SIN QUOTES IV
quotations about sin
It is the sinners who know from experience that sin is slavery. And they know that in sin there is no peace and that in the gratification of sin there is disappointment and disillusion. All these things the good people know from hearsay. Many of these people don't really believe the reports. They are among the most abject of the earth. They look out on the sins of the world and they long to sin and they are prevented from sinning, not because they love goodness, but because they are afraid. They are not afraid of evil. Far from it. In their hearts they love evil. They are afraid of certain consequences of evil, of punishment not directly related to the nature of evil, but forced into association with evil by public opinion. One of the perquisites of sin is that it teaches sinners the nature of evil. And by such teaching it reveals the beauty of goodness.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Perquisites of Sin", Intimations
Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest him; for Thou madest him, but sin is in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
Most sins ... are only perverted virtues.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Perquisites of Sin", Intimations
And when I fall, the first time especially, what a light I have on myself! I thought I was strong, that gross temptation would not move me, that I would be faithful in all sorts of environment. I am down--in the dirt--I know myself now! But I know God, too, as I did not before, now I know the radiance of the shadowless light, I know now what sin is.
CARYLL HOUSELANDER
This War is the Passion
I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.
RICHARD ROHR
Falling Upward
We all recognize the vast difference between consciousness of sin and consciousness of being found out. And yet the two are often confused. They are really not related at all. There can surely be no moral value in regard for mere reputation. It may be a low form of selfishness. Consequently, there is no direct gain to sinners as a result of exposure and of punishment. Though they may say they have learned their lesson, they have really learned to dread, not sin, but some of its consequences. What is most important they have not learned at all. There are certain kinds of remorse and reform that are more ignoble than sinning, expressing fear and cunning. Indeed, this attitude may be noted among people highly esteemed. Though they may lead what we call good lives, there is really nothing estimable in their springs of action. They have no real character. With them conduct is simply a means of securing advantage.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Perquisites of Sin", Intimations
I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Lear
When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
Sin is absence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.
SIMON MAWER
The Gospel of Judas
The malignity of sin does, in time, vitiate the principles of Nature; and the sinner comes to live entirely by sense and passion, who has been wont to put a violence upon judgment, reason, and conscience.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
I think I ought to confess sin the moment I see it to be sin; whether I am in company or in study, or even preaching, the soul ought to cast a glance of abhorrence at the sin. If I go on with the duty, leaving the sin unconfessed, I go on with a burdened conscience, and add sin to sin.
ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEYNE
The Life and Remains, Letters, Lectures, and Poems of the Rev Robert Murray M'Cheyne
The world of sin faces the world of grace like the reflected image of a landscape on the edge of a dark, deep stretch of water.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
No sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.... Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
JESUS
John 8:31-32, 34-36
Only those who are truly aware of their sin can truly cherish grace.
C. J. MAHANEY
The Cross-Centered Life
If we judge of dispositions and actions by the holy law of God, we shall not long be able even to doubt but that men are born in sin, and by nature propense to evil and averse to good: "that which is born of the flesh is flesh;" and the carnal mind, which is natural to us, is "enmity against God," (Rom. viii. 5-9.) It is the universal law of the whole creation, that every plant or animal possesses the properties of that from which it was derived. When Adam became a sinner, he begat sons "in his own likeness;" that which the Creator had pronounced very good soon became very bad; "the imagination of men's hearts were only evil continually;" "the earth was filled with violence" and wickedness, and so it evidently continues to this day. If men argue that all this results from education, habit, and example, we might inquire how it came to pass, that bad education, example, and habits, became so general, if the nature of man be not bad also? But the impossibility, in the ordinary course of things, of "bringing a clean thing out of an unclean," shows us how the world comes to be so full of all vice and wickedness.
THOMAS SCOTT
"On Man's Situation as a Sinner in this Present World", Essays on the Most Important Subjects in Religion
Throughout the history of the Church, Christians have been steadfast in our belief that sin is a violation of God's holy standard and cannot simply be excused. Because God is holy and just, He can't overlook sin and simply pardon His people. Jesus had to suffer, be separated from God the Father, and die for each and every sin committed by his people.
JOHN ELLIS
"Christians Need to Stop Defending Racism with 'Whataboutism'", PJ Media, August 19, 2017
Virtue!--to be good and just--
Every heart, when sifted well,
Is a clot of warmer dust,
Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.
ALFRED TENNYSON
The Vision of Sin
Sin is the rebellion of man's will against God's.
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Lord of the World
God's whole nature moves toward the man who wants to be free from sin, as broadly and irresistibly as the summer moves from the south toward the north.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit