It is a creature of many lives!
\nMan is a strange compound. A sinner, and
\nthe worst of sinners, and yet a Pharisee!
\nA wretch, and the vilest of wretches, and
\nyet pluming himself on his good works!<\/p>\n
Did not experience convince us to the contrary,
\nwe would scarcely believe that a monster like man,
\na creature, as someone has justly said, \u201chalf beast
\nand half devil,\u201d should dream of pleasing God by his
\nobedience, or of climbing up to heaven by a ladder
\nof his own righteousness.<\/p>\n
Pharisaism is firmly fixed in the human heart.
\nDeep is the root,
\nbroad the stem,
\nwide the branches,
\nbut poisonous the fruit,
\nof this gigantic tree, planted by pride
\nand unbelief in the soil of human nature.<\/p>\n
Self-righteousness is not peculiar to only certain
\nindividuals. It is interwoven with our very being.
\nIt is the only religion that human nature . . .
\nunderstands,
\nrelishes, or
\nadmires.<\/p>\n
Again and again must the heart be ploughed up,
\nand its corruptions laid bare, to keep down the
\ngrowth of this pharisaic spirit.<\/p>\n
It is a creature of many lives! It is not one blow,
\nnor ten, nor a hundred that can kill it. Stunned it
\nmay be for a while, but it revives again and again!<\/p>\n
Pharisaism can live and thrive under any profession.
\nCalvinism or Arminianism is the same to it. It is not
\nthe garb he wears, nor the mask he carries, that
\nconstitutes the man.
\nJ.C. Philpot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is a creature of many lives! Man is a strange compound. A sinner, and the worst of sinners, and yet a Pharisee! A wretch, and the vilest of wretches, and yet pluming himself on his good works! Did not experience convince us to the contrary, we would scarcely believe that a monster like man, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,38,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-j-c-philpot","category-the-law","category-total-depravity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3858,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}