Wesley Corpus

And is a rational creature good, unless all its powers are devoted to God? Was not man duly qualified at first to exercise dominion over the other creatures? And could he be so qualified without a principle of love and obedience to their common Lord? Lastly: Can any man prove, either that man could be innocent if he did not love the Lord his God with all his heart; or that such a love to God is not ‘righteousness and true holiness?’” (Page 15.) “From the doctrine of man’s original righteousness we may easily conclude that of original sin. For this reason it is, that some so earnestlyprotestagainstoriginal righteousness, because they dread looking on themselves as ‘by nature’ fallencreatures, and ‘children of wrath. If man was not holy at first, he could not fall from a state of holiness; and, consequently, that first transgression exposed him and his posterity to nothing but tem poral death. But, on the other hand, if ‘man was made upright,’ it follows, (1.) That man, when he fell, lost his original righte ousness, and therewith his title to God’s favour, and to commu nion with God. (2.) That he thereby incurred not only tem poral but spiritual death. He became dead in sin, and a child of wrath. And, (3.) That all his posterity are born with such a nature, not as man had at first, but as he contracted by his fall.” (Pages 20, 21.) “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thow mayest freely eat: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it : For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Gen. ii. 16, 17. “GoD forbade man to eat of this tree, in token of his sove reign authority, and for the exercise of man’s love, and the trial of his obedience. The words added, ‘In the day thou eatest thereofthou shalt surely die, or literally, “In dying thou shalt die, mean, not only, ‘Thou shalt certainly die, but, ‘Thou shalt suffer every kind of death:” Thy soul as well as thy body shall die.