(_a_) We are commanded by the Law of God.
(_b_) Our Consciences advise.
(_c_) We are commanded to do by those set in authority over us.
(_d_) We are required to do by the State, or social law.
(_a_) Now it must never be forgotten that our duties as Christians are
not merely _negative_, to abstain from this and not to do that, but
are _positive_, to advance the Kingdom of God, and work out our own
salvation. Our Lord, in the parable of the unprofitable servant who hid
his treasure, shews us this. We must try to discover what active work
in His Kingdom He has ordained for us to accomplish, and then do it
with all our might. No man has any right to live in idleness. He must
do something either for God, or for his fellow men.
(_b_) We must obey the promptings of our Conscience. If Conscience
urges, and we neglect to obey it, we are neglecting the voice of God.
(_c_) We are bound to obey and execute the commands of those set over
us, parents, guardians, masters. If in authority, and they require us
to do something, then we cannot omit doing what is ordered without
incurring sin; for all authority devolves from God, and we are
responsible to God for the way in which we fulfil our duties under
those set over us. We must obey _readily_, _cheerfully_, and _exactly_.
(_d_) We are members of the State, and to the laws of the State we
are morally bound to give obedience; all organizations, the family,
society, the State, are divine in origin, and we cannot revolt against
any one of these without lesion of the Spirit of Unity which makes all
society possible, and that is the Divine Spirit. It is only when a
social or a State law is clearly contrary to revealed Divine law, that
disobedience is permissible.
[Illustration]
Third Friday in Lent.
_SOURCES OF SIN._
1. We have now considered the Nature of Sin, and shewn that it is
essentially a revolt against God, either complete and conscious against
God Himself, or particular, against some commandment of God.
We will now see whence Sin arises.
There are _interior_ and _exterior_ sources of Sin.
2. We will take, first, the interior sources of Sin. These are
three--(_a_) Culpable ignorance; (_b_) Human fragility; (_c_) Malice.
3. _Culpable ignorance._ A man is guilty when he commits an act
which is sinful, or omits to fulfil a duty, not knowing that the act
is sinful, or that the duty is obligatory, through ignorance, but
through ignorance which is voluntary, because he has neglected to
learn what is his duty and what are the commandments of God, or else,
because having learnt, he has allowed his knowledge to lapse, and
he no longer keeps in mind what he once learnt; or else, because by
trifling with his conscience he has so confused it that it no longer
speaks distinctly and emphatically, telling him what to do and what to
avoid. Consequently, we are bound to use our best endeavours to learn
exactly what is the Will of God, and having learnt to keep in mind
what has been acquired, and so promptly, and without prevarication, to
obey our consciences that they may not become to us uncertain in their
utterances.
We may be, and we shall be, excused if we have sinned through
involuntary ignorance, but not if we have neglected the opportunities
placed in our way of learning our duty.
4. _Human frailty._ The weakness of our mortal nature is prone to let
us be drawn away into evil, either through--
(_a_) The violence of temptation; or
(_b_) The weakness of our resolution; or
(_c_) The force of bad habit; or
(_d_) The warmth and concupiscence of imagination.
5. _Temptation is strong._ Temptations are from without and from
within. It is necessary to recognize the fact that we are being tempted
in order that we may be prepared to resist. Half the sins fallen into
are committed before we have realized that we are in temptation.
Therefore we pray that we may not be led into temptation.
_Our resolutions are weak._ Some wills are much weaker than others.
Nothing can be a greater blessing than to have a strong will rightly
directed. A strong will perverted to evil is a great evil; but so
also, and only a little less so, is to have a feeble will devoid of
resolution. This is what most have, poor, crippled, infirm wills, and
we must strive after God's strengthening grace to brace and nerve
these limp wills, so that we may have the will to do after God's good
pleasure. Half the sins, indeed, more than half the sins, committed
are committed, not from deliberate wickedness of the will, but from
infirmity of the will, which has not the strength to stand against
temptation.
_The force of bad habits_ is very great. We say that habit becomes a
second nature. If we have allowed a bad habit to grow, it requires
great resolution and Divine grace to enable us to cast it off.
_The warmth of imagination_ which unfolds pictures before the mind
encouraging to evil. Imagination is a faculty that may be of great
service to us, but it is also one that may lead us into danger. Many
a sin is committed out of curiosity. It was curiosity that led to the
first transgression.
6. _Malice._ The sin committed out of malice is the most condemnable
of all, for it issues from a _will_ that is corrupted and resolved on
disobedience. In temptation, through our frailty that leads to fall,
the will is overcome; it may wish the good, but be powerless to take
the right course; but where the will is set determinately on evil,
there the sin is of the worst kind conceivable. This is the condition
of Satan, one of continuous and complete revolt against God out of
hatred of what is good.
[Illustration]
Third Saturday in Lent.
_TEMPTATIONS TO SIN._
1. There are three exterior sources whence temptation arises. As we
have seen, there are springs of temptation in our own selves, but we
are also subjected to temptation from without. There are, (_a_) The
Devil who seeks our destruction; (_b_) Created beings that seek to draw
us from God to make of them our ends; (_c_) The world that endeavours
to bring us down to obedience to its low tone of morality instead of
following the high course as indicated by revelation.
(_a_) The devil walketh about as a roaring lion, says S. Peter, seeking
whom he may devour. We do not know for certain the reasons why Satan so
diligently seeks man's destruction, but they are probably _jealousy_,
because man is created and called to occupy those places in Heaven
which he and his apostate host have lost through their rebellion.
They are filled with envy and spite against us, that we should attain
to eternal blessedness, whereas they have lost it, and are doomed to
eternal misery. Another cause is certainly _malice_, hatred against
God; Satan and his host know what God has designed for man, and know
what God has done for man, and because they have set their wills in
antagonism against God, they ever seek out of malignant hatred to mar
God's work and undo His ends. A thoroughly bad man takes a malicious
delight in making others as bad as himself, and the devils feel this
same inclination in a heightened degree. Another cause is the _pride_
of the evil spirits. They are in warfare against God, and they feel a
sense of triumph when they are able through man's free will to obtain
the fall and degradation of one of God's noblest creatures. It flatters
their pride to be able to gain something like a victory over God.
(_b_) Created beings endeavour to draw us from God, to fix our
ambitions, our affections, on them. Or rather it may be said that we
are tempted to forget our true end and aim, allured by the beauty and
attractiveness of the creatures of God, to set our hearts and minds on
them instead of on the Creator. We are surrounded by God's good things
of creation, but we must look up through nature to God Himself, not let
nature arrest our attention. So with human beings, we should love them
indeed, but not let love of them take off our hearts from the supreme
love of all, that should be given to God. We are guilty of loving the
creature above the Creator whenever we allow our love for men, or for
things of this world, to make us give up religious duties, cease to
care for things spiritual, and to engross our thoughts.
(_c_) The world endeavours to draw away our allegiance from God to it.
The world has formed its own moral code, an easy one, indulgent to our
corrupt nature, it glosses over faults, and permits laxity. It does
not enforce self-denial, but, on the other hand, encourages indulgence
and extravagance. A very great number of people take public opinion
as their rule of life, and so long as they conform their lives to
what society expects and demands, regard themselves as in the way of
salvation. Now the social code is well enough as far as it goes, but it
is not intended to be the supreme code. The law of God is that which
we must obey first, and that always points out to us a higher life, a
purer life, and an unselfish one, whereas the world insists on a life
which is selfish, and without any noble aims.
[Illustration]
Third Sunday in Lent.
_THE GENESIS OF SIN._
1. We will now consider the way in which Sin is engendered, and takes
upon it form and guilt. As already said, the knowledge of Sin is not
in itself sinful. Nor is the sensation of pleasure that arises on the
occurrence of a sinful suggestion necessarily so. Sin does not spring
into deadly reality till the will has given its consent.
2. The _intelligence_ proposes the evil thought to the will; it
counsels the will to agree to some sensible good, which it sees, to the
disobedience of a divine law, the existence of which it recognizes.
That is to say, we see that a course of action lies open to us, which,
as we admit is forbidden by God's law, yet this course of action will,
we feel assured, bring to us some great advantage. For instance, a
manufacturer sees how that, by the adulteration of his goods in a
certain manner, not liable to detection, he may be able to save himself
several thousand pounds, which sum he will net as a profit. Having
seen his opportunity, he either accepts it or he rejects it; he turns
the suggestion of his mind into a sin, or an occasion of victory over
temptation.
3. The _imagination_ represents in lively colours to the will the
charms, the delights of some action which the Conscience recognizes as
forbidden. Not only so, but the imagination exaggerates these charms,
these delights, so as to form a most alluring picture which the will
has a difficulty in rejecting.
4. _Ignorance_ conceals from the will the inherent evil of a course of
action proposed. A Conscience that is not keenly alert to duty, and
has not been disciplined in right, sees a course of conduct before it,
and sees that it will conduce to great advantage, but is too blunt or
gross to be able to distinguish any right or wrong in it. It acts in
obedience to the impulse to gain a promising temporal end, without
perception of the true nature of the act. This often happens. We do not
have our eyes opened to what we have done till after the thing is done,
and then, and then only, discover how wrongly we have acted.
5. _Bad habit_ encourages the will to consent to evil by recalling the
pleasure or advantages obtained by past yielding to temptation, and
invites it to a continuance. Moreover bad habit blunts Conscience,
and removes all sharpness of perception as to the right or wrong of
an act. Bad habits are easily acquired, and when once they get hold
of a man are eradicated with difficulty. Everyone therefore should be
watchful against the beginnings of a habit that may be bad, that is
not assuredly good, for what may be bad will in the long-run become
actually bad. Bad habit grows through carelessness, and a constant
watch against its rooting itself and ramifying must be maintained.
6. We have seen now how that the will is urged to consent to evil,
either through the intelligence advising it, or the imagination
alluring to it, or through ignorance, blinding to its nature, or
through bad habit, which has weakened the power of resistance in the
will. Now Sin only begins when the will has given consent. S. James
says, "Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and
enticed. Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and
sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (S. James i. 14, 15.)
First the _suggestion_ of Sin comes from the Intelligence, or from
the imagination. Then the _will consents_ to the suggestion. Sin is
then in conception. Then it is carried forth into _execution_. Sin is
accomplished. It has become a fatal fact. Lastly comes the judgment on
sin, the result that follows sin as a shadow follows a body--Death.
"The wages of sin are death." "By sin came death."
We must therefore keep a watchful guard over the thoughts and
imaginations, and let the will be under the absolute control of the
Conscience, so that it may not give consent to the evil suggestion. If
it has given consent, sin has begun to live; it may, however, again be
checked before it proceeds to act.
[Illustration]
Third Monday in Lent.
_ON ORIGINAL SIN._
1. The subject for meditation to-day shall be the nature and effects
of Original Sin, which is that Sin committed by our first parents,
and of which we inherit, _not the guilt of the act of Sin_, but the
_consequences of the act_.
God is just, and God would not condemn to everlasting death men because
their first parents had broken His commandment. But the consequences of
Adam's sin passed on all his descendants. By his disobedience he had
disturbed the Divine Order, lost his original innocence, introduced a
dislocation into his nature. We will now consider what the results of
that transgression were.
(_a_) It disturbed the direct relation of the soul to God. It obscured
its vision of God, and all certainty as to God's Nature and Will. This
we see from the history of mankind. We find that the vision of God by
the soul was so clouded that men fell into ignorance of God, and into
false conceptions relative to the Nature of God and the Will of God.
