Law: it was not anger

Saturday, January 19, 2013
    Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095
Meditation:
    Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
    —Romans 5:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God himself was not angry at all, or at a small act of eating a fruit, and so in anger turned man out of paradise, into a world cursed for that sin. But man freely and voluntarily chose, against the will and command of God, to be in the world in its cursed state, unblessed by paradise; for he chose to enter into a sensibility and feeling of its good and evil, which is directly choosing to be where paradise is not; for nothing that is in paradise, can be touched, or hurt by anything of the outward world. Therefore the first state of man was a state of such glory, and heavenly prerogatives... and his fall was a fall into or under the power of this outward world.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), Christian Regeneration [1739], in Works of Rev. William Law, v. V, London: G. Moreton, 1893, p. 21-22 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 3:6-13; Eccl. 7:29; Hos. 6:7; Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:22
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have redeemed us from this fall. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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