For the Collect says, we have all a race to run. We have all a journey to make through life. We have all so to get through this world, that we shall inherit the world to come; so to pass through the things of time (as one of the Collects says) that we finally lose not the things eternal. God has given each of us our powers and character, marked out for each of us our path in life, set each of us our duty to do. But how shall we make the proper use of our powers? How shall we keep to our path in life? How shall we do our duty faithfully? In short, so as St. Paul puts it—How shall we run our race, so as not to lose, but to win it? For the Collect says—and we ought to have found it out for ourselves before now—Our sins and wickedness hinder us sorely in running the race which is set before us. Our sins and wickedness. The Collect speaks of these as two different things; and I believe rightly, for the New Testament speaks of them as two different things. Sin, in the New Testament, means strictly what we call “failings,” “defects” a missing the mark, a falling short; as it is written—All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, that is, of the likeness of a perfect man. {75} Thus, stupidity, laziness, cowardice, bad temper, greediness after pleasure—these are strictly speaking what the New Testament calls sins. Wickedness—iniquity—seem to be harder words, and to mean worse offences. They mean the evil things which a man does, not out of the weakness of his mortal nature, but out of his own wicked will, and what the Bible calls the naughtiness of his heart. So wickedness means, not merely open crimes which are punishable by the law, but all which comes out of a man’s own wilfulness and perverseness—injustice (which is the first meaning of iniquity), cunning, falsehood, covetousness, pride, self-conceit, tyranny, cruelty—these seem to be what the Scripture calls wickedness. Of course one cannot draw the line exactly, in any matters so puzzling as questions about our own souls must always be: but on the whole. I think you will find this rule not far wrong— That all which comes from the weakness of a man’s soul, is sin: all which comes from abusing its strength, is wickedness. All which drags a man down, and makes him more like a brute animal, is sin: all which puffs him up, and makes him more like a devil, is wickedness. It is as well to bear this in mind, because a man may have a great horror of sin, and be hard enough, and too hard upon poor sinners; and yet all the time he may be thoroughly, and to his heart’s core, a wicked man. The Pharisees of old were so. So they are now. Take you care that you be not like to them. Keep clear of sin: but keep clear of wickedness likewise. For, says the Collect, both will hinder you in your race: perhaps cause you to break down in it, and never reach the goal at all. Sin will hinder you, by dragging you back.