All the wanderings of the human mind in idolatries and mythologies are
the result of the loss of clear perception of God's Nature. Not only
so, but the mistakes men made relative to the law of God, so that they
did many things that were evil, believing them to be good, was the
result of the obscuration of the spiritual vision so that it could not
see what was the Will of God.
Again, all the errors and uncertainties into which men fell relative to
the future state was due to the clouding of the spiritual eye, so that
it could no longer see what was the Purpose of God relative to man.
(_b_) The intelligence was darkened. Adam and Eve saw what was
before them, Death the consequence of Transgression, but allowed
themselves to be confused by the pleadings of the serpent, disputing
the consequences. Ever since, a confusion of the intelligence as to
consequences resulting from acts has existed in men; a lack of sharp
and decisive vision as to the relation of effect to cause, as to the
relation of result to act.
The confusion and obfuscation of the intelligence is removed to a large
extent by education, but only by such education as broadens the mind. A
narrow, illiberal education may do much harm by throwing partial lights
which tend the rather to confuse.
(_c_) The weakening of the human will. The will is not only inherently
weakened by having given way to evil, but it is continuously weakened
by the uncertainty it is in how to decide, by the darkening of the
understanding, so that duties are not always clear, nor consequences
certain. The will to do what is right is by no means strong, since Adam
and Eve turned their will away from God; the human will has acquired a
bent that inclines it not always to follow the right.
(_d_) And the undue elevation of sensuality tends to deceive the will
and induce it to follow the appetites of the body instead of the
promptings of the understanding. Adam and Eve went against Reason when
they partook of the fruit of the tree to satisfy a carnal curiosity
and gratify an animal appetite. Ever since then carnal curiosity and
animal appetite have obtained a dominating power in man, composed of
body, soul, and mind, quite out of proportion to what was purposed.
This undue elevation of Sensuality leads man to seek the gratification
of those appetites he shares with the beasts, at the expense of his
intellectual and spiritual powers.
(_e_) One other result of the Fall affects man's body. God made man to
be healthy, strong and happy. By his turning away from God, the source
of life, strength and blessedness, he became liable to decay, sickness,
pain, sorrow, and death.
2. We see, then, that the fall of man has led to the disturbance of
man's nature, and it has left man in such a condition that of himself
he is unable to attain to the knowledge of God and His Will, and unable
to fulfil God's Will even when He knows it. Consequently he fell more
or less completely under the dominion of the Evil One, who prompted to
error, and to that of Sensuality, which promised happiness to man in
the pursuit of his inferior appetites.
[Illustration]
Third Tuesday in Lent.
_THE EVIDENCE FOR ORIGINAL SIN._
1. The existence of Original Sin in man is proved to us in the first
place by our very constitution. We have only to look into our own
selves to discern its presence. S. Paul, speaking of himself in his
condition under the law, says, "When we were in the flesh, the motions
of sin ... did work in our members." (Rom. vii. 5.) "That which I do,
I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that
do I.... To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is
good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil
which I would not, that I do.... I delight in the law of God after the
inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the
law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin that
is in my members." Who does not know this truth by experience? Who has
not felt the conflict; realized that there are different and opposing
elements in his nature? There is a mixture of dignity and meanness,
of nobility and baseness, of the knowledge of what is right and a
love of what is evil, in all men. They have but to look steadily into
themselves to see that it is so.
2. Scripture affirms the existence of Original Sin. "Man born of a
woman is of few days and full of trouble ... who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean? Not one." (Job xiv. 1, 4.) "Behold, I was
shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Ps. li.
5.) "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Rom. v. 12.)
3. The Church has always taught the existence of Original Sin, and
the Sacrament of Baptism, ever ministered, is a witness to this, for
Baptism is the means whereby men pass out of a condition of natural
incapacity to fulfil God's law into a state of grace in which they are
able to do those things God has commanded. The Sacrament of Baptism
was instituted as a corrective to Original Sin, to remedy the defects
produced in man by his filiation from Adam.
