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1 " Wherever there is ‘faith’ without regeneration it has to be that the uncured enmity of the natural man to spiritual things remains. "
― Iain H. Murray , Evangelical Holiness: And Other Addresses
2 " Latter-day Saints have often been critical of those who emphasize salvation by grace alone, while we have often been criticised for a type of works-righteousness. The gospel is in fact a gospel covenant—a two-way promise. The Lord agrees to do for us what we could never do for ourselves—to forgive our sins, to lift our burdens, to renew our souls and re-create our nature, to raise us from the dead, and to qualify us for glory hereafter. At the same time, we promise to do what we can do: come unto Christ by covenant, commit our lives to him as Lord and Master, receive the appropriate ordinances (sacraments), love and serve one another, and do all in our power to put off the natural man and deny ourselves of un-godliness. We know, without question, that the power to save us, to change us, to renew our souls, is in Christ. True faith, however, always manifests itself in faithfulness. " When faith springs up in the heart," Brigham Young taught, " good works will, and good works will increase that pure faith within them. "
3 " Nay, we sometimes proceed so far as to trust in ourselves, and depend on our own power, strength, and abilities. Then it is that God in mere mercy interposes, and breaks us in pieces; humbles, and confounds us, and so empties us of ourselves, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Which we cannot be, without being first emptied of that arrogance and self-conceit which stand in perfect opposition to the grace of God. Hence it appears that hope is a MILITANT VIRTUE, fighting against all that confidence in ourselves; all that self-exaltation upon the score of our own gifts, merits, righteousness, prosperity, honours, and riches, in which the natural man reposes all his confidence. The business of hope is to oppose and conquer all these delusions of the devil, and to seek its rest in the sanctuary of God. "
― Johann Arndt , Johann Arndt: True Christianity
4 " People think the Bible is too complicated for the average person to understand. People tend to be wrong. It's too complicated for the unsaved person, yes, it's foolishness to him. But for those who are in Christ, it's a magnificent journey of simplicity. Depth, richness, but simplicity. It's the fact that the natural man can't believe that life with Christ is so simple that cause the great " complexity" argument. Stop, take a breath, and believe that it's as simple as it appears. "
5 " It is fundamental to both Taoist and Confucian thought that the natural man is to be trusted, and from their standpoint it appears that the Western mistrust of human nature-whether theological or technological-is a kind of schizophrenia. It would be impossible, in their view, to believe oneself innately evil without discrediting the very belief, since all the notions of a perverted mind would be perverted notions. "
― Alan W. Watts , The Way of Zen
6 " Woodrow Wilson, like most other educated Americans of his time, despised mathematics, complaining that " the natural man inevitably rebels against mathematics, a mild form of torture that could only be leaned by painful process of drill. "
