Letter X
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: To suppose that by our disobedience we have taken something away from God, in the loss of which He suffers, for which He requires satisfaction, and that this satisfaction has been made to Him by the cross sacrifice (as if doing wrong were incurring a debt to Him, which somehow must be paid, though it matters not by whom), is so infinitely derogatory to His majesty, to every idea which I can form of His nature, that to believe it in any such sense as this confounds and overwhelms me. In the strength of my own soul, for myself, at least, I would say boldly, rather let me bear the consequences of my own acts myself, even if it be eternal vengeance, and God requires it, than allow the shadow of my sin to fall upon the innocent.
“Granny intimated boldly, basing her logic on God’s justice, that one sinful person in a household could bring down the wrath of God upon the entire establishment, damning both the innocent and the guilty, and on more than one occasion she interpreted my mother’s long illness as the result of my faithlessness.”
Black Boy (1945)
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Richard Wright 130
African-American writer 1908–1960Related quotes
“I want to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.”
Source: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Les chrétiens n'ont qu'un Dieu, maître absolu de tout,
De qui le seul vouloir fait tout ce qu'il résout;
Mais, si j'ose entre nous dire ce que me semble,
Les nôtres bien souvent s'accordent mal ensemble,
Et, me dût leur colère écraser à tes yeux,
Nous en avons beaucoup pour être de vrais dieux.
Sévère, act IV, scene vi. Trans. John Cairncross (1980)
Variant of last lines: As for our gods, we have a few too many to be true.
Polyeucte (1642)
Sefer Hamitzvot [Book of the Commandments], commentary on Negative Commandment 290, as translated by Charles B. Chavel (1967); also in Defending the Human Spirit : Jewish Law's Vision for a Moral Society (2006) by Warren Goldstein, p. 269
“Sin which men account small brings God's great wrath on men.”
Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 1652
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”
Book IV, ch. 27.
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)
“It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”
Il vaut mieux hasarder de sauver un coupable que de condamner un innocent.
Zadig (1747)
Citas
Quoted in Friends' Intelligencer, Vol. 107 (1950), ed. 26-52, p. 657