By nature--that nature degraded and corrupted through the fall--we can
do no good thing; but by Baptism we pass into the Kingdom of Grace,
and therein are enabled to stand, are strengthened, enlightened, and
cleansed.
4. Reason, moreover, assures us of the existence of Original Sin. In
the first place, we know that God is good, and we cannot understand
that a good God should have created man, the noblest of the works of
creation, to suffering and misery. We feel assured, if we recognize
God as good and loving to all His works, that He did not make man to
be what he is, full of infirmities, ignorances, narrownesses, liable
to suffering intensely acute, to continuous trouble, to decay, to
diseases most painful, distressful in every way, loathsome, and finally
to complete dissolution. Again, we have but to look at history, to
read the daily records of crime in the papers, to see that there is a
frightful amount of evil among men, and always has existed, and this
cannot proceed from a good God.
We must either deny the goodness of God, and say that man has
been created by a capricious Deity--a mixture of benevolence and
malevolence, of goodness and of evil--_or else_, we must allow that
God created men good, but that His purpose has been hindered, and
partially made ineffectual through the introduction into man's nature
of something that was alien to it at first. The introduction of this
alien element can only be attributable to man himself, who, having a
_free-will_, could turn away from the course ordained for Him by His
Creator, could deflect from the direct line, could bend from the way of
happiness to that of misery.
5. A state of Original Sin is not a condition of guilt for act done,
but a condition of impotency or partial impotency towards good;
and Baptism affords supernatural assistance towards the undoing of
those bad effects produced by the Fall, and transmitted through all
generations. It places man in such a condition that little by little
he can recover himself, and be restored to the original condition of
innocence, vigour, and vitality of the first man as he left the hands
of God.
[Illustration]
Fourth Wednesday in Lent.
_ACTUAL SIN._
1. Having seen what Original Sin is, we come now to Actual Sin.
Original Sin, we have seen, was a partial paralysis of man's better
nature, a confusion of his faculties, and a rendering him incapable of,
by himself, attaining a recovery. It is a passive state of inability
towards good, and of subjection to evil. Actual Sin is quite other--it
consists in sinning voluntarily.
Original Sin is a hereditary condition; Actual Sin is personal.
Original Sin is involuntary; Actual Sin is voluntary. Original Sin is a
state; Actual Sin is an act which throws us into a state of sin.
A guilty act carries with it guilt to the soul of him who commits the
act, but it may also entail a consequent state on others. For instance,
a father by his vices may so corrupt his blood that his children have
sickly constitutions. They inherit the _consequences_, but not the
_guilt_. This is analogous to Original Sin, the state we are in through
the fault of Adam. Or, again, a father may squander an ancestral
estate. His children are born in penury, and are incapable of ever
recovering what their father has lost. His is the guilt, theirs the
condition into which his act has thrown them.
2. Actual Sin is of various degrees of guilt; according to the state
of knowledge of him who commits it, or according to the heinousness
of the sin committed, or according to the amount of deliberation
and wilfulness with which it is committed. Where there is complete
ignorance of the nature of the act, so long as that ignorance is not
voluntary, there the guilt of the act is not mortal, though the act
itself may be a grave offence. So also the manner in which the will
gives its consent materially aggravates or lessens the guilt of a
sin. If the act be known beforehand to be forbidden, and yet the will
consents to it, it violates Conscience, and the guilt is grave; but
when a transgression is the result of unpremeditation, a surprise, and
the will has not had time given it to act, there the guilt is slight.
And once more, there is a difference in heinousness in sins. It is
wrong to strike another violently; it is worse to strike with purpose
so as to permanently injure.
3. Sin is a violation of the Commandments of God, and as such is
incited to either by the Devil, who is the enemy of God, or by the
carnal nature which desires its own ends regardless of what conduces to
the exaltation of the superior nature, or by the world, which desires
to lower the general moral tone of men to a vulgar and easy level. It
is therefore a dereliction from God's Law, a turning away from God's
Order, a choosing of what is either against His Will, or not wholly
in accordance with His Will. It is therefore always evil, and always
deserves punishment, and always leads to suffering.
