Wesley Corpus

Let every one take his liberty, either of con fining himself to strictly scriptural language, or of manifest ing his sense of these plain scriptural doctrines, in words and phrases of his own.” (Page 447.) “But if the words were expressly written in the Bible, they could not reasonably be interpreted in any other sense, than this which I have explained by so many examples, both in Scripture, history, and in common life. “I would only add, If it were allowed, that the very act of Adam’s disobedience was imputed to all his posterity; that all the same sinful actions which men have committed were imputed to Christ, and the very actions which Christ did upon earth were imputed to believers; what greater punish ments would the posterity of Adam suffer, or what greater blessings could believers enjoy, beyond what Scripture has assigned, either to mankind, as the result of the sin of Adam; or to Christ, as the result of the sins of men; or to believers, as the result of the righteousness of Christ?” I BELIEVE every impartial reader is now able to judge, whether Dr. Taylor has solidly answered Dr. Watts or no. But there is another not inconsiderable writer whom I can not find he has answered at all, though he has published four several tracts professedly against Dr. Taylor, of which he could not be ignorant, because they are mentioned in “The Ruin and Recovery of Human Nature;”--I mean the Rev. Mr. Samuel Hebden, Minister at Wrentham, in Suffolk. I think it, therefore, highly expedient, to subjoin a short abstract of these also ; the rather, because the tracts them selves are very scarce, having been for some time out of print. “Lo, this only have I found, that God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” Eccles. vii. 29. “IN the preceding verse Solomon had declared, how few wise and good persons he had found in the whole course of his life; but, lest any should blame the providence of God for this, he here observes, that these were not what God made man at first; and that their being what they were not was the effect of a wretched apostasy from God.