Reprobate

“ That the reprobate obey not the word of God, when made known to them, is justly imputed to the wickedness and depravity of their hearts, provided it be at the same time stated, that they are abandoned to this depravity, because they have been raised up, by a just but inscrutable judgment of God, to display his glory in their condemnation. ”

“ Each of the damned shall carry his sins written on his forehead.
12. What excuses can save the wicked on that day? Ah! they can offer no excuses. ”All iniquity shall stop her mouth." (Ps. cvi. 42.) Their very sins shall close the mouth of the reprobate, so that they will not have courage to excuse themselves. They shall pronounce their own condemnation. Third Point. Sentence of the elect, and of the reprobate. ”

“ Now, if he has committed some error of a mild and not intolerable kind, do you yield to nature, recognise that you are a father, and again turn your thoughts to your child. But if his offence is too serious to admit of immediate forgiveness, it is right for you yourself rather than for me to decide whether you ought to bear even that with a generous spirit and overcome your son's purpose by wiser thoughts, or to entrust the offender's probation to a longer period of discipline. ”

“ Will nothing less than so many lives, and the ruin of a whole city, serve to atone for an abuse done to one foolish girl? By their question they tacitly reflect upon their father, as if he would have been content to let them deal with his daughter as with an harlot. Note, It is common for those who run into one extreme, to reproach and censure those who keep the mean, as if they ran into the other. Those who condemn the rigour of revenge, shall be misrepresented, as if they countenanced and justified the offence. ”

“ We regret, we condemn, we may infinitely deplore sexual irregularity in son, or brother, or husband, or father, or friend, but we do not ostracize;—we may forgive, we may honour, we may even glorify the offender in spite of his offense. ”

“ In the first place, I should make you observe, that the world, familiarized with guilt, and accustomed to see the most heinous vices now become the vices of the multitude, is no longer shocked at them; denominates light, defamations which turn upon the most criminal and shameful weaknesses: suspicions of infidelity, in the sacred bond of marriage, are no longer a marked discredit or an essential stain, — they are sources of derision and pleasantry: to accuse a courtier of insincerity and double-dealing, is no attack upon his honour ”

“ Had this wretched man told you of his sin anywhere else than where he did—had you been with him in the open street, or in your private rooms, you would be justified in refusing to keep his secret for him, even though you are a priest. But he came to you, believing that he was safe in speaking openly to a confessor; therefore, to betray his confidence would be to perjure yourself, and without effecting your object. You could not take the secrets of the confessional into an open court of law as witness of a man’s guilt. ”

“ For a man to look and behave cooly towards his wife, to withdraw the testimonies of his love, to cease to trust and to speak familiarly and chearfully to her, these things I call punishments. And all things of this kind must be more or less sharp, as the fault is greater or less, being suited, not to the passion, or loss, or hurt of the reprover, but to the offence of the reproved. ”

“ The gradual debasement of a word into a term of reproach is sometimes a species of scandal. It is wilfully perverted in the course of years, and made to tell a different tale,—a false tale, probably,—which generations receive as true. ”

“ He said unto me, Yes; and if her husband shall not receive her, he will sin, and commit a great offence against himself; for he ought to receive the offender, if she repents: only not often.
8 For, to the servants of God, there is but one repentance; and for this cause a man that putteth away his wife ought not to take another, because she may repent.
9 This act is alike both in the man and in the woman. Now they commit adultery, not only who pollute their flesh, but who also make an image. If therefore a woman perseveres in any thing of this kind, and repents not, depart from her ”

“ If his reproaches are true, if thou art the envious, ill-natured man he takes thee for, give thyself another turn, become mild, affable and obliging, and his reproaches of thee naturally cease. His reproaches may indeed continue, but thou art no longer the person he reproaches.—Epictetus. ”

“ In the confessional every thing is corruption of the lowest grade. There, the girl's thoughts, lips, hearts and souls are forever polluted. Do I need to prove you this? No! for though you have given up, long since auricular confession, as below the dignity of man, you have not forgotten the lessons of corruption which you have received from it. Those lessons have remained on your souls as the scars left by the red hot iron upon the brow of the slave to be a perpetual witness of his shame and servitude. ”

“ But if we ask the repentant sinner when she began to think of her criminal action we always learn that she suffered from incurable ennui, in which wicked thoughts came and still more wicked plans were hatched. ”

“ Let him look upon her in the nakedness of her sin, for her soul's true chastening. Let nothing be hid from him. Rather now his proper scorn and loathing than his ill-gotten favor, as her unrighteousness had once sought to retain it. For his favor was no more hers, at this time, than the letter she held. Both had been gained by hypocrisy and fraud. Both must be restituted for the completion of her atonement. ”

“ To seducers, who corrupt the truths of Christ and his ordinances, and so trouble the minds of the disciples; for they are those by whom offences come. 3. To those who, under the profession of the Christian name, live scandalously, and thereby weaken the bands and sadden the hearts of God's people; for by them the offence comes, and it is no abatement of their guilt, nor will be any of their punishment, that it is impossible but offences will come.
II. That the forgiving of offences is a great duty, and that which we should every one of us make conscience of (v. 3) : Take heed to yourselves. ”

“ A Woman once prosecuted a Gentleman for a Rape: Upon the trial, the Judge asked if she made any Resistance, I cry'd out, an please you my Lord, said she: Ay, said one of the Witnesses, but that was Nine Months after.
164. A young Lady who had been married but a short Time, seeing her Husband going to rise pretty early in the Morning, said, What, my Dear, are you getting up already? Pray, lie a little longer and rest yourself. No, my Dear, reply'd the Husband, I'll get up and rest myself. ”

