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Sin: Quotations from Burning Words

Sin is essentially a departure from God.— MARTIN LUTHER

Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God.— WESTMINSTER CATECHISM

The Greek word for wickedness is lawlessness. Sin is the insurrection and rebellion of the heart against God; it turns from Him, and turns against Him; it takes up arms against God.— RICHARD ALLEINE

He that hath slight thoughts of sin, never had great thoughts of God.— JOHN OWEN

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.— T. W. CHAMBERS

Sin! Sin! Thou art a hateful and horrible thing, that abominable thing which God hates. And what wonder? Thou hast insulted His holy majesty; thou hast bereaved Him of beloved children; thou hast crucified the Son of His infinite love; thou hast vexed His gracious Spirit; thou hast defied His power; thou hast despised His grace; and in the body and blood of Jesus, as if that were a common thing, thou hast trodden under foot His matchless mercy. Surely, brethren, the wonder of wonders is, that sin is not that abominable thing which we also hate.— THOMAS GUTHRIE

Retribution, atonement, grace, redemption, a great perdition, a great salvation, a great and Divine Saviour, all become credible when there is truly realized the idea of sin. They all rise as it rises in the moral estimate; they all fall as it falls. When it goes out, they become incredible. The God of truth declares, that all have sinned; the broken law cries for vengeance against transgressors, and by it is the knowledge of sin; conscience, God's deputy in every man's bosom, tells him he is guilty; the reign of death, and the groans of the creatures round about us, all bear testimony that there is such a thing as sin in the world.— FISHER'S CATECHISM

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.— HENRY MELVILL

There is the seed of all sins of the vilest and worst of sins - in the best of men.— THOMAS BROOKS

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.— JEREMY TAYLOR

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.— H. P. LIDDON

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.— BISHOP HEBER

Misery follows sin; sin itself is misery; and the soul that sinneth dies of course, without any means taken to put that soul to death; though Divine interference would be indispensable to prevent the consequences following the cause.— CAROLINE FRY

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.— AUSTIN PHELPS

Lord, pardon what I have been, sanctify what I am, and order what I shall be, that Thine may be the glory, and mine the eternal salvation. He that avoideth not small faults, by little and little falleth into greater.— THOMAS À KEMPIS

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.— J. G. HOLLAND

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.— JAMES HAMILTON,

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

Sin works by no set methods. It has a way of ruin for every man, that is original and proper only to himself. Suffice it to say that, as long as you are in and under its power, you can never tell what you are in danger of. This one thing you may have as a truth eternally fixed, that respectable sin is, in principle, the mother of all basest crime. Follow it on to the bitter end, and there is ignominy eternal.— HORACE BUSHNELL

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. Sin is a state of mind, not an outward act. Sin, without strong restraints, would pull God from His throne, make the world the minion of its lusts, and all beings bow down and worship.— CUDWORTH

Sin murders the soul. Its withering, blasting curse is not exhausted in this life, but goes with us into eternity, to be perfected and perpetuated there. "The wages of sin is death" death to all spiritual life now, and an immortality of pain and tears and despair. "The sting of death is sin; " the weeping and wailing of the judgment will be sin; and sin will be the ever-gnawing worm and the quenchless fire. The slave who digs in the mine or labors at the oar can rejoice at the prospect of laying down his burden together with his life; but to the slave of guilt there arises no hope from death. On the contrary, he is obliged to look forward with constant terror to this most certain of all events, as the conclusion of all his hopes, and the commencement of his greatest miseries.— BLAIR

Every burning tear, every harrowing fear, every festering grief, every corroding care, every shooting pain, every piercing remorse; the sighs and moans of lazar-houses reeking with putrefaction and death; the shrieks and wails and clanking chains in hospitals swarming with maniacs; and the curses and blasphemies of dungeons where guilt rots and raves - these, all these, are but feeble reverberations of those dismal truths, "Sin reigns unto death.” “Death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."— RICHARD FULLER

That is the bitterest of all, -to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing.— GEORGE ELIOT

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."— R. HEBER

Multitudes are lost by cherishing some secret sin, that is not only hidden from others, but, from want of searching their own hearts, even from themselves. The essence of all wickedness is a forsaking of God. Secret sins commonly lie nearest the heart.— THOMAS BROOKS

The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first 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.— W. E. CHANNING,

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.— THOMAS BROOKS

Every sin deserveth God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come. .— WESTMINSTER CATECHISM

Nature has no promise for society, least of all, any remedy for sin. -— HORACE BUSHNELL

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.— Wm. M. TAYLOR

Though sin may be in the Christian, yet it hath no more dominion over him; he hath an unfeigned respect to all God's commandments, making conscience even of little sins and little duties.— JOSEPH ALLEINE

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.— ANDREW FULLER

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

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.— JOHN OWEN

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 ?— EDWARD THOMSON

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.— C. H. SPURGEON

From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, good Lord, deliver us.— BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

Presumption has many forms; and it is worth considering, whether a great and good Being would most disapprove the presumption which expected too much from His goodness, or the presumption which dared positively to disbelieve His promise.— WILLIAM ARTHUR

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.— ICHABOD SPENCER

Almighty and most merciful Father; we have erred and strayed from Thy ways, like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare Thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore Thou those who are penitent, according to Thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of Thy holy name. Amen.— BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER