Sinners

“ Thou who hast sworn to stay
Pleading with sinners face to face
Through all their devious way:
How shall we speak to Thee, O Lord,
Or how in silence lie?
Look on us, and we are abhorred,
Turn from us, and we die.
Thy guardian fire, Thy guiding cloud,
Still let them gild our wall,
Nor be our foes and Thine allowed
To see us faint and fall.
Too oft, within this camp of Thine,
Rebellions murmurs rise;
Sin cannot bear to see Thee shine
So awful to her eyes. ”

“ And when the heaviest stripes do fall,
'Tis where they're wanted most of all,
Miserable sinners!
Look round about your city,
Miserable sinners!
Arouse to shame and pity,
Miserable sinners!
Pray: but use brush and limewash pail;
Fast: but feed those for want who fail;
Bow down, gude town, to ask for grace
But bow with cleaner hands and face,
Miserable sinners! ”

“ Everyone is ready to say, “Oh! yes, we are all great sinners, miserable sinners!” and then if you charge them with any particular sin, they bridle up and deny that sin fiercely enough, and all sins one by one, confessing themselves great sinners, and yet saying that they don’t know what sins they have committed. ”

“ To shew such poor sinners the way to God, to preach to them the power of Christ’s resurrection, and to pluck them as firebrands out of the burning, the Methodist preachers go out into the highways and hedges. If this is to be vile, by the help of my God, I shall be more vile; neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy, and be made instrumental in turning any of this rabble to righteousness. ”

“ They will be damned every one of them, these semi-sinners. But commend me to your arrant sinners—hardened, unalloyed, out-and-out, thorough-bred sinners. Hell is no place for them; they have cheated the devil, purely by virtue of their devotion to his service! ”

“ For the sinners of my flock,, the great sinners, who live wilfully in sin, who harden their hearts against Thee, I have need most earnestly to pray. Move them to repentance, good Lord; melt their impenitent hearts, that they may open their eyes and behold the peril of their souls. Draw them out of the mire, that they sink not; turn Thou them, and they shall be turned; convert them, and they shall live; though they have sinned desperately, forgive their sins; I pray Thee let not these poor souls, so blind, so dead in sin, perish in the everlasting fires. O shew forth Thy great mercy ”

“ Some notoriously wilful sinners are like this madman; all are herein like the horse and the mule, that they need to be held in with bit and bridle; but some are like the wild ass, that will not be so held. The commands and curses of the law are as chains and fetters, to restrain sinners from their wicked courses; but they break those bands in sunder, and it is an evidence of the power of the devil in them. ”

“ Was not God's love for sinners so great that before the world repented of its wickedness He gave His Son to die for an atonement and expiation? Must we then not love those who err, and who repent of their weakness? Nay, are we not all sinners, all weak, all frail and feeble beings in weak mortal bodies? ”

“ Note, The sin of sinners is never forgotten till it is forgiven. It is ever before God, till by repentance it comes to be ever before us. It is graven upon the table of their heart; their own consciences witness against them, and are instead of a thousand witnesses. What is graven on the heart, though it may be covered and closed up for a time, yet, being graven, it cannot be erased, but will be produced in evidence when the books shall be opened. Nay, we need not appeal to the tables of the heart, perhaps they will not own the convictions of their consciences. ”

“ These things thou hast done; the fact is too plain to be denied, the fault too bad to be excused; these things God knows, and thy own heart knows, thou hast done." The sins of sinners will be proved upon them, beyond contradiction, in the judgment of the great day: " I will reprove thee, or convince thee, so that thou shalt have not one word to say for thyself." The day is coming when impenitent sinners will have their mouths for ever stopped and be struck speechless. What confusion will they be filled with when God shall set their sins in order before their eyes! ”

“ O Lord, Thou camest to seek sinners----I am the greatest of sinners! O Lord, if Thou didst abase Thyself that we might adore Thee, might speak to Thee, might pray to Thee, why should I not adore Thee, speak to Thee, pray to Thee? ”

“ For though you are not like the men of Sodom,—God forbid!—you are nevertheless sinners. Are there no thieves, railers, extortioners, among you? Be you sure that God is angry. I say not that he will burn your town, but that he will burn you. ”

