Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/511



(:Evil has a tendency to perpetuate itself and to grow. The Christians, having fallen away from the way of perfection, keep on falling deeper and deeper. The government of kings and of civil laws only helps in this falling. For even though the civil law seems to check evil, it encourages a continuing fall of man:) It still does perpetuate lawsuits, punishments, revenge; it returns evil for evil, perpetuates falsehoods, taxes patience, and in all these matters it is an accomplice of the fall, departing farther and farther from the original state of innocence.

(:Speaking of the general state of this 'fallenness' Chelc̄icky̍ suggests that there is only one antidote: utter obedience to the law of Christ.:) His law alone can check the fall. The 'fallenness' of man is the root of evil death from which all mortal things are growing: addiction to do evil, possessiveness, anger, hatred, avarice And knowing that our old self was crucified with our sins man can be rescued through his obedience to the laws of Christ. (:By persecuting, the evil of the civil law grows; by being persecuted, the innocence of the true Christian grows:) and with it, his life of grace.

Rom.6:6. 151*