Wesley Corpus

And this ‘new man,” this new life, is “after the image,’ that is, agreeable to the nature, ‘of God.’” (Page 179.) As you advance no proof of this perfectly new interpreta tion, I leave it to shift for itself. To disprove the common interpretation, you add, “Adam could not be originally created in righteousness and true holi ness; because habits of holiness cannot be created without our knowledge, concurrence, or consent. For holiness in its nature implies the choice and consent of a moral agent, without which it cannot be holiness.” (Page 180.) What is holiness? Is it not essentially love? the love of God, and of all mankind? love producing “bowels of mercies, humbleness of mind, meekness, gentleness, long-suffering?” And cannot God shed abroad this love in any soul without his concurrence, antecedent to his knowledge or consent? And supposing this to be done, will love change its nature? Will it be no longer holiness? This argument can never be sus tained, unless you would play upon the word habits. Love is holiness wherever it exists. And God could create either men or angels, endued from the very first moment of their existence with whatsoever degree of love he pleased. You “think, on the contrary, it is demonstration that we cannot be righteous or holy, we cannot observe what is right, without our own free and explicit choice.” I suppose you mean, practise what is right. But a man may be righteous before he does what is right; holy in heart before he is holy in life. The confounding these two, all along, seems to be the ground of your strange imagination, that Adam “must choose to be righteous, must exercise thought and reflection, ibefore he could be righteous.” Why so? “Because righteous mess is the right use and application of our powers.” Here is your capital mistake. No, it is not; it is the right state of our powers. It is the right disposition of our soul, the right temper of our mind. Take this with you, and you will no more dream that “God could not create man in righteous mess and true holiness;” or that “to talk of wanting that righteousness in which Adam was created, is to talk of nothing we want.” (Page 181.) On Romans ii.