Wesley Corpus

Let us then have recourse to the oracles of God. How do they teach us to account for this fact, --that “all flesh corrupted their way before God,” even in the antediluvian world; that mankind was little, if at all, less corrupt, from the flood to the giving of the law by Moses; that from that time till Christ came, even God’s chosen people were a “faithless and stubborn generation,” little better, though certainly not worse, than the Heathens who knew not God; that when Christ came, both “Jews and Gentiles’’ were “all under sin; all the world was guilty before God;” that, even after the gospel had been preached in all nations, still the wise and virtuous were a “little flock;” bearing so small a proportion to the bulk of mankind, that it might yet be said, “The whole world lieth in wicked ness;” that, from that time, “the mystery of iniquity” wrought even in the Church, till the Christianswere little better than the Heathens; and, lastly, that at this day “the whole world,” whether Pagan, Mahometan, or nominally Christian, (little, indeed, is the flock which is to be excepted,) again “lieth in wickedness; ” doth not “know the only true God; ” doth not love, doth not worship him as God; hath not “the mind which was in Christ,” neither “walketh as he walked; ” doth not practise justice, mercy, and truth, nor do to others as they would others should do to them;--how, I say, do the oracles of God teach us to account for this plain fact? 3. They teach us, that “in Adam all die; ” (1 Cor. xv. 22, compared with Genesis ii. & iii.;) that “by” the first “man came ’’ both natural and spiritual “death;” that “by” this “one man sin entered into the world, and death.” in consequence of sin; and that from him “death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned.” (Rom. v. 12.) But you aver, that “no evil but temporal death came upon men in consequence of Adam’s sin.” And this you endea vour to prove by considering the chief scriptures which are supposed to relate thereto. The first you mention is Genesis ii.