Forbes on Article XVI: Of Sin after Baptism

of the Sacred Palace under Eugenius IV., to make a report on a subject so fiercely contested among theo logians. Afterwards, Turrecreinata retiring with the more moderate party of the Council, the Council put forth a decree in every sense in accordance with the opinion of the University of Paris ; and, although at this time, being in opposition to Pope Eugenius, it was held to be a schismatical Council, its decree was, by many, (e.g. Gabriel Biel,) accounted to be the voice of the Church. The Council of Trent contented itself with asserting that it had no intention of including the Blessed Virgin Mary in its decree on original sin, and renewed the bulls published on the subject by Sixtus IV. Efforts were from time to time made both by the Franciscan Order, and by the kings of Spain, Philip III. under Paul V., and Philip IV. under Gre gory XV., to have the doctrine declared to be dogma ; but it was reserved for Pius IX. on Dec. 8, 1854, by the Bull IneffabiUx, to do what he could in this respect. Whether the interests of Christianity have gained by the increase of honour which hereby accrues to the Holy Virgin, and by the additional prominence given to the idea of the Suprasensual in the mystery of re demption, or have lost by the divorce in sentiment be tween the past and present Church, by the dissidence between the Old Traditional Faith and the Developed Sentiment of the Living Church, is a question which suggests the gravest consideration, and excites the deepest anxiety.

NON omnc pcccatum mortale post Baptismum rohmtarie pcrpctratum, cst pcccatum in Spiritum Sanctum, ct irrc- missibUe. Proindc lapsis a Baptismo in pcccata, locus pcenitentm non est negandus. Post acceptum Spiritum Sanctum possum-its a gratia data reccdere, atquc pcc- carc, denuoquc per gratiam Dei resurgcrc, ac rcxipis- ccre ; idcoquc illl damnandi sunf, qid sc quamdiu, hie vivant, amplius non posse peccare qffirnuint, aut resipisccntibus ‘Venice locum dcnegant.

” Of Sin after Baptism.

every deadly sin willingly committed after baptism is sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardon able. Wherefore the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after baptism. After we have 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. And there fore they are to be condemned which say, they can no- more sin as long as they live here, or deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent/’

ONE heavy impenetrable cloud hangs over the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. One appalling thought there is bayond all others terrible, which, re-

vealed to us in mercy, yet blanches the cheek and ter rifies the soul. It is that in the order of God’s pro vidence there is one sin, for which the Eternal Son, the Redeemer of all men, has declared there is no re mission : ” Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of” sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall, not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come a.” What that sin is, has never yet been declared by authority. Some have thought that it was the imputation of a diabolic origin to the mira des of our Lord, though one cannot see how that can be the sin, for the Spirit was not yet given. Others have held that it is final impenitency, but it is left in a terrible suspense that men may fear the judg ment of God.

There is another very awful text in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when the author uses the expression that it “is impossible,” i.e. impossible for man, though possible for God, (as we see from the use avaicaivi^eiv, rather ava/caLVL^ecrdai,) ” to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened (been baptized), and have tasted of the heavenly gift (of the Holy Eucharist), and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost (in confirmation), and have tasted the good Word of God (the Holy Scripture), and the powers of the world to come,” ” seeing that they a St. Matt. xii. 31.

crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.” This passage, which is com monly interpreted of the exceeding great difficulty of a return after an open apostacy from God, has its special importance in these days, when men think so lightly of loss of faith ; when they tamper with doubts and bad books, and imagine themselves none the worse for intellectual sins. It is no carnal sin that is here alluded to ; it is not avarice, nor ambition, nor envy. It is the loss of faith, which being not only a divinely infused gift, but a moral habit, follows the laws of all moral habits, and shall be judged accordingly.

On these two texts, Novatian of Home, urged on by Novatus of Carthage, established his false system. He maintained that ” after baptism, there is no room for penitence; that the Church cannot pardon mortal sin further ; that she herself perishes by the very receiv ing of sinners V He denied the commission of the priesthood to pardon and absolve, the right use of ecclesiastical discipline, and the power of the keys. Nay, he went so far as to say that those who had fallen into apostacy, had no more hope of salvation, and could not be restored, even after penance c. The occasion of the separation of the Novatians from the Church was that they would not communicate with those who had fallen in the Decian persecution. In all other respects they held the true doctrine, though they mocked at the martyrs, and re-baptized those

b S. Pac. Ep. iii.

c Tillernoiit, 31c mo ires pour Servir, &c., vol. iii. p. 472.

who joined their sect. It is probable that the author of the Phiic&opkumena was of this school, and the Church historian Socrates shews great sympathy for it. Their orders were recognised in the sense that their bishops on being reconciled were received as bishops. They died out in the seventh century. The last mention of them as existent is about the year A.I). 672.

But at the Reformation the same texts suggested another phase of error. One extreme form of Calvin ism was that the saints can never fall away. The doc trine of final perseverance, coupled with the doctrine of a capricious election, necessarily resulted in this; and although many good people merely found in a specu lative view of this kind a sense of comforting assurance, it cannot be doubted that, in the case of some of the fierce sectaries in Germany, Holland, and England, during the Commonwealth, the most fearful excesses were committed under the cloak of this dangerous error. We all know that it was the anodyne which soothed the perturbed deathbed of Oliver Cromwell.

Now, for the sake of correctness, the first step is to define what sin is ; secondly, to describe its effect ; thirdly, to illustrate its relation to Baptism ; and lastly, to dwell upon sin committed after Baptism.

1. Sin is variously defined as ” an act, deviating from what is ordered for the end of man, contrary to the rule of nature, or of reason, or of eternal lawd:” or negatively, it is ” every defect in action which implies

d S. Thos. lma. qu. 63, 1.

violation of order ;” ” it is the death of the soul by the withdrawal of grace ; it is to fall away from good, and therefore every defect in duty is of the nature of sin ; it is to neglect the next world for this ; it is anything said, done, or desired against the eternal law ; it is the breaking of the law of God ; the will to retain or to* follow what justice forbids.”

It is contrary to the nature of the human mind in its integrity, but according to the nature of the human mind in its fall. It is twofold, that of omission and that of commission ; which last is subdivided into sin of thought, of word, and of deed.

2. Next, as to the effect of sin. The soul of man, turning away from its eternal, uncreated, and incom mutable good, converting itself and cleaving to tem poral, created, and commutable goods, loses a twofold lustre, which it formerly possessed. One, the refulgence of the natural light of reason ; the other, the refulgence of the supernatural light of the Divine wisdom and grace. This loss of lustre is the macula aninice, the stain of the soul; and it remains in the soul till by a re trogressive motion of the will the man returns to the light of reason and the Divine law, which he does by grace. In the case of mortal sin, by a fresh infusion of habitual grace ; and in the case of venial sin, which, however, does not really stain the soul, by any act of that habitual grace which it has not destroyed.

The act of aversion from the Creator, an inordinate conversion to the creature, constitutes the culpa peccati, the guilt of sin : mortal, if aversion ; venial, if conversion.

The punishment of sin, pcena peccati, is proportioned to both. The punishment of a mortal sin, that sin as an aversion from the Infinite and Eternal, being itself also infinite, must be infinite and eternal. The punish ment of a venial sin, that sin being but an inordinate conversion to the temporal and finite, and so itself tem poral and finite, requires to be but temporal and finite. The act of guilt may have passed away, the lustre of the soul may have been renewed, and so its stain re moved, and j^et the liability to punishment may re main to restore the balance and satisfy the demands of justice.

Venial and original sin are visited, the one with the pain of sense, pcena sensus, the other with the pain of loss, pcena damni ; mortal sin with both.

Punishment must be — 1. contrary to the will; 2. afflictive ; 3. inflicted by reason of guilt. And it may be 1. satisfactory ; 2. remedial ; or, 3. simply penal e.

It has ever been held that the Sacrament of Baptism is the specially ordained rite whereby the grace of God, working in the power of the Passion of our Lord, de stroys and takes away all sins, past and present. It removes in all, equally the entire guilt of sin, and all necessity of future penitence. The baptized person is wholly a new creature in Christ Jesus. It also acts as a check upon future sin in the way of preven tion f. Baptism is principally ordained as a remedy against original sin s. It at once takes away its penal-

e S. Thomas, 1™. 2d:0. qu. 8G. f 3 p. q. 67, 3 c. q. 68, 2, 2. in. 3, 3. * 3 q. 66, 9, c.f.

‘2’36 ARTICLE XVI.

ties and its infection so far as the individual is con cerned, but not so far as the nature is concerned, save only in the end h. It cleanses the flesh from all pollu tion, contracted so far as regards the individual, but not so far as regards the nature. By it the stains of sin, culpa, are washed out, the fire of its incentive miti gated by grace ; but this fire is not wholly quenched in the present life. Baptism absolves us from all pe nalty, so far as that penalty is inflicted by God, but it does not take away penalty so far as inflicted by man.

3. The fall from the supernatural state, the return to sin after this complete cleansing, the re-engagement in the service of the powers of darkness, the deliberate choice of the will in opposition to the will of God, the ingratitude to the best and kindest of Fathers, who has translated us out of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son, is surely very grievous. Of necessity the sins of Christians, being sins against grace and light, are infinitely more heinous than those of the heathen. Grace done despite to, conscience violated, the deliberate choice of evil rather than God’s law, are bound up in the idea of post-baptismal sin.

