CLAUSE VIII
The essence of sin is error against light and knowledge, and against our own higher nature. Vice is error against natural law. Crime is error against society. Sin against our own higher nature may be truly said to be against God, because it is against that purpose or destiny which by Divine arrangement is open to us, if only we will pursue and realise it.
Sin is a disease: the whole of existence is so bound together that disease in one part means pain throughout; the innocent may suffer with the guilty, and suffering may extend to the Highest. The healing influences of forgiveness, felt by the broken and the contrite heart, achieve spiritual reform though they remove no penalty. Every eddy of conduct, for good or ill, must have its definite consequence.
We have high authority for the statement that hard circumstances and disabilities, not of our own making, are mercifully taken into account; while privileges and advantages weigh heavily in the scale against us, if we prove unworthy:
“If ye were blind ye would have no sin;but now ye say We see, therefore your sin remaineth.”
“If ye were blind ye would have no sin;but now ye say We see, therefore your sin remaineth.”
“If ye were blind ye would have no sin;but now ye say We see, therefore your sin remaineth.”
“If ye were blind ye would have no sin;
but now ye say We see, therefore your sin remaineth.”
A man’s or woman’s nature may be so weakened and warped by miserable surroundings, that its strength is insufficient to cope with its environment. Pity, and a wish to help, are the feelings which such a state of things should arouse, together with an active determination to improve or remove the conditionswhich lead to such an untoward result. Most human failures are the result of bad social arrangements, and they constitute an indictment against human inertness and selfishness. It is a terrible responsibility to turn a human soul out of terrestrial life worse than when it entered that phase of existence. In so far as it accomplishes that, humanity is performing the function of a devil. Deterioration of others is usually achieved under the influence of some of the protean forms of social greed and selfishness.
Another reason why selfishness is spoken of as specially deadly, and even suicidal, depends upon certain regions of scientific inquiry not yet incorporated into orthodox science and therefore still to be regarded as speculative; it may be outlined as follows:—
Our present familiar methods of communicating with each other are such as speech, writing, and other conventional codes of signs more or less developed. It appears possible that a germ or nucleus of another, apparently immediate or directly psychical, method of communication may also exist; which has nothing to do with our known bodily organs, although its impressions are apprehended or interpreted by the receiver as if they were due to customary modes or forms of sensation. Whether that be so or not, it is certain that bodily neighbourhood and blood relationship confer opportunities for making friends which should be utilised to the utmost, and that friendship and affection are the most important things in life.
The intercourse with, and active assistance of, othersenlarges our own nature; and hereafter, when we have lost our bodily organs, it is probable that we shall be able to communicate only with those with whom we are connected by links of sympathy and affection.
A person who cuts himself off from all human intercourse and lives a miserly self-centred life, will ultimately, therefore, find himself alone in the universe; and, unless taken pity on and helped in a spirit of self-sacrifice, may as well be out of existence altogether. (A book calledCecilia de Noelemphasises this truth under the guise of a story.) That is why developed selfishness is spoken of as moral suicide: it is one of those evil things which truly assault and hurt the soul. It is a disintegrating and repelling agency. Love is the linking and uniting force in the spiritual universe, enabling it to cohere into a unity, in analogy with attractive forces in the material cosmos.
It has been necessary to dwell on the sin and pain and sorrow in the world, but the amount of good must be emphatically recognised too.
Our highest aspirations, and longings for something better, are a sign that better things exist. It is not given to the creature to exceed the Creator in imagination or in goodness; and the best and highest we can imagine shall be more than fulfilled by reality—in due time:—
“All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist:Not its semblance, but itself; ...When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.”
“All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist:Not its semblance, but itself; ...When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.”
“All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist:Not its semblance, but itself; ...When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.”
“All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist:
Not its semblance, but itself; ...
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.”