Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
Read Chapter 20
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
The merciful God has provided for the inhabitants of earth repentance as the medicine of salvation. Some endeavor to dispense with repentance, saying of themselves that they are clean. In their great madness they do not understand that to entertain such an idea of themselves is full of all impurity. For “no man is free from defilement,” as it is written. Commentary on Luke, Homily
Sin. Protestants, "my sin? "We know not when it is remitted. (Haydock)
Without a special revelation, no one can be secure, 1 John i. 8., and Ecclesiastes ix. 1. (Bayn.) (St. Augustine in Psalm cxlix.)
Whose soul, then, is pure from stain? How has anyone not been struck by vanity or been trodden down by the foot of pride? Whose hand has never been touched by sin? Whose feet have never run toward evil? Who has not been polluted by a roving eye or been defiled by an undisciplined ear? Whose taste has never been preoccupied by its enjoyment, whose heart has remained unmoved by vain emotions? On the Lord’s Prayer
“Who can say,” writes the wise man, “I have made my heart clean”? The stars are not pure in the Lord’s sight; how much less people whose whole life is one long temptation.
Let us not therefore give up in despair; for to fall is not so grievous as to lie where we have fallen. It is not so dreadful to be wounded as it is to refuse healing after being wounded. “For who shall boast that he has his heart chaste? or who shall say confidently that he is pure from sin?” These things I say not to make you more negligent but to prevent your despairing.
No human, therefore, is without sin. Labor therefore to the utmost of your power to be unblamable; and be solicitous of all the parts of your flock, lest any one be scandalized on your account and thereby perish. .
