SPIRITUAL ARITHMETIC Part1

The wisdom of the fathers????????

SPIRITUAL ARITHMETIC????Part 1

In reading the Epistles of Peter I am struck with their clear arithmetical expressions of religious truth. I have only space here to indicate this line of Scriptural truth, which each one can easily trace out for himself.

1.?Subtraction. Peter, and in fact all inspired writers, represent purity of heart as a work of moral subtraction. He says: "Having escaped the corruption in the world," is the condition of partaking of the Divine nature. 2. Peter 1. 4. In the 9th verse he speaks of being "purged from old sins." If people who are constantly confounding purity with growth in grace would only remember that the one is subtraction and the other is addition, it would save them a deal of bewilderment. Any child can see that they are directly opposite, yet in religion many are ever mixing them as one.?

Purity is the subtraction of all sinful desires and tempers out of the soul — the removing of original sin from the heart. Such terms as to wash, purge, cleanse, put off, cast out, put away, never indicate any growth or addition, but of removing a foreign element from our nature. Sin is no legitimate part of our being; it is an intrusion, a fungus on the soul, a poisonous parasite planted in us by an enemy, and it must be subtracted from us, root and stock, before we find our normal condition.

To be freed from all sin does not indicate growth or maturity, but is the pure normal condition of a soul, whether it be old or young. Processes of growth can no more produce heart purity than addition can produce subtraction. If you have a grain of sand in a glass of water, can you get the sand removed by adding more water? Nor can you remove that ultimate grain of inbred sin by any process of addition; it must be subtracted from the heart by a Divine act, or it will remain forever.??to be continued

(from "White Robes" by G.D. Watson)