Evil deed

“ Restrain yourself, therefore, from all iniquity, and do that which is good." "What, sir," say I, "are the evil deeds from which we must restrain ourselves?" "Hear," says he: "from adultery and fornication, from unlawful revelling, from wicked luxury, from indulgence in many kinds of food and the extravagance of riches, and from boastfulness, and haughtiness, and insolence, and lies, and backbiting, and hypocrisy, from the remembrance of wrong, and from all slander. These are the deeds that are most wicked in the life of men. ”

“ Even the evildoer enjoys a season of grace before the time of the full ripening of his evil deeds, but inevitably there must come the full harvest of evil-doing. Let no man think lightly of sin, saying in his heart: 'The penalty of wrongdoing shall not come near me.' What you do shall be done to you, in the judgment of wisdom. ”

“ They do not fly to acts but to desires and well-laid plans of revenge. If the desire or deed lead to a violation of justice or charity, to scandal or any notable evil consequence, the sin is clearly mortal ”

“ In both clauses of our text evil deeds done are regarded as having a strange, solemn life apart from the doer of them, by which they become influential factors in his subsequent life. Their issues on others may be important, but their issues on him are the most important of all. ”

“ Behold, now let my heart confess to thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved my own undoing. I loved my error--not that for which I erred but the error itself. A depraved soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself, seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself. ”

“ You have gone on for a long time in your nefarious course, unchecked by any consideration for those innocent beings against whom your evil practices have been directed, and undeterred either by the pangs of that remorse, which must at times have overshadowed even such a hardened soul as yours, or by the fear of that punishment which, though long deferred, was certain to arrive at last. ”

“ For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man."—Verses 20-23. ”

“ The Innocent One must pay for the guilt of the guilty, the Good One must suffer the punishments of the wicked. The Lord must atone the guilt of the servant, and that which sinful man has brought upon himself God must bear. O Thou Son of the living God, how great is Thy love and favor towards us mortals! What hast Thou not done and suffered to redeem me, a poor lost sinner, and to deliver me from death and eternal damnation. I have done evil, and Thou art punished ”

“ But it is also just that thou shouldst punish the wicked. For what is more just than that the good should receive goods, and the evil, evils? How, then, is it just that thou shouldst punish the wicked, and, at the same time, spare the wicked? ”

“ and that He will punish all the evil deeds of men, although they have not been prohibited by a prophet, if common sense warns against them, as e.g., injustice and violence. ”

“ If an evil motive prompts the desire of punishment, the wish is not virtuous at all, but sinful. Thus, he who labors to have a criminal captured, sentenced and executed, and whose intention is not the vindication of justice but the gratification of jealousy, hatred, cruelty or other like passion, sins grievously and perhaps makes himself worse than the criminal. ”

“ To resist such evil, and to prevent it, the evil doer must be punished with death, or maiming, or some physical injury. Wrong must be opposed by wrong, murder by murder, injury by injury, evil by evil. ”

“ Then they will ask of us, Why, if there are no evils, do you refrain from certain deeds and actions? Why do you not do all that eager lust has required or demanded? Why, finally, do you establish punishments by terrible laws for the guilty? For what more monstrous [5] act of folly can be found than to assert that there are no evils, and at the same time to kill and condemn the erring as though they were evil? ”

“ Why do they flee to this fatal brand, with which they shall be burned, when it is within their power to live nobly according to God, and not according to custom? For God bestows life freely; but evil custom, after our departure from this world, brings on the sinner unavailing remorse with punishment. ”

“ Those that live in this world must expect to have injuries done them, affronts given them, and trouble wrongfully created them, for we dwell among briers. Now here we are told what to do when we have wrong done us. 1. We must not avenge ourselves, no, nor so much as think of revenge, or design it: " Say not thou, no, not in thy heart, I will recompense evil for evil. Do not please thyself with the thought that some time or other thou shalt have an opportunity of being quits with him. ”

“ Oh, my God! when the justice of Heaven permits the Evil one to carry out a scheme of vengeance—when its execution is committed to the lost and terrible victim of sin, who owes his own ruin to the man, the very man, whom he is commissioned to pursue—then, indeed, the torments and terrors of hell are anticipated on earth. ”

“ Who render themselves guilty of this sin?
In general, all those who in any way incite, advise, or help others to do evil, command them to do it, or approve of it; and in particular those, 1. Who use impious or filthy language, or dress themselves immodestly; 2. Who spread abroad bad books and pictures; 3. Who open their houses to thieves, drunkards, gamblers, or other wicked men, for their unlawful meetings; and 4. Those superiors who give bad example, or who do not hinder evil, as they are in duty bound to do. ”

“ That I may die childless—that when my hour comes I may turn my face to the wall saying, I have not increased the great evil of human life—then, though I were murderer, fornicator, thief, and liar, my sins shall melt even as a cloud. ”

