p. 50 | Little Sins by Bishop Armstrong

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 10, 1858

Little Sins.

By Bishop Armstrong

Allow little sins, suffer them to stay for a moment in our souls, and little they will not remain; open the door of our souls ever so little to any sin, and the sin will soon be master of the house and all that is therein. Our enemy begins warily, that he may succeed thoroughly. He begins with tempting to trifling sins, that we may be the less frightened when he proposes great. He spots our baptismal robe before he dyes it. He first casts a little dust into our eyes, that we may see indistinctly and confusedly, before he puts out our eyes and blinds us quite. The hardening, and blinding, and deafening of a soul is not quickly done. No man at once snaps asunder all reverence for his Redeemer's will. Ask the most profligate and vicious of mankind, whose consciences seem seared with a hot iron, and they will tell you there was a time when even they, so bold in vice, felt a mother's gentlest and tenderest rebuke, were uneasy at a little fault, blushed at the least untruth, keenly felt a little act of disobedience, some slight transgression. Alas, when a great sinner looks back at his former self, at his first beginnings in sin, his feelings when he erred, he can scarcely believe that he ever had such a tender and sensitive conscience.

Who then can speak lightly of little sins, if from such have grown all the monstrous iniquities that have been acted in the world, all the bold rebellions against God, all the reckless crucifyings of Christ afresh, all the daring deeds of hardened men? We know not how far we may be drawn away from the blessed rule of Christ, if we once allow little sins to have their way and note them not, and we may at last put our hands to such evil acts, almost without remorse or shame, as we now shudder even to think of and to hear about.

If we would be saved, through the mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must resist by His grace the least of little sins; we must look with awe and dread at the slightest form of sin; we must set our minds against the least dallying with sin, against crossing the border, if it be but a hair's breadth; we must check the first thoughts, the faintest imaginations of an evil hue; we must stop them at the door and push them back; we must be at pains to turn the current of our thoughts when we find them inclined to run in an evil channel. As with all our watchfulness, all our prayers, all our wrestlings with the powers of darkness, all our endeavors to keep pure hearts, we are often overtaken with a fault, and our souls often discolored by acts of disobedience and infirmities, what shall we be if we watch but little, and let offenses creep in, and take no account of little matters, and are not armed at all points, and only care to keep out and restrain the greater floods of wickedness?

The true way to serve God is to be severe against the least offense in ourselves, to keep a strict watch, to raise before our eyes the high standard of Gospel holiness, to study closely the most holy example of our blessed Lord, to have awful notions of sin in all its degrees and kinds, to avoid all appearance of evil, all that leans and looks that way, to solve all doubts and cases of conscience by taking the stricter side, by not venturing to sail too close to the shore, but keeping as it were, quite out at sea, by not going up to the very boundary of what is allowed, by not stretching the tether to the farthest point, but by keeping within the inner range and circle of permitted things so as to be even over-cautious and quite within the mark.

The heart is deceitful beyond measure; indulge an impure thought but once, and it will come again, and stay longer, and be harder to shake off, and have others standing behind it ready to come in after it; and many indulgencies of an impure thought, when the occasion offers, will envelope themselves into an impure act. Those of us who have gone the farthest into an unholy course, and who now feel the mastery of some favorite sin, must confess the evil all began with weak concession to some few busy troubling thoughts, that pressed themselves into our souls and were not checked at first.

It would indeed be a great matter as regards any advancement in the spiritual life, any deeper and more living knowledge of God our Saviour, if we would henceforth think more of temptations to what are called little sins, if we would count them as Satan's spies, sent out to find a way and make a passage for their master's host. What can be little that has to do with our salvation and perdition? What part of human life, on which hang such great results, and which seems on the whole to be made up of little things, a sort of tessellated pavement of little acts, can be called unimportant or of small concern? The greater actions of life, which sweep us forward with greater strides either on the broad or the narrow way, are after all the children of our lesser acts, the result of the habitual frame of mind, as it has been developing itself in the smaller and more ordinary events of common-place life. It is but occasionally that we are called to do great things. Every-day life, from hour to hour, is composed of minute particles; and in the common routine of our various callings and positions our souls are shaped.

Be then ever on your guard; walk circumspectly; carefully take every step. It is not by great efforts, every now and then, but continued efforts, that we learn to obey. Everything we do has its influence on the general character of our lives; and though we may not see our growth from day to day, we are growing one way or another, advancing in God's favor or in the ways of evil. And while I bid you be watchful in all things, so I bid you always to pray, that by continued and sustained acts of faith from hour to hour, by continually lifting up the soul to the mercy seat, continual supplication to the Father through the merit of his dear Son our Saviour, you may have continual supplies of spiritual strength; and thus, however weak, unstable, or powerless yourselves, you may become strong and steadfast, loving and true-hearted, by the abundant assistance of the Holy Spirit.