Wesley Corpus

The inspired writer could not design to inform us, that Adam begat a man, not a lion, or a horse. It could not well refer to him as a good man; for it is not said, Adam begat a son, who at length became pious like himself; but, He ‘begat a son in his own like mess.’ It refers to him, therefore, as a mortal, sinful man; giv ing us to know, that the mortality and corruption contracted by the fall descended from Adam to his son: Adam, a sinner, begat a sinner like himself. And if Seth was thus a sinner by nature, so is every other descendant of Adam.” (Pages 35, 36.) “Dr. Taylor takes no notice of the antithesis between ‘the likeness of God,” (verse 1) and ‘the likeness of Adam : ’ (Verse 3:) On the other hand, he speaks of these two as one; as if Seth had been ‘born’ in the very same image of God wherein Adam was ‘made.” But this cannot be admitted; because Adam had now lost his original righteousness. It must therefore be “the likeness’ of fallen, corrupted Adam which is here intended. “‘And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen. vi. 5.) Here Moses, having observed, as the cause of the flood, that ‘God saw that the wickedness of man was great,” to account for this general wickedness, adds, “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil; yea, was ‘only evil, and that “continually.” The heart of man is here put for his soul. This God had formed with a marvellous thinking power. But so is his soul debased, that “every imagination, figment, formation, ‘of the thoughts’ of it, “is evil, only evil, ‘continually evil. Whatever it forms within itself, as a thinking power, is an evil formation. This Moses spoke of the Antediluvians; but we cannot confine it to them. If all their actual wickedness sprung from the evil formations of their corrupt heart; and if consequently they were sinners from the birth, so are all others likewise.” (Page 37.) “‘I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil fröm his youth; neither will I again smite any more every living thing.” (Gen. viii.