1. Spare thy people, O Lord: Joel ii. 17.
2. Crafts and assaults: The crafty enemy is one who cannot, or dare not, attack openly. Hence assaults imply greater strength, or greater courage, than crafts.
3. Of personal defects, Blindness of heart may be due at first to causes for which we are not responsible. Pride is that which is too well satisfied with itself: Vain-glory is that which seeks admiration from others; Hypocrisy is that which seeks admiration on false pretences.
Envy is the desire to injure, and grows into Hatred, which has perhaps a vestige of candour that is absent from Malice.
3 and 4. Deadly sin. All sin is deadly unless it is forgiven by God; on the other hand "after we have {163} received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and by the grace of God we may arise again, and amend our lives," "the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such" (Article xvi.). It should be remembered that our Lord has taught us to interpret the Commandments inclusively, so that they comprise all duties, and all sins—envy, hatred, and malice, as well as murder, for instance. The old distinction between deadly sins and venial sins has in it only an element of truth. Those named deadly sins were Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Anger, Sloth. Of these Pride, Lust, and Envy are mentioned here, being notable amongst sins which war against the Soul. Two phrases here include all sins: "all deadly sin," and, "the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil." It is not easy to decide whether such a sin as Idleness falls under the head of Covetousness, or Sloth, or Pride; nor whether it is a deceit of the World, the Flesh, or the Devil. These classifications do, however, help in self-examination, and sometimes suggest helps in the battle against our sins.
5. Plague, Pestilence, and Famine form a group in which we see that Famine is the most serious, because it attacks the whole community. Plague is a disease which befalls us as a blow (plege); Pestilence is a disease which spreads from one to another. Science tends to enlarge the host of pestilences, and diminish the number of death-blows which cannot be explained. It is apparent that a disease which spreads through a community is more dreadful than one which singles out one person or many.
{164}
battle, murder, and sudden death, are blows which may fall upon us; it is not prayer that we may be delivered from being soldiers, and from the crime of murder.
6. sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion: sedition is the thought; conspiracy, the plan; and rebellion, the action—of a subject against the Government.
false doctrine, heresy and schism: false doctrine is the thought; heresy, the plan; and schism, the action—of a Churchman against the Church, and its Lord.