being to rebel against God, or to try to do without God. And, therefore, in that dreadful gallery through which we shall walk hand in hand, where horrible sights are encountered on either side, and revolting pictures displayed for inspection — the most painful reflection of all will be, that these are merely views of the interior of our own nature , and that nothing of this would ever have been seen among us, had not men begun by that fatal transgression of the law.
Some difficulty may be found in realizing, by general definition, what sin is — it is hard to comprehend it in the abstract . And while we linger over general definitions and abstract statements — the atheistic school gains opportunity to blind the eyes of others by their irrational denials and wild conceits. But come to sin in the concrete shape — and the time for trifling and playing with fire is at an end. Sin takes certain precise outlines; it comes into formal categories, not the product of scholastic subtlety — but sketched from the life. Looking about him, and considering attentively the works of men, the well-taught Christian has no difficulty in distinguishing the outlines of certain figures, which appear as leaders of men, as guides to their steps, as shepherding them after a woeful sort — like a flock fitted for destruction.
The Church tells us what sin is in the abstract. But she does not stop with that. She tells us, moreover, of Seven Deadly Sins . There is a vast variety in sins, but whatever their character or their magnitude, down to the least, they are all reducible, finally, to some one of seven forms of sin. We are now no longer dealing with generalities, but face to face with our foes. These Seven Deadly Sins are sin in concrete shape — these seven specters of the conscience — if conscience still acts. They are capable of being described, analyzed, and placed under the lens for inspection. We speak of these as Deadly Sins — they are also called Capital Sins, and Mortal Sins.
Capital Sins, because they affect the head and the life.
Mortal Sins, because their doom is death.
Deadly Sins, because their effect is to destroy both body and soul in Hell. And these, to name them at length, are as follows:
First of all, Pride;
then, Anger;
next, Covetousness;
then Lust, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth.
No wrong thing have you ever done, which could not be assigned to some one of those seven heads; not one of them but manifests your love of yourself, and your departure from the holy law of God.
Are you ready to enter this Chamber of Horrors? No collection in the museums, here or abroad, better deserved the name. We have before us nothing vague — no shadows, no illusions. We are among facts , as real, as striking, as any scientist could desire. Pride, anger, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, sloth — these words denote precisely what we encounter in . . .
the haughty scorners and free thinkers,
the hot-tempered and intractable,
the lovers of money,
the lascivious men and impure women,
the envious of others' prosperity,
the glutton and the sluggard.
There is no danger of mistaking any one of these sins, when seen in the man or woman of whom it has taken possession.
Pride has a decided look, and acts in an intelligible way.
Anger is no shadow of the fancy, but a condition which suggests the wisdom of protecting one's self from the storm, as best one may.
Impurity can be detected, in the eye and the features, by a nameless something which tells the loathsome secret, through any attempt at disguise.
As for these sins, it needs no moral theologian to tell us what they are and where is their abode. And they are as old as the human race, and in all ages exactly the same. They have not grown a day older these six thousand years, nor is their natural strength abated. They retain a shocking vigor and freshness as the human race multiplies.
Examples, to illustrate the subject, may be drawn as well from the old time before Christ, as from the recent times; and from the days before the flood — as suitably as from the year in which we now are living. There is a family likeness which no one could mistake.
The murderer of today reproduces the countenance of Cain, as if he were Cain's own child.
In the adulterers of today we see the same as those whom Jeremiah described as "They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor's wife!" Jeremiah 5:8
Now also have we among us, as in the days of Ahaz, men . . .
who join house to house, and lay field to field, until there is no room left for the poor to stand upon,
who oppress the hireling in his wages,
who follow strong drink until wine inflames them,
who set man against man, and class against class, in envious hate, separating those who should have lived in unity and brotherly love.
