Wesley Corpus

14;) that is, spiritually dead; ‘dead in trespasses and sins.” “Now, can we suppose that all God’s creatures would uni versally break his law, run into sin and death, defile and destroy themselves, and that without any one exception, if it had not arisen from some root of bitterness, some originaliniquity, which was diffused through them all, from their very entrance into the world? It is utterly incredible, that every single person, among the millions of mankind, should be born pure and inno cent, and yet should all, by free and voluntary choice, every one for himself, for near six thousand years together, rebel against Him that made them, if there were not some original contagion spread through them all at their entrance into life. “Secondly. The same thing appears from the scriptural doctrine of our recovery by divine grace, Let us consider in what manner the Scripture represents that great change which must be wrought in our souls, in order to our obtaining the favour and image of God, and future happiness. ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John iii. 3,6,8.) In other scriptures it is represented, that they ‘must be born of the Spirit;’ they must be ‘born of God;’ they must be ‘created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works;’ (Eph. ii. 10;) they must “be quickened, or raised again, from their ‘death in trespasses and sins;’ (Eph. ii. 5;) they must “be renewed in their spirit, or ‘created after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness;' they must “be recon ciled to God by Jesus Christ; they must be “washed from their sins in his blood.’ “Since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, therefore, if ever they are saved, they must be justified freely by his grace, through the redemp tion that is in Christ Jesus. Now, can any one suppose God to have made so many millions of creatures, as have come into the world from Adam till now, which have all entered the world, innocent and holy, and yet not one of them should retain his image in holiness, or be fit for his favour, without being born again, created anew, raised from the dead, re deemed, not with corruptible things, but with the blood of his own Son?