Wesley Corpus

I am grieved for you, who surely desire to teach them the way of God in truth. O'Sir, think it possible, that you may have been mistaken that you may have leaned too far, to what you thought the better extreme! Be persuaded once more to review your whole cause, and that from the very foundation. And in doing so, you will not disdain to desire móre than natural light. O that “the Father of glory may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation : * May He “enlighten the eyes of your understanding, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints l’” March 24, 1757. BECAUSE of the unspeakable importance of throughly under standing this great foundation of all revealed religion, I subjoin one more extract, relating both to the original and the present state of man:-- “God “made man upright. By man we are to understand our first parents, the archetypal pair, the root of mankind. This man was made right, (agreeable to the nature of God, whose work is perfect) without any imperfection, corruption, or principle of corruption, in his body or soul. He was made upright; that is, straight with the will and law of God, with out any irregularity in his soul. God made him thus; he did not first make him, and then make him righteous: But in the very making of him he made him righteous; righteousness was concreated with him. With the same breath that God breathed into him a living soul, he breathed into him a righteous soul. “This righteousness was the conformity of all the faculties and powers of his soul to the moral law; which implied three things: “First. His understanding was a lamp of light. He was made after God’s image, and, consequently, could not want knowledge, which is a part thereof. And a perfect knowledge of the law was necessary to fit him for universal obedience, see ing no obedience can be according to the law, unless it proceed from a sense of the command of God requiring it. It is true, Adam had not the law writ on tables of stone; but it was writ ten upon his mind.