“ That all their sins should be pardoned to them, and should not be mentioned against them. "Though they be as red as scarlet and crimson, though you lie under the guilt of blood, yet, upon your repentance, even that shall be forgiven you, and you shall appear in the sight of God as white as snow." Note, The greatest sinners, if they truly repent, shall have their sins forgiven them, and so have their consciences pacified and purified. ”

“ Oh what sinners we are! Let me hope that now I, by God's blessing placed beyond temptation, will live safely, and that some day I even may, by the will of the Lord Jesus, find mercy for my sins. Some kind of madness has method in it, but madness of sin holds us without escape. ”

“ Nor do I speak of those open and avowed sinners who have thrown off even the appearance of virtue. I speak only of those who, like yourselves, live as most live, and whose actions present nothing to the public view particularly shameful or depraved. They are sinners and they admit it: you are not innocent, and you confess it. Now are they penitent? ”

“ Poor sinners, they are cursed by God, by the angels, by the saints, even in this world every day by all the priests, the religious who proclaim their curse in reciting the Divine office: " Cursed are they that do err from Thy commandments." ”

“ And how blinded are the senses, and how dead the feelings of the sinner, who does not feel the degradation of his state, but makes open display of himself before the crowd, and with a bold front and unshrinking touch, comes to the All-pure and All-holy to be healed! Learn, fellow sinners, from this poor woman, what your sin is, how defiling, how miserable, how sure to grow worse under human treatment. ”

“ And, O poor sinner, how will it then fare with thee, and with all the reprobate, if even the Angels and Saints tremble at the coming of the Judge? Words cannot express the terror and dismay of evil spirits and unrepentant sinners, when they shall behold their Divine Judge on the throne of His majesty, and know that He will rigorously judge and condemn them to Hell for all eternity. ”

“ It happens, I confess, that sinners are sometimes found, who push their madness and impiety even to that last moment: who expire in vomiting forth, with their impious souls, blasphemies against the God who is to judge them, and whom they refuse to acknowledge. For, O my God! thou art terrible in thy judgments, and sometimes permittest that the atheist die in his impiety. ”

“ Note, Sooner or later, all sinners will be mourners; penitent sinners look to Christ, and mourn after a godly sort; and they who sow in those tears, shall shortly reap in joy; impenitent sinners shall look unto him whom they have pierced, and, though they laugh now, shall mourn and weep after a devilish sort, in endless horror and despair. ”

“ Heinous and hardened sinners sometimes meet with rebukes for their iniquity. God stops them in their way, and opens the mouth of conscience, or by some startling providence startles and affrights them. ”

“ Believe, ye righteous, that the sinners will become a shame
And perish in the day of unrighteousness.
2. Be it known unto you (ye sinners) that the Most High is mindful of your destruction,
And the angels of heaven rejoice over your destruction. ”

“ Your heart, little child, is full of sin. You think of what is not right, and then you wish it, and that is sin.... Ah, what shall sinners do when the last day comes upon them? What will they think when God shall punish them forever? ”

“ The flames are 'gathering and lashing about' the sinner, and all that preserves him for a moment is 'the mere arbitrary will and uncovenanted unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.' But does not God love sinners? ”

“ While sinners tremble, saints rejoice before him.
9 "If I were hungry, would I ask thee food?
"When did I thirst, or drink thy bullocks blood?
"Mine are the tamer beasts and savage breed,
"Flocks, herds, and fields, and forests where they feed:"
All is the Lord's; he rules the wide creation:
Gives sinners vengeance, and the saints salvation. ”

“ But these hardened sinners have such seared stupefied consciences that they never reflect upon their sins afterwards with any regret or remorse, but stand to what they have done, as if they could justify it before God himself. ”

“ What consolation amid their losses and their sufferings, but that of the fellow-sufferers plunged in the same abyss of ruin? Impenitent sinners are allied to evil spirits, they have an affinity with the kingdom of darkness; and when they die, they are emphatically said to "go to their own place"! ”

