Page:Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers.djvu/560

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
552
SIN.

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.


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.


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?


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.


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.