Wilberforce: the truth about fallen man

Sunday, March 24, 2013
    Palm Sunday
    Feast of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, Martyr, 1980
    Commemoration of Paul Couturier, Priest, Ecumenist, 1953
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’”
    —Mark 7:21-23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The bulk of professed Christians are used to speak of man as of a being, who, naturally pure, and inclined to all virtue, is sometimes, almost involuntarily, drawn out of the right course, or is overpowered by the violence of temptation...
    Far different is the humiliating language of Christianity. From it we learn that man is an apostate creature, fallen from his high original, degraded in his nature, and depraved in his faculties: indisposed to good, and disposed to evil; prone to vice—it is natural and easy to him; disinclined to virtue—it is difficult and laborious; he is tainted with sin, not slightly and superficially, but radically and to the very core.
    ... William Wilberforce (1759-1833), A Practical View, Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1829, p. 85-86 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 6:5; Ps. 51:5; Matt. 15:19-20; Mark 7:21-23; Rom. 3:9-18; 7:18; Eph. 2:1-5; Tit. 3:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Have I any hope apart from Christ? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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