THE CARNAL MIND AS THE CAUSE OF TRANSGRESSION

     George A. McLaughlin, in his little book entitled, "Inbred Sin," says, "Actual sin is the result of inbred sin." With this statement as a starting point, let us bring out a few lessons:

     1. There is always a cause for actual sin. It cannot spring up spontaneously in soil where evil did not previously exist. Actual sin is an offspring or result of preexisting conditions, which, taken together with the overt act, word or thought, make up the sum total of sin. As God is the great Author of holiness, likewise the devil is the author or originator of sin. The truth of this statement may be seen from the following words of Jesus addressed to the rebellious Jews, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).

     God, if we may thus speak, has a monopoly on holiness, and, throughout the vastness of His universe, where there exists one lone atom of this "good gift" it owes its existence and continuation to the great "Father of lights," the Giver of every good and perfect gift. On the contrary, the devil has a monopoly, or at least a controlling interest in sin, and there is not an atom of wretchedness or filth or of any evil work throughout eternity that does not owe its existence, either directly or indirectly, to this adversary, this "spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." When God renovates His creation, as He some time most surely will do, He will scrape off every vestige of this broth of abomination, and, along with its father, the devil, will confine it under chains of darkness and behind adamant walls forever. And with the incarceration of the archfiend and his filth the universe will be eternally rid of sin. What a glorious vision! Then we can take the wings of the morning and fly throughout infinity and not find one defiling thing. O God, let us come to that glorious day!

     2. Actual sin cannot spontaneously spring up from a clean soul. It must have an original in the heart from which to proceed, and this original or originator, with reference to the overt act, is inbred sin. If it is true that an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit, it is just as true that a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.

     3. If actual sin is the result of inherent sin, as the cause always precedes the effect, inherent sin, the cause, must, in point of time, precede actual sin, the effect. As a consequence, when any clean soul falls, the conclusion is inevitable that he allowed the inclination to be established before the sin was actually committed. If this is not true then it is not true that "actual sin is the result of inbred sin."

     4. When this "diabolian" has taken the citadel of the heart and is allowed to remain and reign, it proceeds to throw out its arms and to take in all the possibilities of the soul, and we say that "a deceived heart has turned him aside," "the backslider in heart is filled with his own ways."

     Sacred writ abounds with evidences of the fact that actual sin proceeds from a wrong heart. It would be superfluous to enter too deeply into this subject, but we will adduce a few instances as examples:

     When Cain saw that his own offering was rejected, while his brother's was accepted, he "was very wroth and his countenance fell." His heart went wrong long before he committed the overt act of murder. Sin was at the door because his heart went wrong and pondered evil, and because he willfully allowed the evil of his heart to have the ascendency. The presence of evil in Cain's heart, as far as history informs us, was first manifested by jealousy, and jealousy produced deceit and murder.

     The whole history of the wanderings of King Saul presents a striking picture of the condition of the person who gives way to this base element of his soul. Pride, deceitfulness, treachery, stubbornness, rebellion, murder, and every evil work held high carnival in his fallen soul, and led him on to deeds of violence which made his life read like the life of a heathen despot. His wrong doings culminated when he spared the king of Amalek together with the best of the sheep and cattle, not for mercy's sake, but because of covetousness and from a desire for glory; and then to complete his utter ruin he attempted to hide his sin by lying and hypocrisy.

     When David walked on the roof of his house and beheld the beautiful Bathsheba bathing, instead of turning away his eyes, as he should have done, he allowed the thought of evil, then found occasion to commit the deed, and then in his attempt at covering his crime he caused the death of the husband of the woman. A "deceived heart had turned him aside." To all ages this sin stands recorded against David, loudly warning all future generations of the evil results which will almost inevitably follow when any man tampers or trifles with unholy desires, and neglects to keep them under by the grace of God.

     There are some so-called holiness people who would like to make us believe that David and some other Bible characters who went wrong, at the time of their wrong doing were converted, and that they needed holiness as a second work of grace to save them from their crookedness. But this is not true. No man can commit actual sin and retain the favor of God; when he sins his grace is forfeited. We have brought forth these examples, not as proofs of the unclean condition of the justified soul, but to show that back of the overt act of sin there is always an evil principle, and that this principle is the cause of actual sin. Without this principle sin is not possible.

     The seventh chapter of Romans is a striking illustration of the power of inward sin to control the actions of even those who hate its rule and earnestly desire deliverance from its sway, but who do not seek the Lord for deliverance. The "law in their members" brings them into "captivity to the law of sin and death;" the good that they would they do not, but the evil which they would not that they do. The blame is laid to the right source when it is added, "Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."

