Guilt

“ Yes, most foul! and silence will be a living tongue to torture me—a never-ending falsehood to degrade—and will cast over the soul a night that can never know a dawn! Shall I incur this load of guilt? Will what I gain by the purchase repay me for the sacrifice of truth and honesty? Shall I not even be happier, ay, and more noble, as the poor fisher's lad, having done justice, than as Lord of Lester and Castle More, convicted at my soul's tribunal of guilt, and knowing who and what I am? ”

“ What guilt, to come to crucify afresh Jesus Christ, in the very place where he offers himself up for us every day to his Father! What guilt, to employ, in order to forward our own ruin, the very hour in which the mysteries of salvation, and the redemption of all men, are operated! What madness, to come to choose the eyes of our Judge to render him the witness of our crimes, and of his presence to make the most horrible cause of our condemnation! ”

“ Cannot my guilt be extenuated? Is there not a good that I can do thee? Must I perpetrate unmingled evil? Is the province assigned me that of an infernal emissary, whose efforts are concentred in a single purpose, and that purpose a malignant one? I am the author of thy calamities. Whatever misery is reserved for thee, I am the source whence it flows. Can I not set bounds to the stream? Cannot I prevent thee from returning to a consciousness which, till it ceases to exist, will not cease to be rent and mangled? ”

“ Refrain My conscience felt and owned the guilt, And plunged me in despair, I saw my sins His blood had spilt, And helped to nail Him there. Refrain A second look He gave, which said, “I freely all forgive; This blood is for thy ransom paid; I die that thou mayst live.” ”

“ I said to myself: the guilt that arises from what men do is small and scarcely comparable to the guilt that arises from what they fail to do. For what kinds of men are those, after all, who become guilty through their deeds? Poor, wretched, driven, desperate, half-mad creatures, who lift themselves up and bite the foot that treads them under. ”

“ By thee from guilt and wrath redeemed, Before the Father's face I stand.
To reconcile offending man, Make Justice drop her angry rod; What creature could have formed the plan, Or who fulfil it but a God?
No drop remains of all the curse; For wretches who deserved the whole; No arrows dipped in wrath to pierce The guilty, but returning soul. ”

“ To Heaven I leave the vindication of my innocence. Its justice is sure, though sometimes slow, and the hour of retribution often arrives when least expected. Much as I have suffered—much as I may still suffer, I think my own situation preferable to theirs who have set their snares around me. The injurer must ever feel greater pangs than the injured—the pangs of guilt and remorse. I shall return to my obscurity, happy in the consciousness that it is not a shelter from shame, but a refuge from cruelty I seek. ”

“ There gnaws the worm that never dies,—there burns the fire that is never quenched. A consciousness of guilt destroys all the expected comforts and pleasures of sin. How strange it is that, after a thousand disappointments in succession, men are not discouraged! O sin! ”

“ Ah! since you have hitherto been able to bear up against all internal anguish, the bitterness, the disgusts, the gloomy agitations of iniquity, no longer dread those of virtue: in the pains and sufferances inseparable from guilt, you have undergone trials far beyond what may be attached to virtue; and doubly so, because grace softens, and renders even pleasing, the sufferings of piety, while the only sweetener of guilt is the bitterness of guilt itself. ”

“ The foulness of my guilt Thy righteousness has seen, and Thy pure eyes abhor me. Thou hast gathered the waters by the hand of the unclean, that Thou mightest make for me purification of my guilt; not that in them Thou mightest baptize and purify me, but that in them Thou mightest chasten me with fear. ”

“ You have been compelled by the agonies of remorse, and the upbraidings and tortures of a guilty mind, to furnish that evidence against yourself, which was wanting to establish the proof of your guilt, and to supply that link in the chain of evidence which appeared to be imperfect. I trust, that every one who hears of your fate will bear in mind, that a time will arrive, probably in this world, most certainly in another, when guilt will meet with its due punishment. ”

“ That Thou shouldst take away from me
⁠My little son?
"Upon the thousand useless lives,
Upon the guilt that vaunting thrives,
⁠Thy wrath were better spent!
Why shouldst Thou take my little son—
Why shouldst Thou vent Thy wrath upon
⁠This innocent?" ”

“ O my soul! how long shalt thou continue to love, in creatures, what is but thine affliction and punishment? Wouldst thou suffer more by breaking asunder thy chains, than thou now dost in bearing them? Would virtue and innocence be more painful than those shameful passions which at present debase and rend thee? Ah! thou shalt find every thing light and easy, in comparison with the cruel agitations which render thee so unhappy in guilt. ”

“ Let the guilt thou fearest be transferred from thee to us. If there be any guilt, may we and our posterity atone for it. But we do not acknowledge any guilt, and consequently, as not fearing any punishment, we boldly call it down on ourselves. ”

“ The fallen should not be laughed at nor condemned, but aided. Well, since the guilt contemplated is equal to the guilt consummated, and both incur the same punishment, let me descend wholly into the abyss of crime and die. ”

“ And even while not consciously felt, guilt hampers the soul's insight into divine realities, clips its wings so that it cannot soar, paralyses its efforts after noble aims, and inclines it to ignoble grovelling as far away from thoughts of God and goodness as may be. ”

“ For full statement of this argument that guilt, as never coming to an end, demands endless punishment, see Shedd, Doctrine of Endless Punishment, 118-163—“Suffering that is penal can never come to an end, because guilt is the reason for its infliction, and guilt once incurred, never ceases to be.... One sin makes guilt, and guilt makes hell.” ”

“ If, when overwhelmed with conscious guilt, you smote upon your breast and implored the divine mercy, your penitential tears moved the compassion of Heaven, how can you now harden your heart against the like plea of an offending brother? Even if he offer no plea, can you be utterly indifferent to his grief? ”

“ 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 ”

“ The body will remain guilt's messenger, and will act as it directs as long as you believe that guilt is real. For the reality of guilt is the illusion that seems to make it heavy and opaque, impenetrable, and a real foundation for the ego's thought system. ”

“ I will tell thee, therefore, my crimes, that thou mayst know thy own felicity, lest, ignorant it means nothing but innocence, thou shouldst lose it, unconscious of its value. Listen then to me, and learn what Misery is! Guilt is alone the basis of lasting unhappiness;—Guilt is the basis of mine, and therefore I am a wretch for ever! ”

“ Awake! you shall deceive yourself no longer! Of this last wrong you are as innocent as the unspotted snow; and I, I only, own the guilt, as I shall bear the punishment! Hear first, why I release you from your oath; and then, if you [pg 174] care to listen to a sad tale, you shall know by what infamy of others, one, who might else have been both innocent and happy, has been made infamous and foul and vile, and wretched; a thing hateful to herself, and loathsome to the world; a being with but one hope left, to expiate her many crimes by one act of virtue, and then to die! ”

“ Far more just were it to estimate the man by the tears which he wept when the reproving glance brought home the guilt to his conscience, and by his subsequent earnest endeavors to undo the evil he had done and honor the Saviour he had denied. ”

“ But you're thinking of committing a crime, a crime against Hugh, a crime against yourself, a crime against love, every kind of love—and that's the worst crime of all—and you haven't the moral courage to shoulder the guilt yourself ”

“ As soon as we come to a right understanding of our lost and guilty condition, we shall cry: "Be merciful to me a sinner; create within me a clean heart, O God." Without such an understanding,—such an intelligent perception of our sin and guilt,—we never shall, and we never can. ”

“ Perhaps we have done acts, that, in proportion to the temptation or provocation, were less excusable than his great crime. Silent pity and sorrow for the victim should mingle with our detestation of the guilt. ”

“ Guilt may derive from actual wrong-doing on the part of the guilt-ridden as well as the causes described above. Whether spurred from emotional neglect, mental abuse, infidelity, or another source, this guilt is the only type which I feel is worthy of its keeper. When an individual knowingly hurts another, yet makes no attempt to correct himself, the former deserves to feel the grasp of pain. ”

“ The consciousness of guilt and sin threatens us all more or less, and with varying intensity in different minds. The weariness of the world, 'the ills that flesh is heir to,' the last grim enemy, Death, and that which lies beyond them all, ring you round. My friends! ”

“ The woes that are reserved for me are incapable alike of alleviation or intermission.
But I came not hither to recriminate. I came not hither to accuse others, but myself. I know the retribution that is appointed for guilt like mine. It is just. I may shudder at the foresight of my punishment and shrink in the endurance of it; but I shall be indebted for part of my torment to the vigour of my understanding, which teaches me that my punishment is just. Why should I procrastinate my doom and strive to render my burden more light? ”

“ Thou alone knowest the wringing anguish, the desolation of sorrow that has made its home in thousands of poor mother's hearts, to be revealed only in that judgment day when the tempter and his victim shall be summoned to the bar of eternal justice, supplicants for that mercy which, while extended to all, abates naught of the exact measurement of the relative claims of each, neither absolves any from the righteous law of retribution which visits them in due proportion to their guilt.
"The first and most important question for us to decide, is the person to whom attaches the greatest guilt. ”

“ The mere facts of guilt are of little value except to the gossip and the tipstaff; but how the wounded and the wounding soul bear themselves after the crime, that is one of the needful lessons of life. ”

“ You are sensible, that, even when prostrating yourselves before the Almighty, the confession of your guilt never entirely corresponds with the most intimate dispositions of your heart; that it never paints your internal situation such as in reality it is; and, in a word, that there always exists in your heart something more criminal than what in any statement of it you can bring yourselves to avow. ”

“ Make an humble acknowledgment of your guilt. Let there be no excuses, no throwing the blame on others; but above all, let not shame, or fear, or hypocrisy, tempt you to tell lies, or conceal a mortal sin in confession. ”

“ It will doubtless transcend all that the experience of earth can suggest to the imagination. Can it be said that we impair this sanction when we hold that the suffering consequent on guilt is absolutely certain, lasting in its duration, and inconceivably dreadful in its nature? ”

“ If you once begin to try to measure guilt, you will have to pass under the surface appearance, and will find that many a white and dazzling act has a very rotten inside, and that many a very corrupt and foul one does not come from so corrupt a source as at first sight might seem to be its origin. ”

“ If it be a question of your guilt, you may go much farther than even this, for in that hour of which we have been speaking you stood unmoved, looked on with cold and heartless indifference, while all creation owned the wondrous fact. ”

“ I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art. ”

“ After this we continued our journey, and as they got out of the cab, our friend was saying, "My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt." ”

“ So from the same heart that had felt a passionate pity for the victim, compassion flowed out on the transgressor. For where others feel the tragedy of suffering, the pure in heart realize with an infinitely sharper pain the tragedy of guilt. ”

“ As the deteriorating process advances, does not the guilt diminish? and now, in these ends of the ages, and in these dark habitations of cruelty, has not the culpability run down to a minimum, which God in the day of judgment will "wink at?" ”

“ As long as you are tortured with thoughts of a possible hell because of guilt, as long as you are troubled by the contemplation of consequences affecting your happiness as ensuing upon your wrongdoing, so long there is a foreign and disturbing element in even your deepest and truest penitence. ”

“ instead of that serenity of conscience which allowed me to look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe. ”

“ Instead of helping him out you dragged him farther in, pressing him down in the mire, so that, by dint of standing on his body, you might yourselves reach the bank, at the cost of his entire destruction. Though he is guilty, your guilt is a thousand times as great. ”