So strongly was this felt in the fourth and fifth cen turies, that men were apt to put off their baptism until the hour of death. There are various canons to pre vent this vicious practice. All this illustrates how deeply the thought of the danger of violating the bap tismal obligations had penetrated into the conscious ness of the Christian community.

h 1,2. q. Art. 5, 81, 32.

But here there was danger of running into excess. Several of the early heresies erred in the direction of over-strictness ; especially the Novatians, against whom this Article is primarily directed. To doubt the grace and mercy of God is most unpleasing to Him. The very Gospel, by its terms, is a Gospel of reconciliation and forgiveness. God is ever more ready to hear than we to pray, and is wont to give more than either we desire or deserve. The freest, the fullest forgiveness is held forth to us for the sake of the Death and Passion of our Lord and only Saviour Jesus Christ, and there is no sin that we can now commit which, if sincerely repented, can resist the effect of His atoning Blood. Therefore, while the Church would seek to deepen within us the sense of the malignity of the deliberate sins of Christians, she assures us that “not every deadly sin committed after Baptism is unpardonable, or sin against the Holy Ghost.”

Besides this statement of doctrine, we may observe certain corollaries from the structure and doctrine of the Article. 1. The expression ‘deadly sin’ implies the distinction between deadly and venial sin, with all the consequences of that distinction. 2. The very denial that sin after baptism is the sin against the Holy Ghost, refutes the notions of those who would reduce the Sacrament of Baptism to a mere admis sion into the visible Church. Were it such, no per- son could ever have supposed post-baptismal sin to be so terrible. The heinous-ness ~o£ its dishonour, is the measure of the greatness of its efficacy. That

must be a very high state of grace indeed, which could involve such a result from its violation. 3. Ob serve the metonymy. After speaking of the fall after baptism in the negative form, — the grant of repent ance is not to be denied to those who fall after bap tism, — the same proposition is enumerated positively, and in so doing, baptism is said to be ” receiving the Holy Ghost.” In the Article, “receiving the Holy Ghost” is equivalent to “being baptized.” It is true that some of the Reformers took an exaggerated view on this point, since, according to them, the power of regeneration worked no extirpation of sin, the original and carnal sin, as such, remaining in them ; it follows that sin does not dissolve the state of grace received in baptism, or break the fellowship with Christ. Bap tism thus not only imparted the assurance that all our sins committed before baptism were remitted, but gave the pledge of the remission of sins hereafter to be committed.

Now the true doctrine of repentance is taught not only in these Articles, but in the Commination Service : ” Let us return unto the Lord our God with all t-on-tri- fion and meekness of heart : bewailing and lament ing our sinful life, acknowledging and coitfewuKj our offences, and seeking to bring forth worthy fruits

Observe the italicized words. They divide the pro cess into three, the contrition of the heart, the confes sion of the mouth, and the worthy fruits of penance

’ Comminution Service.

as the satisfaction of the life ; and this is in accordance not only with the teaching of the Church, but. with the deepest necessities of human nature.

1. Repentance cannot spring from the mere fear of hell torments. This is not the only path that leads men back to God. We must take a high view of what we are to Christ, and what Christ is to us, and from this thought must spring the emotion which brings us back to Him. Faith and confidence must precede repentance, and from these, hatred to sin and a faint love of God is unfolded. Attrition, as the sorrow for the consequences of sin, is only an incitement to re pentance; it requires something more, namely, con trition, — a profound detestation of sin springing from an awakened love of God, with the determination never wilfully to sin again.

2. But repentance rests not there. What is interior must be outwardly expressed ; as our inward love to Christ is outwardly manifested in acts of charity to His poor, so our deep inward energetic contrition will seek an external manifestation in confession. A reconcilia tion between two friends cannot take place without mutual avowals, and this avowal must be definite. So when we confess our sins, it must not be a vague de claration of our sinfulness, but a specific, definite detail of our transgressions — to Christ, or His anointed ser vant. Yet on the other hand, it must be recollected that perfect contrition takes the place of all outward ordinances.

3. But this is not all; if, in confession, internal

repentance is manifested, the Church acts back on the offender by the claim of satisfaction, It may refer either to the past or to the future. 1. If a man has offended human justice, he must make restitution either to the sufferers, or if that is impossible, in the way indi cated by his spiritual adviser. 2. As regards the future, satisfaction becomes medicinal, in short, a strength ening remedy to restore the power of the soul debi litated by sin. Yet this is not all, penitential exer cises must be looked on also as real punishment. By sin man contracts a debt which he is quite unfit to pay. Christ has paid it, and to all who enter into real living communion with Him the debt is remitted ; but it is not God’s will to remit the temporal consequences of the penitent’s previous acts, and justice requires the imposition of those penalties, especially in believers who, having been made members of His Body by bap tism, have received grace both to perceive what they ought to do, and strength and power to perform it. All this is the work of Christ. By this His merits are in no ways infringed upon. All our satisfactions must be done in Him. We who of ourselves, as of ourselves, can do nothing, in Him who strengthened us, can do all things. Therefore all our glory is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom we live and move, and have our being.

