Wesley Corpus

Is not man here represented as having contracted a debt with God which he cannot pay and God as having, nevertheless, a right to insist upon the payment of it and a right, if he hath not to pay, of delivering him to the tormentors And is it not expressly asserted that God will in some cases claim this right, and use it to the uttermost Upon whom, then, lights this imputation of ‘folly’ and of ‘what is still worse’ ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge Forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ But if the Son of God did not die to atone for our sins, what did He die for You answer: ‘He died, -- ‘(1) To extinguish our own hell within us’ (Spirit of Prayer, Part II. p. 159). Nay, the Scripture represents this not as the first but the second end of His death. ‘(2) To show that He was above the world, death, hell, and Satan’ (pages 130-1). Where is it written that He died for this end Could He not have done this without dying at all ‘(3) His death was the only possible way of overcoming all the evil that was in fallen man’ (page 129). This is true, supposing He atoned for our sins. But if this supposition be not made, His death was not the only possible way whereby the Almighty could have overcome all things. ‘(4) Through this He got power to give the same victory to all His brethren of the human race’ (page 132). Had He not this power before Otherwise, how was He ‘, ‘He that is,’ ‘God over all, blessed for ever’ If Christ died for no other ends than these, what need was there of His being more than a creature As you seem never to have employed your thoughts on justification or redemption in the Scripture sense, I beg leave to subjoin plain account thereof, wrote by a woman of the last century [Anna Maria Van Schurman's Eukleria, Part II. p. 118, &c. See Journal, i. 453d; and letter of April 28, 1738.]: --