There is still a great deal of legalism in the Old Testament idea of sin. The emphasis in the Sermon on the Mount is very differen...t from that in the commandments that Moses brought down from Sinai. The commandments have been translated into beatitudes. "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth," is not a sentence one could read in the Old Testament without a jolt, but by the time we reach it in the New Testament, we have been prepared for it. It is set in the context of the rest of Christ's life and teaching. Without that example the sentence carries little conviction because there is no evidence that the meek do or ever will inherit the earth. We have been turned away from a concern merely with our outward acts, to contemplate what lies most deep in our innermost selves, hidden from all but ourselves and God.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us; then schoolmasters... Deliver us to laws; they send us bound To rules of reason, holy messengers, Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, The sound of glory ringing in our ears: Without, our shame; within, our consciences; Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. Yet all these fences and their whole array One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sin has always been an ugly word, but it has been made so in a new sense over the last half-century. It has been made not only ugl...y but passé. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been ...said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition, By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,... The image of his maker, hope to win by it?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The decision of the Supreme Court in the income taxes cases deprived the National Government of a power which, by reasons of previ...ous decisions of the court, it was generally supposed that Government had. It is undoubtedly a power the National Government ought to have.... I therefore recommend to the Congress that both Houses, by a two-thirds vote, shall propose an amendment to the Constitution conferring the power to levy an income tax upon the National Government without apportionment among the States in proportion to population ... and second, the enactment, as part of the pending revenue measure, either as a substitute for, or in addition to, the inheritance tax, an excise tax upon all corporations, measured by 2 percent of their net income.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfas...t love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »