Wickedness

“ And this is one of the forms of retribution on wickedness which we see carried out in their fulness in the present life! How strange, that men should be in any doubt as to God carrying out the retribution of wickedness to the bitter end! How singular they should disbelieve in a hell! The end of many a career is written in these words:—“Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know therefore, and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.” ”

“ Can any crime, tremendous as is the history of human wickedness, compare in turpitude with this?—No, the immutable difference, the heaven-wide distinction which God has established between that being whom he has made a little lower than the angels, and all the other works of this wonderful creation, cannot be annihilated without incurring a weight of guilt beyond expression terrible. ”

“ Note, Wickedness, as it is the shame of human nature, so it is the ruin of human society. Take away conscience and the fear of God, and men become beasts and devils to one another, like the fishes of the sea, where the greater devour the less. Sin fills the earth with violence, and so turns the world into a wilderness, into a cock-pit. ”

“ I only grant so much—namely, that cruelty now becomes more refined, and its older forms are henceforth counter to the taste; but the wounding and torturing by word and look reaches its highest development in times of corruption,—it is now only that wickedness is created, and the delight in wickedness. ”

“ Your wickedness and cruelty, committed in this respect on your fellow-creatures, are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my back or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul, a war upon the immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the bar of our common Father and Creator. ”

“ Wickedness shall burn as the fire; the displeasure of God, incurred by sin, shall consume the sinners, who have made themselves as briers and thorns before it, and as the thickets of the forest, combustible matter, which the wrath of the Lord of hosts, the mighty God, will go through and burn together. ”

“ Since the wickedness of man is still great in the earth, why do we not see the vials of unmitigated wrath, poured out upon its guilty inhabitants? Why do we not see the heavens gathering blackness and the red thunderbolt hurled down in flaming vengeance? ”

“ Let loose the wildest imagination into the realms of wildest wickedness, and yet they dared not, as they feared God, to credit for a moment the union of such appalling and such paltry guilt, in that man who now trembled not before them, but who seemed cut off from all the sensibilities of this life by the scythe of Misery that had shorn him down! ”

“ For what wickedness is there under heaven, which is not found among us at this day? Not to insist on sabbath breaking, thefts, cheating, fraud, extortion, violence, oppression, lying, robberies, sodomies and murders, which with a thousand unnamed villainies are common to us and our neighbour Christians of Holland, France, and Germany,—what a plentiful harvest we have of wickedness almost peculiar to ourselves! ”

“ Ever driving headlong onwards, hastened by evil passions, obstinacy, wickedness, and pride, to inevitable destruction;—destroyed by their own villanous devices, thirsting for blood, grasping at riches, feeding absolutely on each other, the wicked perish miserably. ”

“ This wickedness is such a scandal to religion, and the profession of it, that those who are guilty of it are looked upon as designing thereby to profane God's holy name, and to render it odious among the heathen, as if he countenanced the villainies which those who pretend relation to him allow themselves in, and were altogether such a one as they. ”

“ Thus will God pour their wickedness upon them, that is, the punishment of their wickedness; the full vials of God's wrath shall be poured upon them, to which they have made themselves obnoxious. Note, When sinners are overwhelmed with trouble they must in it see their own wickedness poured upon them. This refers to the wickedness both of the false prophets and of the people; the blind lead the blind, and both fall together into the ditch, where they will be miserable comforters one to another.
verses 17-22 The Prophet's Intercession. ”

“ The seventh bough of avarice is wickedness. I call wickedness, when the man is so wicked and such a devil, that he dreads not to do a great sin, deadly and horrible, or great harm to others, for a little gain or for advantage to himself. ”

“ When corruption is mortified, when every wicked way and thought are forsaken, and the stream which ran violently towards the world and the flesh is driven back and runs towards God and heaven, then the wickedness of the wicked comes to an end. ”

“ I do (says he) praise God unfeignedly, for with-holding me from my own actual wickedness, and preventing my leading others into the cursed and detestable abomination. But I abhor and condemn myself for the concupiscence and wickedness of my heart, which (with grief and horror God knoweth I speak it!) discovered itself in other respects, such as it is a shame even to mention. ”

“ if weakness may excuse, What Murtherer, what Traytor, Parricide, Incestuous, Sacrilegious, but may plead it? All wickedness is weakness: that plea therefore With God or Man will gain thee no remission. ”

“ Marvellous wickedness! may it not truly be said of such detestable monsters, in human shape, that God has given them over to vile affections and to all uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves. Burning in their own lust one towards another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which is meet. ”

“ The world loves a spice of wickedness. ”

“ It is his own sin that procures his ruin: I have driven him out for his wickedness. None are driven out from their honour, power, and possessions, but it is for their wickedness. None of our comforts are ever lost but what have been a thousand times forfeited. If the wicked are driven away, it is in their wickedness. [3.] It is a mighty one of the heathen that shall be the instrument of his ruin; for God often employs one wicked man in punishing another. ”

“ It is a fine old work, and I protest I hate to hear it treated as a jest: The book has wisdom in it, if you look Wisely upon it as another book.”— “Oh! wicked! wicked! my unhappy child, How hast thou been by evil men beguiled!”— 490 “How! wicked, say you? you can little guess The gain of that which you call wickedness: Why, sins you think it sinful but to name Have gain’d both wives and widows wealth and fame; And this, because such people never dread Those threaten’d pains; hell comes not in their head. Love is our nature, wealth we all desire, And what we wish ’tis lawful to acquire ”