Although the errors against which the Article was directed have passed away, yet something similar has lately reproduced itself in Plymouthism. While one cannot fail to respect every effort’ at the restoration of

Pentecostal simplicity, and respect those who in view of the salvation of their souls withdraw themselves from the world into a stricter community, it must be recollected that many of the heresies of the early Church sprang from an attempt to be stricter than the Church of God. Montanism, Novatianism, and Donatism, are special instances of this, and therefore the same laws which guided the Church in her treat ment of these errors apply now. No doubt the best confutation of such errors lies in orthodox Christians leading daily stricter lives, for the cause of the uprise of these errors is the laxity of the Church ; God scourg ing His own Elect by those exaggerations of sup pressed truth and neglected practices, which constitute the peculiarity of such sectaries as we describe.

The rise of Plymouthism may be traced 1. to the worldly lives of those who profess the doctrines of the Church, and 2. to the neglect of preaching the Counsels of Perfection. Did a more simple and cha ritable habit of life prevail, we should not have those attempts at Communism and equality, which must be bad for master, and worse for servant ; neither should we have such a condition of mind as is implied by such propositions as the following : —

1. All that are sanctified are so perfect, that there is no room for confession of sin.

2. Because we are saved by faith and by grace, a pure and holy life is not necessary that we should attain to glory.

3. Because our Lord has delivered us by His Eesur-

rection, therefore we ought not to pray for deliverance from His wrath. Because the believer has passed from death unto life, we ought no longer to pray for de liverance in the hour of death and at the day of judgment.

4. Because peace is the essential privilege of the believer, it is superfluous to pray for peace ; because we are saved, it is wrong to ask God to make speed to save us ; because God hath made such meet to be par takers of the inheritance of the saints in light, we may not pray in the language of the Te Dewn ” make them to be numbered with Thy saints.”

o. For that God hath granted unto the Gentiles repentance unto life, we ought not to pray for re pentance.

6. All prayer for the Holy Spirit is superfluous, be cause already given.

All these propositions spring from the confusion of thought which mixes up the Objective with the Sub jective in the work of man’s salvation. God on His part, by the manifestation of His dear Son, has sup plied a satisfaction, superabundant enough to take iiway the sins of ten thousand worlds. Nothing is wanting to that entire and complete redemption. Hereby the hopes of glory are held forth to every €hild of Adam. Jesus is our only Hope, our only Refuge, our Treasure, our End, our All. But now €omes another thought. We are free agents, free to choose evil and good, under certain limitation. Life is a trial, in which they only shall be crowned who

strive. All will not be saved, though our Lord died for all. All may be saved, because our Lord died for all. It depends upon the way in which we respond to the grace of God, whether we be saved or not. God gives sufficient grace to all, but grace does not obli terate free-will, rather it strengthens and elevates it. To answer then the six propositions, one must say, —

1. That our Lord has indeed perfected those that are sanctified, but sanctification is a progressive act, day by day, through God’s grace, increasing till we come to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ ; and the more we are sanctified, the more humble we necessarily become; and the more humble we become, the more we see ourselves as the All Pure One sees us, the more in the spirit of lowli ness shall we be able to rejoice in saying in deed and in truth that there is no health in us, and be thrown, more and more on the resources of prayer.

2. The descriptions of the awards of the last day shew us that heaven is a reward, the reward of a holy life. We cannot merit heaven without the grace of God, but God crowns His own work within us with. the gift of Eternal Life.

3. The act of our Lord’s Resurrection has delivered us from the wrath to come, has caused our j ustification, and has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers ; but we must still pray for deliverance, for what God lias predestinated to give to each of us, lie hath willed shall be obtained through the instrumentality of prayer and the Sacraments. Pity that poor soul, who, when.

-44 ARTICLE XVI.

the death-sweat is on his brow, and the world failing him, can find no comfort in a prayer for deliverance to Him who alone is mighty to save.

4 and 5. This goes on the assumption that the be liever cannot forfeit peace. When one sees the faults of the best around us, faults that in the sight of God are grievous sins, one is amazed that any frame of mind can exist, in which daily repentance is not exer cised, daily restoration of the measure of grace lost by frailties, not implored.

6. This is the most marvellous of all the logical re suIts of the system. If there be diversities of gifts, but the same spirit, — if there be no possible condition of the spiritual man from the first groan of attrition to the most extatic realization of the Presence of God, which is not caused, and may not be increased, by God the Holy Ghost, — to pray for His charismata, and to His Person, is the duty of every Christian at all times. It is the error of the sect that the state of grace cannot be increased, being perfect. Alas ! what is the best perfection of man when measured and weighed by the standard of Him who charges the- angels with folly !