God has set before man, as the end of his existence, the attainment
of perfect happiness, by complete though gradual recovery from the
effects of the Fall. Every sin is a slipping back into the condition
from which we ought to strive ever to escape, if it be not, what it is
in some cases, a going down into an even worse condition, by making our
original sinful condition an excuse for becoming actually sinful.
4. For the avoidance of sin we need supernatural aid, and this is
Divine Grace. By Baptism we are placed in the Spiritual Realm, in
which we are furnished with sufficient help to enable us to resist
all temptations, overcome all bad habits, discipline all inclinations
till they take the direction of good in place of evil, and obtain
a clear illumination of our intellect, so that we can see, and see
distinctly, what is God's Will for us. Moreover, we obtain the faculty
of judging proportions, and of estimating what is near and transitory
at its proper value, as also what is far off and enduring. Naturally we
over-estimate what is close before us and is temporal, and hardly see
at all and value what is far off and eternal, but by the gift of Divine
Grace our spiritual vision is enabled to judge distances and judge
values correctly.
[Illustration]
Fourth Thursday in Lent.
_THE CONDITIONS OF SIN._
1. Every sin is an act done by man endowed with free will, in the
exercise of his freedom, and with consciousness what he is about.
That is to say, certain conditions are requisite in order that an act
may be really sinful, and these conditions are, a knowledge of what
is proposed to be done, liberty to do it or to forbear, and the will
engaged to accomplish what is proposed.
2. _Knowledge._ An act is only culpable when he who commits it knows
what he is about, knows the character of his act, or has at all events
a strong suspicion that the act is contrary to the law of God. This is
what S. Paul repeatedly urges. "The law entered, that the offence might
abound." "The motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our
members, to bring forth fruit unto death." "I had not known sin, but by
the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt
not covet." "Without the law sin was dead." The measure of sinfulness
is largely the knowledge possessed by the doer of the deed. To such
an extent is this the case, that S. Paul supposes the case of one who
commits an act that is in itself harmless, but it becomes sin to him
because he thinks it is forbidden.
A corollary to this is that the degree to which an act is sinful
depends largely on the degree of our knowledge. For instance, to one
who knows that it is his duty to God to attend public worship every
Sunday it is sinful if he, without excuse, stays away; but the sin is
by no means as great to him who has never been taught his duty to God,
and thinks that going to Divine worship is optional, and is merely
for the sake of hearing a sermon, which very probably, and perhaps
reasonably, he thinks he can do without.
3. _Liberty._ An act is only culpable when the person who does the act
is free to do it, or to refrain from doing it. It is only when the will
is free that it can act so as to make what is done guilty or innocent.
Take the converse. A man may speak the truth, or give a large sum in
charity, because he is forced to do this, not because he wishes to do
it. He acts against his intention and desire. The act is good, but
there is no merit in what he has done, for it is done under constraint.
So it is possible that an act in itself wrong may be done under such
overwhelming compulsion that all exercise of freedom and determination
is impossible. If any freedom remains, if there be any chance of escape
from doing what we know to be wrong, then it is, to us, more or less
sinful, if we yield to force.
4. _Will._ This is the main faculty that determines the sinfulness
of an act. If we will to do an act which is a violation of a
commandment of God, or which may give occasion to the violation, then
the consequence is mortal sin. An act done by a child before it has
attained the use of its reason is not sinful, nor is an act done by
anyone without the exercise of the power of determination sinful. Thus
homicide is not murder. We may take what belongs to another person in
ignorance that it belongs to another, or also, without the wish of
defrauding another, and in either case the act is not sin.
