The first deformity in mortal sin has relation to God. A thing is deformed and repellent so far as it departs fron its law of existence either in time, place, action, or qualities, or if something that belongs to its nature is deficient, its harmony with other things is destroyed. Sin destroys in us, not some superficial or temporal harmony of colour, form, sound, of organs or of health, but the most fundamental one of all, the moral and spiritual harmony of our soul with God. Sin deprives us of a necessary of life; not of some created requirement, such as food, light, repose, companionship, occupation, possessions, liberty, but of God, the sum of all goodness, the supreme uncreated perfection, the most absolute necessary of life, and actually our life. All the beauty and excellence of the soul consist in its harmony with God and participation in His perfections. Sin is opposed to all this good, and annihilates it in the soul. It is the antithesis of God's goodness and wisdom, of joy and beauty, of peace and glory, of power and authority, of His very being and infinite life. Thus it establishes in the soul a supreme deformity, disorder, irregularity, which affects the whole nature and impairs its utility for its proper purposes, its beauty, goodness, happiness. Ask God to illuminate you with His grace, so that you may be thoroughly convinced of these truths by faith, and so escape hereafter the miserable conviction which is from experience. In one or other of these ways, in time or in eternity, the deformity of sin will be brought home to all; it will come to some as a salutary truth, to others too late.
