Vices

"Her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat; Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe That all was lost."

"Law can discover sin, but not remove, Save by those shadowy expiations weak."

"Mary said: What is the sin of the world? The Savior said: there is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin. That is why the Good came into your midst, to the essence of every nature in order to restore it to its root. Then He continued and said, That is why you become sick and die, for you are deprived of the one who can heal you."

"In God’s eyes – listen – no one is a victim. We are all perpetrators of open rebellion, scandalous, blasphemous sin against God."

"Thine angry threatening toward sinners is importable, but thy merciful promise is unmeasurable and unsearchable; for thou art the most high Lord, of great compassion, longsuffering, very merciful, and repentest of the evils of men...Thine infinite mercies hast appointed repentance unto sinners, that they may be saved...Be not condemn me to the lower parts of the earth. Therefore I will praise thee for ever all the days of my life: for all the powers of the heavens do praise thee, and thine is the glory for ever and ever. Amen."

"So many laws argues so many sins."

"Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins."

"The sin against hope: the most deadly of all, and perhaps the most accepted, the most cherished."

"That is the true definition of sin; when knowing right you do the lower, ah, then you sin. Where there is no knowledge, sin is not present."

"I have committed the worst sin of all That a man can commit. I have not been Happy."

"Just as those who do not feel sick do not go to the doctor, so those who do not feel sinful do not go to Jesus."

"But the trail of the serpent is over them all."

"By our sinful falls — the powers of the soul are weakened; the strength of grace is decayed; our evidences for heaven are blotted; fears and doubts in the soul are raised (will God once more pardon this scarlet sin, and show mercy to this wretched soul?); the corruptions in the heart are more advantaged and confirmed; and the conscience of a man after falls is the more enraged or the more benumbed."

"So as you may see in Daniel and his companions, that would rather choose to burn, and be cast to the lions—than they would bow to the idol which Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When this 'slight offense', in the world's account, and a hot fiery furnace stood in competition, that they must either fall into sin, or be cast into the fiery furnace—such was their tenderness of the honor and glory of God, and their hatred and indignation against sin, that they would rather burn than sin!"

"The sinner must feel far worse before he ever has a right to feel any better."

"All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation."

"For it still seemed to me “that it is not we who sin, but some other nature sinned in us.” And it gratified my pride to be beyond blame, and when I did anything wrong not to have to confess that I had done wrong. … I loved to excuse my soul and to accuse something else inside me (I knew not what) but which was not I. But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided me against myself. That sin then was all the more incurable because I did not deem myself a sinner."

"Numquam propter vitia homines oderis, neque vitia propter homines dilexeris."

"They will ask thee about wine and maysir. Say, ‘In both of them there is great sin (ithm) and also some uses for men, but their sin is greater than their usefulness."

"O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal!"

"Small sins are sometimes harder to confess than big ones... but that's why it's important to confess them."

"As long as you will have a feeling of shame, you will not lightly commit sins."

"It is the older generation who foster in a child an early and most unnecessary sense of guilt, of sinfulness and of wrongdoing. So much emphasis is laid upon petty little things that are not really wrong, but are annoying to the parent or teacher, that a true sense of wrong (which is the recognition of failure to preserve right relations with the group) gets overlaid and is not recognized for what it is. The many small and petty sins, imposed upon the children by the constant reiteration of "No", by the use of the word "naughty", and based largely on parental failure to understand and occupy the child, are of no real moment. If these aspects of the child's life are rightly handled, then the truly wrong things, the infringements upon the rights of others, . . . the hurting or damaging of others in order to achieve personal gain, will emerge in right perspective and at the right time."

"For every sin, I'll have to pay. I've come to work, I've come to play. I think I'll find another way. It's not my time to go."

"Compound for sins they are inclin'd to, By damning those they have no mind to."

"Sin on more."

"When a sinner has any just sense of his condition, as alienated from a holy God, he will not be apt to think of the unpardonable sin."