The reason why eternal darkness and separation from God is possible to
devils and man is that the will may become so turned away from God, and
so diametrically opposed to Him, that the faintest stirring of a wish
to return to obedience is absent. If any lost spirit could at any time
repent, its salvation would be possible. Eternal death is due to the
fact that men may become so alienated from the life that is in them, so
full of hatred of good, that they cannot turn to God, and hereafter,
when they view the consequences, may still never _will_ the return, but
persevere in their rebellion and hatred of what is good.
It is consequently of the utmost importance that we should watch over
our wills, and strive to bring them to perfect conformity with the
Will of God, for in that alone lies our security, in that alone true
blessedness.
[Illustration]
Fourth Friday in Lent.
_CONDITIONS THAT DIMINISH GUILT._
1. We have seen that in order that sin may be deadly, it must have
been committed with knowledge of what was proposed, in the exercise of
liberty to act or not to act, and with deliberate determination of the
will.
Now it is obvious that the same act may be very much less guilty in one
man than in another according as these faculties exist in more or less
activity.
We will now consider some of the more simple extenuating causes that
may make a sin really to be--to the soul of him who has committed it--a
fault only.
(_a_) _Excusable ignorance._ As has been pointed out, a man is only
guilty of mortal sin, when he is ignorant that the act is forbidden.
S. Paul says, "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish
without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by
the law." And our Lord Himself, "That servant which knew his Lord's
will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will,
shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did commit
things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto
whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom
men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." (Luke xiii.
47, 48.) But the ignorance must be excusable, that is to say, he who is
in ignorance must not be in _wilful_ ignorance.
(_b_) _Fear._ In certain circumstances the mind may be in such a state
of alarm and disturbance that its power of judgment is paralyzed, and
the will is overborne by the fear which has become dominant. It is said
of those who are out of their minds that they are not accountable for
their actions, and there are cases in which terror is so acute, and so
overmastering, that a man or woman ceases to be morally responsible for
what he or she does.
(_c_) _Compulsion._ As already shewn, liberty is essential to qualify
an act as either culpable or not culpable to the person who is the
agent. An act may be in itself wrong, but the guilt entailed on the
soul of him who does it depends on whether he be a free agent or not.
For instance, it often happened that a martyr was forced to offer
incense to idols. The grains were thrust into his hand, and the hand
was extended by violence over the fire of the altar. But as the soul of
the martyr never yielded consent, no guilt of apostasy attached to it.
(_d_) _Inadvertence_, or excusable want of attention. It does often
happen that a wrong act is done before we really know what we are
about. It is done without premeditation. We are of course bound to be
ever on our guard against temptation; but that sin into which we have
fallen _unintentionally_ does not carry with it the same guilt to the
soul as if it had been done with deliberation. "Be not high-minded, but
fear," says the Apostle. The Evil One is ever on the watch to entrap
us when unprepared into sin. And though a sin committed inadvertently
may not be mortally sinful, yet it may, and probably will, carry with
it the temporal consequences just the same as if it had been committed
deliberately. "Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation." S. Peter
denied his Master partly through fear, partly through inadvertence,
he was caught off his guard. We stand often without any sight of or
suspicion of the temptation on the brink of which we are, and with
a touch we are over. As we are repeatedly warned to caution and
watchfulness, such inadvertence does not wholly excuse us. We are
_bound_ to be ever prepared, nevertheless the nature of man is weak and
frail.
2. Let no man seek to excuse himself for his sins. The remarks made
are calculated to comfort the distressed and agonized soul that
finds itself fallen into sin, which it hates, and is not intended to
encourage a comfortable assurance of peace when there is no peace, and
to engage to lack of watchfulness, and want of contrition.
[Illustration]
Fourth Saturday in Lent.
_CONDITIONS THAT AGGRAVATE GUILT._
As there are certain conditions that remove the gravity of guilt
attaching to mortal sin, so, on the other hand, are there certain
conditions that aggravate the culpability of an act against God's will,
conditions that may cause a sin, not in itself heinous, to become
deadly in its consequences to the soul. These conditions shall now
be taken into consideration. They are four, just as there were four
conditions that lessened guilt.