Wesley Corpus

iv.8;) um bvaret ovat Seous, persons or things which are partakers of no divine nature. ‘The Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the law; ” (Rom. ii. 14;) that is, by their own natural powers, with out a written law. Neither here, nor anywhere else, does the word (bvael signify no more than really or truly.” (Page 32.) “It remains, then, that the word which we render by nature does really so signify. “And yet it is allowed, we are not so guilty by nature, as a course of actual sin afterward makes us. But we are, ante cedent to that course, ‘children of wrath; liable to some degree of wrath and punishment. Here, then, from a plain text, taken in its obvious sense, we have a clear evidence both of what Divines term, original sin imputed, and of original sin inherent. The former is the sin of Adam, so far reckoned ours as to constitute us in some degree guilty; the latter, a want of original righteousness, and a corruption of nature; whence it is, that from our infancy we are averse to what is good, and propense to what is evil.” (Page 33.) “I am, 2. To explain some other texts which relate either to theguilt or the corruption which we derive from our first parents. “Genesis v. 3: Here the image of Adam, in which he begat a son after his fall, stands opposed to the image of God, in which man was at first created. Moses had said, ‘In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him.” (Verse 1.) In this, speaking of Adam as he was after the fall, he does not say, He begat a son in the likeness of God; but, He ‘begat a son in his own likeness, after his image. Now, this must refer to Adam, either as a man, or as a good man, or as a mortal, sinful man. But it could not refer to him merely as a man. The inspired writer could not design to inform us, that Adam begat a man, not a lion, or a horse.