Wesley Corpus

“(2.) Since Adam’s posterity are born liable to death, which is the due “wages of sin, it follows, that they are born sinners. No art can set aside the consequence. “(3.) Either Christ is the Saviour of infants, or he is not; if he is not, how is he ‘the Saviour of all men?” But, if he is, then infants are sinners; for he suffered death for sinners only. He ‘came to seek and save’ only ‘that which was lost;’ to ‘save his people from their sins. It follows, that infants are sinners; that they are lost, and, without Christ, are undone for ever. “(4) The consequences of the contrary opinion are shock ingly absurd:-- “(i.) If original sin is not, either death is not ‘the wages of sin,” or there is punishment without guilt; God punishes innocent, guiltless creatures. To suppose which is to impute iniquity to the Most Holy.” (Page 84.) “(ii.) If we are not sinners by nature, there are sinful actions without a principle, fruit growing without a root. ‘No; men contract sinful habits by degrees, and then com mence sinners.’ But whence is it that they contract those habits so easily and speedily? Whence is it, that, as soon as ever we discover reason, we discover sinful dispositions? The early discoveries of reason prove a principle of reason planted in our nature. In like manner, the early discoveries of sinful dispositions prove those dispositions planted therein.” (Page 85.) “(iii.) If we were not ruined by the first Adam, neither are we recovered by the Second. If the sin of Adam was not imputed to us, neither is the righteousness of Christ. “(iv.) If we do not derive a corrupt nature from Adam, we do not derive a new nature from Christ. “(v.) A denial of original sin not only renders baptism needless with regard to infants, but represents a great part of mankind as having no need of Christ, or the grace of the new covenant. I now speak of infants in particular, who, if not “guilty before God,’ no more need the merits and grace of the Second Adam than the brutes themselves. “Lastly. A denial of original sin contradicts the main design of the gospel, which is to humble vain man, and to ascribe to God’s free grace, not man’s free will, the whole of his salvation.