What has philosophy done to help a race thus beset by these seven deadly foes? Long , and weary , and vain have been its efforts to accomplish what nothing but the Cross and the Grace of our Lord can effect. The old philosophers tried to deal with these dreadful adversaries, employing arts dictated by an ever-waning hope — they failed, and miserably. In most cases they were taken prisoners themselves and added to the number of the victims. Then have the new philosophers followed, but with no better success; until they also have surrendered, and exhibit their confusion either by deciding to let the subject drop, or else by taking the ground, as we have already seen, that sin is not sin, and that Pride, and Anger, and Lust, and all the rest, are really virtues in a crude condition , which do no harm and need no repression.
Thus of old the philosophers talked on the subject and failed; and thus in our day their successors either cease to talk, or talk like fools, and fail as before; while the Seven Dire Shapes sit on their seats, and rule the people. Around them the arts may flourish; literature may be cultivated, and science may pursue her studies — yet progress of that kind works no change in those arbiters of our destiny. They inject their poison into the literature of the age, they fling into its arts their obscene corruption, they make the wise man blind, so that he can no longer see the God whom Nature reveals to the thoughtful soul.
Men grow in the knowledge of sin, much faster than in any other knowledge — to that knowledge, all other gives way. Were there no Divine Power at work to help us, these deadly sins would send the world back into barbarism. Were there no supernatural charm to exorcise these seven throned and crowned oppressors — we should see neither limit to their audacity nor bounds to their success. By brain-work and hand-work men might construct a temple fairer than that of Ephesus, as the monument of scientific, literary, and industrial advance; but before the capstone had been laid, these Furies, entering with their firebrands, would lay the structure in ashes.
Let us make no mistake on this subject. Whether the question is, how to meet and repress this overwhelming power of sin in the social order — or how to deal with it as a plague in each man's own heart, be sure that neither in art, nor in literary culture, nor in scientific attainment, is there the help that we need. Art may become the ministrant to lust, literature the medium of moral corruption, science the deceiver of the people.
There is no remedy against sin but in repentance, confession, and amendment of life; even these are in themselves of no avail, nay, rather are they impossible, until we come, in our penitence and contrition, unto Him who alone was without sin, who made the one and only atoning sacrifice and atonement for it, who alone is able to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. O! how utterly, how absolutely, in that sacred and saving presence — do human wisdom, and human power, and human effort — sink out of sight! Chastened, hopeful, and calm, men who have failed everywhere else go forth from God, strong in the word addressed to them: "Son, daughter, your sin is forgiven — your faith has saved you — go in peace, and sin no more."
My brethren, the voice of the Scriptures can neither flatter nor deceive. You know that this is an age of morbid sentiment, philanthropic gush, and dislike of hard and heavy things. To this false, weak spirit, our religion will make no concession. Sin is sin, whatever may be said to the contrary, and "the soul that sins, it shall die."
My introductory remarks on the dreadful theme chosen for reflection have had this for their design: To impress on you deeply a sense of the reality of sin, and the danger to which we are exposed, who were conceived and born in sin, and bear about in the body the mark and the fruits thereof. And in conclusion, let me repeat this, and dwell upon each adjective.
The seven sins — of Pride and Anger, of Lust and Sloth, of Gluttony, of Envy and of Covetousness, are called, in the vocabulary of the Church — Capital , Mortal , and Deadly .
They are Capital sins because they affect the head and the life; they make the whole head sick, and the whole heart faint. A capital crime is a crime of which the penalty is death. Capital punishment is that by which the life is taken as forfeit to the State. In those senses Pride and Lust and Envy, and the rest, are Capital Sins.
They are Mortal sins because they involve revolt from God's will and God's law. He who commits murder, and adultery, and theft, having his eyes open, and knowing what he does — is in Mortal Sin; for which there is no forgiveness to one who carries the load thereof, unrepentant, beyond the black line of the grave.
They are Deadly sins because their wages is death; and because they deaden the life of the spirit; and because he who walks in pride dies to humility, meekness, and the fear of God, and because, as the Scripture puts it terribly, "She who lives in pleasure, is dead while she lives."
Deadly, Mortal, Capital. With those three descriptive titles let them be branded, that men may know the peril of continuance in them, and, what it concerns us most to know, our need of the precious sacrifice of that Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!