“ I will inflict unendurable injuries on you; death itself, torture, imprisonment in a loathsome dungeon, pains and penalties, shall be your portion. I will do you incomparably greater evil, than you can me. ”

“ But if, as here, it be the just punishment of iniquity, it is an intimation that evil pursues impenitent sinners beyond death, greater evil than that, and that they shall rise to everlasting shame and contempt. ”

“ Sect. XV. “How many evil thoughts do we not think every day! How many deceitful and unseemly words do we not speak! How many unseemly deeds do we not do! Thus do we prepare torments for ourselves by crimes and frauds. Since we have walked body and soul in the love of the greedy and shameless Demon of Envy, and the Light of the Five Gods which we absorb in our food every day thereby goes to the Land of Evil. Wherefore, O my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: Manâstâr hîrzâ! ”

“ I who have done every evil, and through my long life have fulfilled scarce one commandment of the divine law. For what evil have not I, miserable man, committed? Where are the vices, where are the crimes in which I am not implicated ”

“ From the highest to the lowest, there is no health or moral soundness. From the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, there is nothing but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores. The laws, and their violation, and the punishments everywhere invented for the suppression of vice, prove the universality of the evil. ”

“ How does action on this scale and of this kind seem, notwithstanding its religious object, to pass over people, not touching one of their faults, leaving—more than their infirmities—the dark veins of evil in their character as fixed as ever. How will persons sacrifice themselves to their objects? ”

“ But when we consider the barbarities they prevented, and after we have examined and ascertained the aimlessness and inutility of mere punishments, we may be forced to think that they were not an unmixed evil, and that, perhaps, they rather made for good. ”

“ Recompense to no man evil for evil ... Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. ”

“ His crimes, however, rather than his virtues, have illustrated and distinguished him with an unhappy pre-eminence above all other created things. His heart is evil, and, left to its uncontrolled impulses, he becomes licentious, merciless and more cruel than the fiercest beasts of prey. ”

“ Perversely comes in evil times, Where virtues are imputed crimes. His guilt is clear, the proofs are pregnant; A traitor to the vices regnant. What spirit, since the world began, Could always bear to strive with man? ”

“ But then I sigh; and, with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.—
But, soft, here come my executioners. ”

“ XXIX.
⁠But this, she said, was sure, that after death
⁠There was reward and there was punishment:
⁠And that the evil doers, when the breath
⁠Of their injurious lives at length was spent,
⁠Into all noxious forms abhorr'd were sent,
⁠Of beasts and reptiles; so retaining still
⁠Their old propensities, on evil bent.
⁠They work'd where'er they might their wicked will,
The natural foes of men, whom we pursue and kill. ”

“ In this way, therefore, it is just that thou shouldst spare the wicked, and make good souls of evil.
Finally, what is not done justly ought not to be done; and what ought not to be done is done unjustly. If, then, thou dost not justly pity the wicked, thou oughtest not to pity them. ”

“ How often you hear men and women confess their sins and say, "I committed this, that, and the other wrong." Why do they want the evil within and around them? Why do they suffer their spirits to be subject to evil influences, and their tabernacles thereby be disgraced by the commission of wicked acts? What would you give to have such acts obliterated, if there was a price set upon them and you could pay it with property? Can you keep your spirits in subjection to righteous principles all the time? ”

“ When any private persons plead for sin and sinners, palliate and excuse wickedness, or argue against virtue and piety, and so pervert the right ways of the Lord and confound the eternal distinctions between good and evil. ”

“ In both these cases the good—i.e., the worship of God—is desired for itself as good, and the evil that is simultaneously desired does not change this good object.
79. Bad Acts.-An act is called entirely evil when all its elements—its object, circumstances and purpose-are contrary to the moral norms. Thus, to steal, on a large scale, in order to drive the victim to desperation is an act that is entirely wrong. The wickedness of the circumstance and of the motive increases the wickedness of the object of the act. ”

“ And a man, who sells any article, the direct tendency of which is to lead men into evil habits, and thus injure their souls, is guilty of breaking this Commandment. And in general, bad men—men, who give themselves up, without restraint, to the indulgence of their evil inclinations—are in heart spiritual murderers; for they are consociated, as to their spirits, with hell—with that Evil One, who "was a murderer from the beginning." ”

“ Impressed by what they see and feel, they make no distinction between the motives which incited the criminals to the actions for which they suffer, or the heroic courage with which they turned into good that which their judges awarded to them as evil, or the purpose itself of those actions, though that purpose may happen to be eminently pernicious. ”

“ It follows, therefore, that there can be no compromise between the evil and the good. Violence and insult have been offered to mankind, to the divine justice, and therefore to that Heaven in which we hope [Pg 258] to dwell. With those who have kept the faith, I ask that a pitiless crime be punished without pity. ”