Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brothers… Confession of sin is not a mere abandonment of sin as a losing game. That was a shrewd: but not a very flattering estimate found on record in the private thoughts of an old divine. "I believe," he says, "that it will be shown that the repentance of most men is not so much sorrow for sin as sin, or real hatred of it, as sullen sorrow that they are not allowed to sin." When any individual surrenders an iniquitous occupation because he perceives public opinion is setting against it, and that eventually he will be injured by its continuance, it is simple mockery for him to try to make moral capital out of the relinquishment. When a young man forsakes dissipation because it endangers his place with his employer; when a merchant gives up dishonest trade-marks because his tricks are becoming transparent, and honesty seems the best policy — this is not penitence for sin; it is only the hypocrisy of worldly wisdom. Parallel Verses KJV: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? |
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