“ This is by no means a sufficient ground, for giving any name of reproach to any man: least of all is it a sufficient ground, for so black a term of reproach as this. The more evil it contains, the more cautious you should be, how you apply it to any one: to bring so heavy an accusation without full proof, being neither consistent with justice nor mercy. ”

“ As religious men, who, when misguided, commit rape or murder, invariably repent, if there is any prospect of pardon; hanging may be supposed, in many cases, to prevent that great joy, which exists in Heaven—rather more than ninety-nine per cent.—over one sinner that repenteth. ”

“ Those of you who confess your guilt must leave the priesthood, but I will give you other clothes, and set you free without punishment. Those who say they are innocent must prove their innocence by the diving-test. ”

“ Behold, then, the miserable state of those who give scandal by their bad example, who utter immodest words before their companions, in the presence of young females, and even of innocent children, who, in consequence of hearing those words, commit a thousand sins. Considering how the angel-guardians of those little ones weep at seeing them in the state of sin, and how they call for vengeance from God against the sacrilegious tongues that have scandalized them. A great chastisement awaits all who ridicule those who practise virtue. ”

“ If this is really accomplished and some positive fact is established in the self-accusation, the question becomes one of finding the value seen by the confessor in blaming himself together with his fellow. Revenge, hatred, jealousy, envy, anger, suspicion, and other passions will be the forces in which this value will be found. One man brings his ancient comrade into jeopardy in revenge for the latter’s injustice in the division of the booty, or in deliberate anger at the commission of some dangerous stupidity in a burglary. ”

“ Here the confessor has an open field before him, in which he shows the fecundity of his imagination,—prayers, paying for masses, fasting, alms, corporal mortification, pilgrimages to sanctuaries, privation from theatres, balls, and parties, and other penalties of a similar nature, which p. 167form the criminal code of the confessional tribunal; and here it is easy to imagine what a latitude this faculty offers to gratify hatred, show revenge, flatter the powerful, and make things pleasant to those who have the power of conferring favours. ”

“ Even those who are most apt and facile with the incident of the woman taken in adultery commonly cherish a secret respect for the doctrine of eternal damnation; and some of them are known to pin their faith to the penal code of their state. ”

“ What restraint, therefore, shall we impose on women, in order to counter-balance so strong a temptation as they have to infidelity? There seems to be no restraint possible, but in the punishment of bad fame or reputation; a punishment, which has a mighty influence on the human mind, and at the same time is inflicted by the world upon surmizes, and conjectures, and proofs, that wou'd never be receiv'd in any court of judicature. ”

“ Sins unrepented of, mercy slighted, and the day of grace ending.—They look forward, and nothing presents itself but the righteous Judge, the dreadful tribunal, and a most solemn reckoning.———They roll around their arighted eyes on attending friends. If accomplices in debauchery, it sharpens their anguish, to consider this further aggravation of their guilt that they have not finned alone, but drawn others into the snare. ”

“ The young gentleman was by me, kneeling, kissing my hand, and with tears in his eyes, beseeching me to forgive him, and offering all the reparation in his power⸻It is certain, that could I, at the instant of regaining my senses, have call'd out, or taken the bloodiest revenge, I would not have stuck at it: the violation was attended too with such aggravating circumstances! though he was ignorant of them, since it was to my concern for the preservation of his life, that I owed my ruin.
But how quick is the shift of passions from one extreme to another! ”

“ I had mine; but I will not disclose them, not even to you. I will not injure those who may be innocent; and I leave it to Providence, who will doubtless, in its own best time and manner, punish the guilty. ”

“ The question of lewd and filthy talk was an especially puzzling one, for the confidences of the confessional presuppose a licence on subjects usually forbidden between the sexes, which may readily be abused by a brutal or foul-minded priest, and it is impossible to frame a definition which in practice shall rigidly differentiate moral instruction from heedless pruriency or deliberate corruption. ”

“ If agreeing to wrong is criminal, is not performing it worse? If repentance for ill actions calls for mercy, has not repentance for ill intentions a yet higher claim?—And what reproaches from Delvile can be so bitter as my own? ”

“ They'll hold him up as a repentant sinner, anxious to reform, and needing the little girl's influence to help keep him straight. That's their game, and they'll play it, be sure of that, It sounds reasonable enough, too, for sinners have repented before now. ”

“ For example, if one acknowledges that revenge and hatred, adultery and fornication, fraud and deceit, blasphemy and lying, are sins against God, and yet commits them, he is in this more grievous kind of profanation ”

“ Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?] What can repentance do for a man that cannot be penitent, for a man who has only part of penitence, distress of conscience, without the other part, resolution of amendment.
III.iii.77 (264,1) I, his sole son, do this same villain send] The folio reads foule son, a reading apparently corrupted from the quarto. The meaning is plain. I, his only son, who am bound to punish his murderer.
III.iii.88 (264,2) Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent] [T: bent] This reading is followed by Sir T. HANMER and Dr. WARBURTON; but hent is probably the right vord. ”

“ You know Will has a girl, and he is awful pious. If one looks off his book in church, even to wink at his best girl, he thinks it an awful sin. And that the guilty one should be dipped in holy water, or do penitence for a week. ”

“ The feelings of resentment and moral indignation are parts of our nature, to which the punishment of the offender affords them a legitimate gratification. Now, to this, I should reply that, in the first place, I do not admit that the desire for revenge, as usually understood, can ever be legitimate. ”

“ Yes, they asked, without saying so, they asked each other’s forgiveness for the offence which their two children had committed, years and years ago, against each other and against themselves and against their lives. ”

“ The whole life, conduct, and conversation of the victim were subjected to the most searching scrutiny, her letters and private papers, her diary even—the communings of an imaginative woman with her own soul—were placed in the hands of dexterous and sophistical attorneys, that they might be tortured into proofs of guilt. ”