“ I lingered over this examination of my feelings with that species of bitter complaisance, mixed with disgust, that I brought to bear upon the analysis of all the inner manifestations in which I believed I discovered a proof of the natural wickedness of man. ”

“ The wicked earneth deceitful wages, but he that soweth righteousness hath a sure reward. [211] A man shall not be established by wickedness, while the root of the righteous shall never be moved. [212] The wicked really falls by his own wickedness, and is swept away by his own violence. [213] He sows iniquity and reaps [Pg 151] calamity. [214] His crooked way, his malignant thoughts, the hatred against his neighbour, the guile in his heart, and the flood of evil things which comes out of his lips, have one issue—destruction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wickedness proceeded from the wicked - This proverb may be thus understood: He that does a wicked act, gives proof thereby that he is a wicked man. From him who is wicked, wickedness will proceed; he who is wicked will add one iniquity to another. ”

“ The voice of the Lord crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom will see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. "Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable? Shall I be pure with wicked balances, and with deceitful weights? For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Therefore I also have smitten thee with a grievous wound; I have made thee desolate because of thy sins. Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied ”

“ Thy wickedness, perhaps, may hurt a man as thou art, may occasion him trouble in his outward concerns. A wicked man may wound, or rob, or slander his neighbour, or may draw him into sin and so prejudice his soul. Thy righteousness, thy justice, thy charity, thy wisdom, thy piety, may perhaps profit the son of man. Our goodness extends to the saints that are in the earth, Ps. ”

“ "Oh, the wickedness of man is very great," said Villefort, "since it surpasses the goodness of God. ”

“ And let me tell you this: our higher senses are so blunted, we are so drenched with materialism, that we should probably fail to recognize real wickedness if we encountered it.'
'But shouldn't we experience a certain horror—a terror such as you hinted we would experience if a rose tree sang—in the mere presence of an evil man?'
'We should if we were natural: children and women feel this horror you speak of, even animals experience it. ”

“ But is there any promise that repentance shall arrest the course of the avenger that follows sin on earth? Are broken health or blighted fame restored when the wicked man "turneth away from the wickedness that he hath committed;" ”

“ I know you.
In wickedness the haughty man and the weakling meet. But they misunderstand one another. ”

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

“ for we are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude; but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favour, and reason by degrees submits to absurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness. ”

“ So numerous are they whose wickedness is shown, not only by yielding to their passions, but even by their utterances, and so numerous the forms and characters of wickedness, and so considerable the task of one who has been intrusted with this office of educating and taking charge of souls. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And here I can not but drop a hint on the deep folly as well as wickedness, of being in a great rage with poor beasts, who, not having the gift of reason, can not be moved like human creatures, with all the wicked words that are said to them; though these dumb creatures, unhappily, having the gift of feeling, suffer as much as human creatures can do, at the cruel and unnecessary beatings given them. ”

“ Let the hope be encouraged that his example may operate as a warning to those among the multitude of spectators, who might not before feel all the horror with which vice ought to be regarded. When wickedness is thus seen not in its allurements, but in its consequences, its true nature is evidenced. ”

“ Wickedness is then great when great men are wicked. Their wickedness was great, that is, abundance of sin was committed in all places, by all sorts of people; and such sin as was in its own nature most gross, and heinous, and provoking ”

“ On the other hand, those that have been inwardly wicked while maintaining an outward appearance of goodness, and have thus filled up the measure of their wickedness by artifices, using goodness as a means of deceiving-these are at once cast into hell. ”

“ God has sometimes converted wickedness into madness; and it is to the credit of human reason, that men who are not in some degree mad are never capable of being in the highest degree wicked. ”

“ The Master said, 'If the will be set on virtue, there will be no practice of wickedness.' CHAP. V. 1. ”

“ We have daily before our eyes the extreme wickedness of men, their horrid pride, savage hatred, barbarous enviousness, and other impious qualities, with which they tear one another, after the manner of wild beasts. ”

“ For he saith, 'When the wicked cometh to the depth of evil things, he thinketh light of them': and finally, like the hog, that delighteth to wallow in mire, the soul, that hath been buried in evil habits, doth not even perceive the stink of her sin, but rather delighteth and rejoiceth therein, cleaving to wickedness as it were good. And even if at last she issue from the mire and come to herself again, she is delivered only by much labour and sweat from the bondage of those sins, to which she hath by evil custom enslaved herself. ”

“ Again, every lot that befalls the wicked man comes to him also for these two reasons, whether his lot be harsh or a pleasant one. If a hard lot befalls the wicked, then it comes as a reward for his wickedness, or as a rebuke and warning to him not to do it again. ”

“ Our goodness comes solely from thinking on goodness; our wickedness from thinking on wickedness. We too are the victims of our own contemplation. ”

“ First of all, it is evil and full of curse; murders, adulteries, lusts, fornications, thefts, idolatries, witchcrafts, sorceries, robberies, witnessings, hypocrisies, double-heartedness, deceit, pride, wickedness, self-will, covetousness, filthy talking, jealousy, presumption, haughtiness, flattery. ”

“ But never was there in the state an evil of so great magnitude, or one that extended to so many persons or so many acts of wickedness. Whatever deeds of villany have, during late years been committed through lust ”