g. Participation in other people's sins.
A species of the peccata actualia is also the sin, whereby foreign sins make partakers. The Scripture explicitly warns against this sin, 1 Tim. 5:22: μη κοινώνει άμαρτίαις άλλοτρίαις [“Neither be partaker of other mens sins”]. It goes also specializing from individual cases. Whoever keeps fellowship with fellow believers or — what is the same — church fellowship with those who lead into false doctrines, that is, doctrines that deviate from the Word of God, participates in the sin of others, 2 John 11: "Whoever greets him [who does not bring the doctrine of Christ],1665) makes himself partaker of his evil works." To keep Christians from this sin, Paul instructs all Christians: εκκλίνατε άπ' αυτών, namely, from all who depart from apostolic doctrine. We can also make ourselves partakers of others' sins by taking pleasure in our hearts in the evil that others do. Thus, Paul says in Rom. 1:32, when describing the recklessness of the heathen, that they themselves do not only commit the
1663) That acedia (άκηδία), the satiety in the Word of God, is rightly counted among the mortal sins is taken by Luther in the Large Catechism, p. 440, 99 ff. [Trigl. 608, 99 🔗]
1664) Eph. 2:1-3; Col. 1:13; Acts 26:18.
1665) Fraternal greetings and intercourse are forbidden, not kindness civil intercourse.
682 ><w:t xml:space="preserve"> Actual Sin. [English ed. 570]
sins, but also σννευδοκοϋσιν τόϊς πράσσονσιν. This delight in the sins of others is most particularly aroused a. in reading such writings as are immoral in content, b. in reading such writings as glorify false doctrines and false teachers. The various ways in which we can partake of other people's sins have been summarized in the old Latin verse:
Consulo, praecipio, consentio, provoco, laudo,
Non retego culpam, non punio, non reprehendo,
Non obsto, sed praecipio et defendo aliena. 1666)
[“I counsel, teach, consent to, provoke, laud, do not reveal the guilt,
do not punish, do not reprehend, do not resist, but teach and defend
the sins of others.”]