Question 83

Some sins in themselves—“The Stoic philosophers, and some few of the less considerate Christians, have pretended that all sins are equal. Their reasons for it are not worth the mentioning; for the conceit is so groundless, and so repugnant to the common sense of mankind, that barely to speak of it is to expose it, and it carries its own confutation with it. For a man must be very weak to imagine that theft, suppose, is as great a sin as murder; or telling a lie as wicked a thing as robbing a house, or plundering a church, or firing a town. Everybody is sensible of a difference between high crimes and trivial trespasses; between sins of the first magnitude and slight offences; our Lord therefore compares some to gnats, while He compares others to camels; some to motes in the eye, others to beams” (Waterland).

and by reason of several aggravations—To aggravate is to add to what is too heavy already. Thus in Bacon: “The offence was aggravated by the motive.” The Larger Catechism has a most instructive discussion of this subject under these heads: Sins receive their aggravations—1. From the persons offending. 2. From the parties offended. 3. From the nature and quality of the offence. 4. From circumstances of time and place. Earnest students will master the remarkable analysis and exposition in Answer 151. And those who wish to go yet deeper into this solemn question are recommended to read Dr. Thomas Goodwin’s three treatises—“Aggravation of Sin,” “Aggravations of sinning against Knowledge,” and “Aggravations of sinning against Mercy,” in the fourth volume of his Works.

more heinous—Old Saxon for hateful, odious, atrocious. The word occurs once and once only in Scripture (Job xxxi. 11). “Actions gross and great for bulk are often less sinful in the eyes of God than smaller actions, because less filled with the evil disposition of the heart. And thus the philosophers themselves acknowledged that an evil action done, ex pravâ dispositione, an act proceeding from a rooted habitual disposition, was worse, and more to be punished than another, though outwardly as bad, if but done out of some sudden passion, as they call it. Witness that sentence of the Athenian judges, who condemned a boy to death but for tearing out in a cruel manner the eyes of a few crows and partridges, as being (though for the act but small) the evidence and indicium of a habitual cruel nature” (Goodwin).

Uses

1. “I would recommend to you, my young friends, as a very profitable employment for an hour on the Lord’s day, to go over deliberately this enumeration of the aggravations of sin, contained in your Larger Catechism; to consider each article attentively; to connect it with an intelligent reading of the Scripture proof, to which you will find a reference, and with a serious meditation on the whole” (Dr. Ashbel Green).
2. “Q. Are heinous and crying sins capable of forgiveness?—A. Yes; great and heinous sins are capable of forgiveness upon true repentance (Isa. i. 18). Q. What is the first inference hence?—A. Though some sins are more heinous than others, yet no sinner should absolutely despair of mercy; for the vilest have been pardoned (1 Cor. vi. 11). Q. What is the next inference?—A. That great sinners when pardoned and received to mercy, should excel all others in love to Christ (Luke vii. 42, 43)” (Flavel).

Questions

1. Establish from Scripture and reason Goodwin’s proposition: My brethren, the greatest sins of all are in the understanding. Illustrate this also: Circumstances lie heavier on the soul than the act.
2. Explain and illustrate Manton’s metaphor: The dye is sometimes more than the stuff.