The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 306

THE SINNER TO BE WROUGHT UPON

266

compass his own ruin by the inherent impetus and working. Nothis needed. Destruction results necessarily from the very

ing more life of

our nature.

Hence the sinner

is

without knowledge, the feelings are per-

verted, the will is paralyzed, the imagination polluted, the desires

are impure, and all his ways, tendencies, and outgoings are at once evil;

not in our eyes, perhaps, but because everything

demands

the

of God,

who

at the terminus of the road,

king His glory the

And we

that

cides

this

final

i.e.,

end of

to

all things.

makes many things

sinful,

consider fair and beautiful.

what

is

right or wrong.

him learn

meet meet Him be with Him and in Him, mafails to

wills that everything should

He

unrighteous, and wicked

Not our

taste,

that wishes to

but God's, de-

know what

that

from the law of God. That law is standard and plummet. But whatever the sinner seeks or desires to please God, he will not do this; e.^., he may be perfectly willing to hang his coat on the wall and do it gracefully, but not on the nail that God has struck in the wall of our life everywhere else, but not there. Thus everything in him becomes evil, his entire nature corrupt, incapable of any good, inclined to all evil, yea, prone to hate God and his neighbor. The deed may not be born, but the very inclination and desire are sin. Like the Romish and some Lutheran theologians, Dr. Bohl denies this. He teaches that there was this desire in holy Adam and even in Christ; not indulged, but held in with bit and bridle as tho God had created man with this ravenous animal of desire in his heart, while He endowed him at the same time with the power to restrain it. To keep this desire in constant check would have been taste

is,

let

it

;

—

man's greatest excellence. But this is not according to Scripture. Nothing shows that holy Adam had any desire for the things he saw. The possibility of desire was created only by the prohibition " Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat." And even after that we do not discover a trace of desire in him. Such eager looking at the fruit was not witnessed until Satan had inwardly incited Eve nof to This is the first eat of the fruit, but through it to become like God. desire awakened in man's heart, and that only after his eye was opened to see that the tree was good for food and pleasant to the :

eye.

In the righteous state

Adam was filled

with peace, harmony, and

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