_5_Classification of Actual Sins

Scripture presents the peccata actualia under various classifications, which are not useless and should not bore us. They serve the purpose, as Chemnitz points out (Loci, I, p. 259), of guarding Christians against carnal security and showing how many wild beasts are slumbering in their own flesh and must be fought. “Every true Christian will therefore, together with Paul (1 Cor. 9:27), discipline his own body and keep it in subjection, lest he become a reprobate.” We will fervently implore God “that He would deign to endow us richly with the grace of His Holy Spirit, so that we may truly know our sins, sincerely deplore them, by firm faith seek forgiveness of them solely by the merit of our Savior Jesus Christ, and so in Him ultimately reach eternal blessedness. Amen.”