     For the sake of any who should be led to believe that the strong statements of this seventh of Romans represent the conflicts which come in a Christian experience, we will subjoin a few quotations taken from heathen philosophers and poets, which represent a condition through which they or the ones of whom they wrote passed, which was almost identical with that of the man whose experience the apostle describes.

     Seneca, a Roman philosopher and writer, and a contemporary of the apostles, born 3 B. C., says, "What is it that draws us in one direction while striving to go in another, and impels us toward that which we wish to avoid?"

     Euripides, a Greek tragedian, born probably 480 B. C.: "But I am overcome by sin, and I well understand the evil which I presume to commit. Passion, however, is more powerful than my reason; which is the cause of the greatest evils to mortal men."

     Arrian, a Stoic philosopher of Nicomedia, born about 100 A. D.: "For truly, he who sins does not will sin, but wishes to walk uprightly; yet it is manifest that which he wills he doth not; and what he wills not he doth." Compare with Rom. 7:18, 19.

     Terrent, a Roman comic poet, born 185 B. C.: "An unworthy act! Now I perceive that she is wicked, and I am wretched. I burn with love and am vexed at it. Although prudent, and intelligent, and active, and seeing, I perish: neither do I know what to do."

     Ovid, a Roman poet, who lived in the time of Christ, represents the princess who was about to kill her child as saying, "I desire one thing, the mind persuades another; I see and approve better things, I follow worse things."

     Xenophon, a Greek soldier, historian and philosopher, born at Athens about 430 B. C., wrote, "I have evidently two souls ... for if I had only one it would not be at the same time good and bad, nor would it desire at the same time honorable and dishonorable works, nor would it at the same time both wish and not wish to do the same things. But it is evident that there are two souls, and that when the good one is in power the honorable things are practiced, but when the bad, the dishonorable things are attempted."

     If we turn from heathen to Christian writers we find much the same description of the contradictory condition of the natural heart, but the Christian writers are much more enlightened, and are clearer in their convictions of the true state of the case. Read the following poem concerning the wavering will of an awakened sinner. Quarles, the writer, was an English poet who lived in the first part of the seventeenth century.

     "Oh, how my will is hurried to and fro, And how my unresolved resolves do vary! I know not where to fix: sometimes I go This way, then that, and then the quite contrary; I like, dislike; lament for what I could not; And, at the self-same instant, will the thing I would not.

     "Thus are my weather-beaten thoughts opprest With th' earth-bred winds of my prodigious will; Thus am I hourly tossed from east to west Upon the rolling streams of good and ill; Thus am I driven upon the slippery suds From real ills to false apparent goods; My life's a troubled sea, composed of ebbs and floods.

     "I know the nature of my wav'ring mind; I know the frailty of my fleshly will; My passions eagle ey'd, my judgment blind; I know what's good, and yet make choice of ill. When the ostrich wings of my desires shall be So dull, they cannot mount the least degree, Yet grant my sole desire, that of desiring Thee."

     Although man is not responsible for the primary existence of heart sin, yet, since there is a way of escape, no man need continue in bondage to it. We are responsible, not only for our wrong doings, but also for neglected opportunities, and God will reward us accordingly.

     There is not one act of adultery, of murder, deceit, envy or any other evil which is not the result of allowed heart tendencies to evil. Here the direct responsibility for the deplorable condition of human society shifts from the devil (he is now but the agitator or suggester of evil) and rests on the individuals who make up this society.

     Who can tell the woe that this bent to sin has entailed upon mankind! If we could count up the heartaches, the pains, the groans, the tears, the bloody wars, the fiendish crimes, the unclean revelings and whatever in this world is contrary to love, to purity, to physical, mental or spiritual perfection and holiness; if we could follow these things, in their results, down to the nethermost hell and to the outskirts of an awful, unending eternity; if we could collect up all this and weigh it in the balances of God, then we could get some idea of depravity and its fearful consequences in this world as well as in the world to come. But only God is able for such a task. Were it not for infinite mercy, infinite wrath against sin would make a quick end to earthly rebellion and condemn man to eternal torment.

     The reeking, seething, boiling, foaming mass of corruption which fills this world, and seeks to eclipse every redeeming quality, is the result of heart pollution, and will eventually cause the wrath of God to descend like almighty, fiery thunderbolts on a doomed world, and will drown men in destruction and perdition.

     In this world there is hope. The Sin-Avenger stands ready to aid us; go to the Strong, He who has conquered death and hell; He will make a full end of sin in your inmost being, and fill your renovated soul with Himself and His holiness.