Unrighteousness

“ Note, wickedness proceedeth from the wicked; what can be expected from unrighteous men but more unrighteousness? ”

“ Disobedience to the truth is interpreted a striving against it. But obey unrighteousness—do what unrighteousness bids them do. Those that refuse to be the servants of truth will soon be the slaves of unrighteousness. [2.] The products or instances of these frowns: Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish. These are the wages of sin. Indignation and wrath the causes— tribulation and anguish the necessary and unavoidable effects. And this upon the soul; souls are the vessels of that wrath, the subjects of that tribulation and anguish. Sin qualifies the soul for this wrath. ”

“ Do you hear it, ye who say that we must come down partly, and be a little like the world in order to win it? that you must come on to the level of the ungodly in order that you may win them to God?—I tell you that all unrighteousness is sin! ”

“ It is my feelings that are outraged, whenever you try to pass off injustice as a duty, and unrighteousness as a moral ideal. The fact, that I am incapable of stealing, is not due to my possessing logical faculties, but to my having some feeling of respect for myself and love for ideals. ”

“ The unrighteousness which shuts us out from the kingdom, church, body, and Supper of Christ, is not merely included in enmity, contention, and discord, but also in all other kinds of works of the flesh, such as, pomp, splendor, avariciousness, drinking, and carousing. ”

“ Then follows the longest of these paragraphs running up and down the grimy gamut of sin. Beginning with all unrighteousness, he goes on to specify depravity, greedy covetousness, maliciousness. Oozing out of every pore there are envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity. Men are whisperers, backbiters, God-haters, and self-lovers, in that they are insolent, haughty, boastful. They are inventors of evil things, without understanding, breakers of faith, without natural affection, ruthlessly merciless. ”

“ And let us not be displeased and vexed, fools that we are, whensoever any one admonisheth us and turneth us aside from unrighteousness unto righteousness. For sometimes while we do evil things, we perceive it not by reason of the double-mindedness and unbelief which is in our breasts, and we arc darkened in our understanding by our vain lusts. Let us therefore practise righteousness that we may be saved unto the end. ”

“ Let us therefore restrain our discourse to such men as we detest without horror; such men as we see every day in courts, camps, and upon the seats of justice; to such wicked men I will return what I have received, without making any advantage of their unrighteousness. ”

“ O prize your time, and do not [Pg 49] love that which God doth forbid; lying, wrath, malice, envy, hatred, greediness, covetousness, oppression, gluttony, drunkenness, whoredom, and all unrighteousness, God doth forbid. So consider, and be not deceived, evil communication corrupts good manners. Be not deceived, God will not be mocked with vain words; the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. Therefore obey that which doth convince you of all evil, and telleth you, that you should do no evil. It will lead to repentance, and keep you in the fear of the Lord! ”

“ And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ”

“ For when I was still among you, I told you these things.
6Likewise, presently, you see withholding such that this might be revealed at the proper time.
7For this hidden concept of unrighteousness is showing itself already at work, but is presently detained until it comes into existence from amongst us.
8And at that time this unrighteousness will be revealed which the Lord will destroy with the spirit of His mouth and put an end to it manifesting his presence.
9Whose presence is, according to the powerful work of the adversary, lying with all its powers and signs and miracles. ”

“ His heart is bare, and he sees it is all sin, deceitful above all things, desperately wicked; that it is altogether corrupt and abominable, more than it is possible for tongue to express: that there dwelleth therein no good thing, but unrighteousness and ungodliness only; every motion thereof, every temper and thought, being only evil continually. ”

“ And thou shalt not have toleration nor †request† granted to thee, because of the unrighteousness which thou hast taught, and because of all the works of godlessness and unrighteousness and sin which thou hast shown to men.’ 3. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In former days it was—"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." What is the fruit of the spirit of evil? Envy, malice, hatred, evil-speaking, lying and slandering one another and towards other people. ”

“ If we harbour vindictiveness, hatred, malice, and a spirit that produces evil within us, we are so far given up to the power of evil. But when I say that I am opposed to evil principles and their consequent practices, I use an expression that I think you can understand. ”

“ For some, when they see the injustice which they themselves suffer at the hands of evil-doers, are inflamed with detestation of the offenders, and, in the endeavour to be unlike those whom they hate, return to the ways of virtue. ”

“ Whereas it is said all malice, all guile, learn, That one sin, not laid aside, will hinder our spiritual profit and everlasting welfare. (4.) Malice, envy, hatred, hypocrisy, and evil-speaking, generally go together. Evil-speaking is a sign that malice and guile lie in the heart ”

“ He said to me, "Be simple and guileless, and you will be as the children who know not the wickedness that ruins the life of men. First, then, speak evil of no one, nor listen with pleasure to any one who speaks evil of another. ”

“ A fool the man who says, 'We will do evildoing in our turn, and our heart shall be comforted. We will be unjust, and it shall be the beginning of justice.' Evildoing is in evil desiring. Desire nothing, and evildoing will be done away. Injustice hurts only the unjust ”

“ Certain spirits, by permission, ascended from hell, and said to me, ‘You have written a great deal from the Lord, write something also from us.’ I replied, ‘What shall I write?’ They said, ‘Write that every spirit, whether he be good or evil, is in his own delight, — the good in the delight of his good, and the evil in the delight of his evil.’ I asked them, ‘What may your delight be?’ They said that it was the delight of committing adultery, stealing, defrauding, and lying. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign. ”

“ We believe that thoughts of envy, hatred, malice, are in themselves bad, irrespective of results, that such a thing as slander is ipso facto stamped as irredeemably bad long before any of its evil consequences may be manifest. We look not so much to consequence, but to the intention of the doer, and the intrinsic nature of the action performed. Pleasure and pain considerations are the last things we take into account when we weigh an action in the scales of justice. ”

“ They torment a hypocrite when he is discovered—they punish a failure in the tormentor who has suffered the subject of his torture to escape. In Hell, all is self-righteousness; there is no such thing there as forgiveness of sin. ”

“ To put pressure on others to do wrong; to urge them to trifle with their consciences, or knowingly to violate them; to press them to give a vote against their convictions;—all such methods of disturbing conscience and drawing men into crooked ways, what sin they involve! And when a man of great influence employs it with hundreds and thousands of people in such ways, twisting consciences, disturbing self-respect, bringing down Divine displeasure, how forcibly we are reminded of the proverb, "One sinner destroyeth much good"! ”

“ Be careful, therefore, not to condemn any persons unjustly, and so to assist the wicked. For “woe to him that calls evil good, and good evil; bitter sweet, and sweet bitter; that puts light for darkness, and darkness for light.” ”

“ When the action is considered as unjust, it occasions another set of feelings. In the author it produces remorse, and a dread of merited punishment; and in others, the benefactor chiefly, indignation and hatred directed upon the ungrateful person. Thus shame and remorse united in the ungrateful{26} person, and indignation united with hatred in the hearts of others, are the punishments provided by nature for injustice. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Have you never observed a sort of people who, though they are themselves the abject slaves of every vice, show a kind of malicious indignation against the immoral conduct of others, and are the most severe to those whom they most resemble? ”

“ But what renders your injustice toward the pious still more cruel, is, that it is your own examples, your irregularities, and even your censures, which stagger, weaken, and force them sometimes to imitate you; it is the corruption of your manners which becomes the continual and the most dangerous snare to their innocence; it is those foolish derisions with which you continually assault virtue, that force them reluctantly to shelter themselves under the appearances of guilt. ”

“ That which our feelings incline us to think evil, is not so in reality, and in itself, unless it is made so through our fault. For from thee, O Lord, proceed all things, whether life or death, honour or poverty; how, then, can they be evil, when they proceed from the Highest Good? These, however, become evil, not unfrequently, through our fault, that is to say, through our impatience, cowardice, and mistrust. Strengthen us, then, with thy grace and comfort, and make all things work together for good to those that love thee. ”

“ In my Essay on the Knowledge of the Characters of Men, I have endeavoured to expose a second great evil, namely, hypocrisy; the bane of all virtue, morality, and goodness; and to arm, as well as I can, the honest, undesigning, open-hearted man, who is generally the prey of this monster, against it. I believe a little reflection will convince us, that most mischiefs (especially those which fall on the worthiest part of mankind) owe their original to this detestable vice. ”

“ Not to know what is blessing you, but to believe that aught that God sends is unjust, — or that those whom He commissions bring to you at His demand that which is unjust, — is wrong and cruel. Envy, evil thinking, evil speaking, covetousness, lust, hatred, malice, are always wrong, and will break the rule of Christian Science and prevent its demonstration ”

“ So wickedness means, not merely open crimes which are punishable by the law, but all which comes out of a man’s own wilfulness and perverseness—injustice (which is the first meaning of iniquity) , cunning, falsehood, covetousness, pride, self-conceit, tyranny, cruelty—these seem to be what the Scripture calls wickedness. ”

“ Do you think, my Lord, that Greatness gives a Sanction to Wickedness? Or that it is the Prerogative of Lords to be unjust and inhumane? You remember the Sentence which yourself pronounc'd upon this innocent Man; you cannot think it hard that it should pass on you who are guilty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is to say that we must resign our conduct and our consciences to the will of others, and act wickedly, or well, as their good or evil may preponderate, without merit for virtue or responsibility for crime. ”

“ And God said to the Man, ‘Evil hath been thy life, and with evil didst thou requite good, and with wrongdoing kindness. The hands that fed thee thou didst wound, and the breasts that gave thee suck thou didst despise. ”

“ Trust me, none can drink of the cup of vice with impunity. But you will say, that there are qualities of so mean or so horrible a nature, as to place the man that is governed by 31them out of the pale of communion with the virtuous. Malice, cruelty, deceit, ingratitude—crimes such as these, should you think, draw down upon those convicted of them no feelings more mild than abhorrence, execration, and scorn. ”

“ For, albeit, this sin must ever divide us from God—a sufficient sign of its gravity—yet is it true to say that carnal offenders are regarded by the Sovereign Judge, both in this world and the next, [Pg 137] with less indignation than are covetous men, traitors, murderers, and wicked men who have made traffic of holy things. And the reason of this is that the naughty desires sensualists entertain, being directed towards others rather than to themselves, do still show some degraded traces of true love and gentle charity. ”