(e) One other result of the Fall affects man’s body. God made man to be healthy, strong and happy. By his turning away from God, the source of life, strength and blessedness, he became liable to decay, sickness, pain, sorrow, and death.
2. We see, then, that the fall of man has led to the disturbance of man’s nature, and it has left man in such a condition that of himself he is unable to attain to the knowledge of God and His Will, and unable to fulfil God’s Will even when He knows it. Consequently he fell more or less completely under the dominion of the Evil One, who prompted to error, and to that of Sensuality, which promised happiness to man in the pursuit of his inferior appetites.
Third Tuesday in Lent.
THE EVIDENCE FOR ORIGINAL SIN.
1. The existence of Original Sin in man is proved to us in the first place by our very constitution. We have only to look into our own selves to discern its presence. S. Paul, speaking of himself in his condition under the law, says, “When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin ... did work in our members.” (Rom. vii. 5.) “That which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.... To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.... I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin that is in my members.” Who does not know this truth by experience? Who has not felt the conflict; realized that there are different and opposing elements in his nature? There is a mixture of dignity and meanness, of nobility and baseness, of the knowledge of what is right and a love of what is evil, in all men. They have but to look steadily into themselves to see that it is so.
2. Scripture affirms the existence of Original Sin. "Man born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble ... who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." (Job xiv. 1, 4.) “Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Ps. li. 5.) “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” (Rom. v. 12.)
3. The Church has always taught the existence of Original Sin, and the Sacrament of Baptism, ever ministered, is a witness to this, for Baptism is the means whereby men pass out of a condition of natural incapacity to fulfil God’s law into a state of grace in which they are able to do those things God has commanded. The Sacrament of Baptism was instituted as a corrective to Original Sin, to remedy the defects produced in man by his filiation from Adam.