A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

By “deadly sin” in this Article we are not to understand such sins as, in the Church of Rome, are called “mortal,” in opposition to others that are “venial:” as if some sins, though offences against God, and violations of his law, could be of their own nature such slight things, that they deserved only temporal punishment, and were to be expiated by some piece of penance or devotion, or the communication of the merits of others. The Scripture nowhere teaches us to think so slightly of the majesty of God, or of his law. There is a “curse” upon every one “that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. iii. 10); and the same curse must have been on us all, if Christ had not redeemed us from it: “the wages of sin is death.” And St. James asserts, that there is such a complication of all the precepts of the law of God, both with one another, and with the authority of the Lawgiver, that “he who offends in one point is guilty of all.” (James ii. 10, 11.) So since God has in his word given us such dreadful apprehensions of his wrath, and of the guilt of sin, we dare not soften these to a degree below the majesty of the eternal God, and the dignity of his most holy laws. But after all, we are far from the conceit of the Stoics, who made all sins alike. We acknowledge that some sins of ignorance and infirmity may consist with a state of grace; which is either quite destroyed, or at least much eclipsed and clouded, by other sins, that are more heinous in their nature, and more deliberately gone about. It is in this sense that the word “deadly sin” is to be understood in the Article; for though in the strictness of justice every sin is “deadly,” yet in the dispensation of the gospel those sins only are “deadly” that do deeply wound the conscience, and that drive away grace.—Bp. Burnet.

Every sin is in its nature deadly, since “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. vi. 23): and every sin is committed against the Holy Ghost, as well as against the Father and the Son; but still pardonable, if it be not that sin which is emphatically styled “the sin against the Holy Ghost;” and that is “blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.” (Matt. xii. 31, 32; Mark iii. 28–30.) Of which sin St. Jerome says, that “they only are guilty, who, though in miracles they see the very work of God, yet slander them, and say that they are done by the devil; and ascribe to the operation of that evil spirit, and not to the Divine power, all those mighty signs and wonders which were wrought for the confirmation of the gospel.” In relation to all other sins, we are, as Clement of Rome observes, “to fix our eyes on the blood of Christ, which was shed for our salvation, and hath obtained the grace of repentance for the whole world.”—Archdeacon Welchman.

And “the doors,” says Clement of Alexandria, “are open to every one, who in truth, and with his whole heart, returns to God; and the Father most willingly receives a son who truly repents.” This is the general tenor of Scripture, in which all men are invited to repentance without any discrimination or exception. And we are told, even under the Mosaic dispensation, that “though our sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah i. 18.) And the exhortations to amendment and reformation, contained in the Epistles, are all addressed to persons who had been already baptized, and who had been guilty of faults or sins subsequent to their baptism.—Bp. Tomline.

The Church of Rome, in order to establish its dangerous doctrine of the merit of good works, which is equally opposed to Scripture and to fact, divides sin into two classes: mortal sin, that sin which is in its nature gross, and is committed knowingly, wilfully, deliberately; and venial sin, under which head are classed all sins of ignorance and negligence, and such as are considered small in their nature.

It is difficult to distinguish, in some instances, between mortal sins and venial sins. But they form two distinct classes of sin, differing not merely in degree, but in genus or kind.

Mortal sins render the transgressors children of wrath and enemies of God; but it is in regard to venial sins that the error or heresy is propounded. It is stated that in this mortal life even holy and justified persons fall into daily venial sins, which, nevertheless, do not in any way affect or detract from their holy character, “and which do not exclude the transgressor from the grace of God.”

It is here to be observed that we do not deny that a distinction is to be made between sins of greater or less enormity. But the error of the Romanist is this—that he makes the two classes of sin to differ not only in enormity and degree, which we admit to be the case, but also in their nature and kind. No amount of venial sins, according to Bellarmine, would ever make a mortal sin.

We also make a distinction of sins: we call some sins deadly, and others infirmities; we consider the commission of some sins as not inconsistent with a state of grace, whereas by others the Holy Spirit may be grieved, done despite unto, and quenched, so that the sinner shall be spiritually dead: he shall die a second death.

But here is the difference between us and the Romanists: although we speak of some sins as of less, and of others as of greater enormity, we consider every sin to be in its nature mortal; that by many little sins a man may be damned, even as a ship may be sunk by a weight of sand as well as by a weight of lead; and that they are not damnable to us, only from the constant intercession of Christ. Whereas negligences and ignorances, and sins of lesser enormity, are by the Romanists not regarded as sins at all, in the proper sense of the word.

Hence we are for ever relying directly upon Christ for pardon and for mercy, while they rely upon their own merits. They appeal to the justice of God; we, knowing that by his justice we must be condemned, confide in his mercy. They say that venial sin is not in itself mortal; we regard all sin as mortal in itself, but rejoice to know that “if any man sin” (any man in a state of justification, and, on that account, not sinning habitually and wilfully) “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.”