"The deliberate and habitual practice of any form of dishonesty or immorality is impossible to one who follows Christ."

"A believer is far more apt to be burdened with a sense of sin, and to feel the fear of it in his own character than an unbeliever; because if we are carried along the stream we fear nothing, and it is only when we strive against it, that its progress and power are discernible."

"You cannot stay the shell in its flight; after it has left the mortar, it goes on to its mark, and there explodes, dealing destruction all around. Just as little can you stay the consequences of a sin after it has been committed. You may repent of it, you may even be forgiven for it, but still it goes on its deadly and desolating way. It has passed entirely beyond your reach; once done, it cannot be undone."

"If, in proportion as our minds are enlarged, our hearts purified, and our consciences cultivated, our abhorrence of wrong and aversion to it increases, what must be the moral indignation of the infinite and holy God against wrong-doers?"

"Sin is to be overcome, not so much by maintaining a direct opposition to it, as by cultivating opposite principles. Would you kill the weeds in your garden, plant it with good seed; if the ground be well occupied, there will be less need of the labor of the hoe. If a man wished to quench fire, he might fight it with his hands till he was burnt to death; the only way is to apply an opposite element."

"Secret sins commonly lie nearest the heart."

"The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this f1rst of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer."

"Though the scorpion be little, yet will it sting a lion to death; and so will the least sin the sinner, unless pardoned by the blood of Christ."

"Nature has no promise for society, least of all, any remedy for sin."

"As for our own faults, it would take a large slate to hold the account of them; but, thank God, we know where to take them, and how to get the better of them."

"And O when the whirlwind of passion is raging, When sin in our hearts its wild warfare is waging, Then send down Thy grace, Thy redeemed to cherish; Rebuke the destroyer; "Save, Lord, or we perish.""

"The fact is that sin is the most unmanly thing in God's world. You never were made for sin and selfishness. You were made for love and obedience."

"There are burdens which are bad and blameworthy, and these it is our duty at once to cast away. Such a burden is the evil conscience, from which the true deliverance is the cross of Christ; such a burden is the easily besetting sin, from which the sanctifying Spirit sets free the vigilant and prayerful Christian."

"No sin is small. It is a sin against an infinite God, and may have consequences immeasurable. No grain of sand is small in the mechanism of a watch."

"He that hath slight thoughts of sin, never had great thoughts of God."

"God, save us from ourselves! We carry within us the elements of hell if we but choose to make them such. Ahaz, Judas, Nero, Borgia, Herod, all were once prattling infants in happy mother's arms."

"I learn the depth to which I have sunk from the length of the chain let down to up-draw me. I ascertain the mightiness of the ruin by examining the machinery for restoration."

"Yes, every sin is a mistake, and the epitaph for the sinner is, "Thou fool.""

"He that avoideth not small faults, by little and little falleth into greater."

"St. Augustine used to say that, but for God's grace, he should have been capable of committing any crime; and it is when we feel this sincerely, that we are most likely to be really improving, and best able to give assistance to others without moral loss to ourselves."

"Remember that every guilty compliance with the humors of the world, every sinful indulgence of our own passions, is laying up cares and fears for the hour of darkness; and that the remembrance of ill-spent time will strew our sick-bed with thorns, and rack our sinking spirits with despair."

"Sin is an awful fact. It beggars description. Like the shirt of Nessus, it burns one alive. As that poisoned garment ate away the muscles of the victim in his vain attempt to rid himself of it, so sin will destroy the power of him who becomes its victim. Eternal death is eternal sin; sin through all the ages."

"To please ourselves with a notion of gospel liberty, while we have not a gospel principle of holiness within to free us from the power of sin, is nothing else but to gild over our bonds and fetters, and to fancy ourselves the inmates of a golden cage. There is a straitness, slavery, and narrowness in sin; sin crowds and crumples up our souls which, if they were freely spread abroad, would. be as wide and as broad as the whole universe. No man is truly free, but he that has his will enlarged to the extent of God's own will, by loving whatever God loves, and nothing else."