Wesley Corpus

“It is true, all these are trials for man during his state of probation. But a state of probation for innocent man would not have included death; much less a violent and bloody, or a lingering and painful, death.” (Page 26.) “Accordingly, our return to dust is mentioned by Moses as a curse of God for the sin of man. And when once life is forfeited by all mankind, then a painful death may properly become a part of the further trial of such creatures as are to rise again; and any pious sufferers may be rewarded by a happy resurrection. But a painful death could never be made a part of the trial of innocent creatures, who had never forfeited life, nor were ever legally subjected to death.” (Page 27.) “Upon the whole, therefore, such noxious and destructive plants and animals could not be made to vex and disturb, to poison and destroy, a race of innocent, intellectual beings. “3. The manner of our entrance into life is another proof of universal sin.” (Page 29.) “Would the great and good God have appointed intellectual animals, had they been sin less, to be propagated in such in a way as should necessarily give such exquisite pain and anguish to the mothers who bring them forth? And if the contagion had not been univer sal, why should such acute pangs attend almost every female parent? Are not the multiplied sorrows with which the daughters of Eve bring forth, an evident token that they are not in their original state of favour with that God who created them, and pronounced a blessing upon them in their propagation?” “Moses informs us, that God blessed the first pair, and bid them ‘be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and soon after tells us that these ‘multiplied sor rows in child-birth are a curse from an offended God. Surely the curse is not as old as the blessing; but sin and sorrow came in together, and spread a wide curse over the birth of man, which before stood only under a divine benediction. Not that the blessing is now quite taken away, though the pains of child-bearing are added to it: And daily experience proves, this curse is not taken away by the blessing repeated to Noah.” (Page 29.) “4.