“ Remember that you are sinners as abominable as the Publican, wherefore do you, as you have him for your pattern, go to God, confess, in all simple, honest, and self-abasing, your numerous and abominable sins; and be sure that in the very next place you forget not to ask for pardon, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” And remember that none but God can help you against, nor keep you from, the damnation and misery that comes by sin. ”

“ Thus is the way of iniquity down-hill; the bad grow worse, sinners themselves become tempters to others and advocates for Baal. The word which we translate ungodly signifies such as are unsettled, aim at no certain end and walk by no certain rule, but are at the command of every lust and at the beck of every temptation. The word for sinners signifies such as are determined for the practice of sin and set it up as their trade. The scornful are those that set their mouths against the heavens. These the good man sees with a sad heart; they are a constant vexation to his righteous soul. ”

“ He receiveth sinners—the chief of sinners—sinners of vulgar habits and atrocious crimes—sinners who are shunned by the refined and virtuous, and scowled upon by our sentimental moralists and men of taste ”

“ It is not sufficient for us to take a general view of ourselves as sinners, in common with the rest of mankind, without being duly affected with it; but we must consider the various aggravations of sin, with a particular application thereof to ourselves; and how much we have exceeded many others therein, either before or since we were called by the grace of God, by which means we may take occasion to say, as the apostle does concerning himself, that we are the chief of sinners, 1 Tim. ”

“ And in this sense it is said in Scripture, that God sometimes hardens sinners, blinds them, leaves them to their own inventions, gives them up to their lusts, or to a reprobate sense, and the like; which is certainly the greatest of all the punishments which He inflicts upon sinners in this life, but what such sinners justly deserve for their repeated abuses of mercy. ”

“ You say that God was sent to sinners: but why not to those who are free from sin? What harm is it not to have sinned?
You encourage sinners, because you are not able to persuade any really good men: therefore you open the doors to the most wicked and abandoned. ”

“ Now ministers meet their people in order to enlighten and awaken the consciences of sinners: setting before them the great [Pg 125] evil and danger of sin, the strictness of God’s law, their own wickedness of heart and practice, the great guilt they are under, the wrath that abides upon them, and their impotence, blindness, poverty, and helpless and undone condition: but all is often in vain; ”

“ Who hates the sinner's path, and fears
the road that leads to hell.
2When we devote our youth to God,
'tis pleasing in his eyes;
A flower, when offer'd in the bud,
is no vain sacrifice.
3'Tis easier work, if we begin
to fear the Lord betimes;
While sinners, who grow old in sin,
are hardened in their crimes. ”

“ The contest between God and sinners is whose word shall stand, whose will shall be done, and who shall get the better. Sinners say that they shall have peace though they go on; God says they shall have no peace. ”

“ It is easy to say 'All men are sinners.' That never yet forced anybody down on his knees. But when we shut out on either side the lateral view and look straight on, on the narrow line of our own lives, up to the Throne where the Lawgiver sits, and feel 'I am a sinful man,' that sends us to our prayers for pardon and purity. ”

“ Sinners of the same sort will be bundled together in the great day: a bundle of atheists, a bundle of epicures, a bundle of persecutors, and a great bundle of hypocrites. Those who have been associates in sin, will be so in shame and sorrow; and it will be an aggravation of their misery, as the society of glorified saints will add to their bliss. ”

“ This is what sinners experience every day. What do not the vindictive endure after they have satisfied their revenge by the murder of an enemy? They fly continually from the relations of their murdered foe, and from the minister of justice. They live as fugitives, poor, afflicted, and abandoned by all. ”

“ See what a desire God has of the salvation of sinners, in that he resents it so ill if those concerned do not what they can to prevent their destruction. And see what a great deal those ministers have to answer for another day who palliate sin, and flatter sinners in their evil way, and by their wicked lives countenance and harden them in their wickedness, and encourage them to believe that they shall have peace though they go on. ”

“ Note, All the sins of sinners are known to God the Judge: those that are most conversant in the world, though they see much wickedness in it, yet they see but little of that which is; but God sees all, and judges aright concerning it, how great it is, nor can he be deceived in his judgment.
2. He observed the fountain of sin that was in men's hearts: any one might see that the wickedness of man was great, for they declared their sin as Sodom; but God's eye went further; he saw that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ”