quotations about sin
You have seen a ship out on the bay, swinging with the tide, and seeming as if it would follow it; and yet it cannot, for down beneath the water it is anchored. So many a soul sways toward heaven, but cannot ascend thither, because it is anchored to some secret sin.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Sometimes we keep the sin in our lives well protected, guarded, covered over with lies. Sometimes we are not free enough to own our sin, so we cannot be healed of it. An unacknowledged wound cannot be healed.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR
Seasons of Your Heart
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Lear
Many refuse to let Christ in when he knocks at the door of their hearts for the express purpose of paying their debt of sin. These people are like the poor tenant woman of whom we once read. She could not pay her rent and her landlord was about to put her out of his house. Her pastor heard of her distress and hastened with the money to pay her rent for her. She heard the knock at the door, but supposing it was her hard-hearted landlord, she hid and refused to open the door.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
The damage a man does to another, he may make amends for by restitution or recompense, but sin cannot be taken away by recompense, for that were to make the liberty to sin a thing vendible. But sins may be pardoned to the repentent either gratis or upon such penalty as God is pleased to accept.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.
HYMAN G. RICKOVER
The New York Times, November 3, 1986
If God had pardoned Sin without any amends, God would have been thought to countenance Sin: and Man would have thought Sin no great matter.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
I ought to have a number of scriptures marked to bring sin to remembrance. I ought to make use of all bodily affliction, domestic trial, frowns of Providence on myself, house, parish, church, or country, as calls from God to confess sin.
ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEYNE
The Life and Remains, Letters, Lectures, and Poems of the Rev Robert Murray M'Cheyne
For consequences of past sin,
Effect doth ever follow cause;
If we sow tares, we reap not grain,
For such are Nature's laws.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Sin Will Leave Its Scars"
Be killing sin or it will be killing you.
JOHN OWEN
The Mortification of Sin
Sin in its ordinary progress first deceives, next hardens, and then destroys.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
Sin first is pleasing, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed; then the man is impenitent, then he is obstinate, then he is resolved never to repent, and then he is ruined.
ROBERT LEIGHTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
It appears, therefore, that every man lies under a twofold condemnation for his sins: he is sentenced to various temporal sufferings, to be terminated by death; and to eternal misery in another world. And if any one should object to this, on the supposition that his sins do not merit so tremendous a punishment, I would inquire whether human legislators and judges ever think the criminals themselves competent to decide on the equity of their statutes and decisions? and whether we are capable of determining the degree of evil contained in rebellion against the authority of the infinite Creator, and what punishment the glory of his name, and the everlasting advantage of the whole creation, may require him to inflict upon transgressors? In respect of the former part of this sentence, alleviations and respites alone can be expected; but we may hope for the entire abolition of the latter, as we live under a dispensation of mercy, through the great Mediator of the new covenant. Of this salvation we may hereafter enlarge; at present it suffices to say, with the Psalmist, "If thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared."
THOMAS SCOTT
"On Man's Situation as a Sinner in this Present World", Essays on the Most Important Subjects in Religion
God is the creditor of that punishment which is due upon Sin; and He has the right of abating, as well as the right of exacting.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
A man by his sin may waste himself, which is to waste that which on earth is most like God. This is man's greatest tragedy and God's heaviest grief.
A. W. TOZER
And He Dwelt Among Us: Teachings From the Gospel of John
Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
Sin is the failure of a fallible creature; and reversible by repentance.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
God planteth in mortal men the cause of sin whensoever he wills utterly to destroy a house.
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Niobe
Whosoever obeyeth the devil, casteth himself down: for the devil may suggest, compel he cannot.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Emblems
Old sin makes new shame.
HAVELOCK THE DANE
The Lay of Havelock the Dane: Composed in the Reign of Edward I about AD 1280