Wesley Corpus

Treatise Preface To Treatise On Justification

AuthorJohn Wesley
Typetreatise
YearNone
Passage IDjw-treatise-preface-to-treatise-on-justification-032
Words397
Universal Redemption Catholic Spirit Christology
And could any one, who had eyes to read this, be deceived by my citing afterward part of this sentence?) “Not so; to impart happiness to his creatures is his grand end herein. Barely ‘to demonstrate his sovereignty” is a principle of action fit for the great Turk, not the most high God.” You see, there needs only to correct the mistake of the printer, who sets the commas on the wrong word, and this “specimen too of my want of integrity” vanishes into nothing. Suffer me to observe once more, (and let it be once for all,) that the sending false quotations of a man’s book to himself, and that while there was not the least design or thought of publishing what was so sent, could never be a proof of want of integrity, but of attention, or at most, of understanding. (5.) But this will not avail in the following case: “Review a passage of your book on Original Sin. Here you scruple not to overleap the bounds of sincerity and truth. Aspasio had said, ‘As Adam was a public person, and acted in the stead of all mankind; so Christ was a public person, and acted in behalf of all his people. As Adam was the first general representative of this kind, Christ was the second and the last. Here you substitute the word mankind instead of this kind. I at first thought, it might be an inadvertency, or an error of the press, till I looked to the bottom of the page, where I found the following words inclosed within the marks of the same quota tion:” (That is, the commas, which ought to have been set five lines sooner, are set at the end of the paragraph:) “‘All these expressions demonstrate, that Adam (as well as Christ) was a representative of all mankind; and that what he did in this capacity did not terminate in himself, but affected all whom he represented. (Original Sin, page 268; Dialogues, page 137.) Then I could no longer forbear crying out, “There is treachery, O Ahaziah !’” (Page 278.) Treacheryl Cui bono P “For what end?” Can any guess? What was I to gain thereby? Of what possible advantage could it be, either to me or to the cause I was defending? What possible view could I have therein? And would I cheat for cheating sake?