TCR 525
No
one in the Christian world
can fail to recognize sin.
For everyone
there from childhood
is taught what is evil
and from boyhood what is
sinful.
All youths learn this
from their parents and schoolmasters,
as
well as from the Ten Commandments,
the first text put into the hands of
everyone
in Christian countries.
As he grows up,
he learns this later on
from sermons in church
and instruction at home.
It is fully taught by
the Word,
and moreover by civil law and justice,
which say the same as
the Ten Commandments,
and other parts of the Word.
Sinful evil is
nothing else
but evil directed against the neighbor;
and is also
directed against God,
and this is sin.
. . . if a person, recognizing what is a sin,
examines himself,
finds one in
himself and says to himself,
'This evil is a sin,'
and fearing
everlasting punishment
abstains from it.
Then for the first time
the
preacher's teaching and oratory in church
is taken in with both ears
and
reaches the heart,
so that he turns from being a pagan
into a
Christian.
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