Wesley Corpus

xviii. 23, &c.) “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways: For why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. xxxiii. 11.) 39. But perhaps you will say, “These ought to be limited and explained by other passages of Scripture; wherein, this. doctrine is as clearly affirmed, as it is denied in these.” I must answer very plain: If this were true, we must give up all the Scriptures together; nor would the Infidels allow the Bible so honourable a title as that of a “cunningly-devised fable.” But it is not true. It has no colour of truth. It is absolutely, notoriously false. To tear up the very roots of reprobation, and of all doctrines that have a necessary con nexion therewith, God declares in his word these three things, and that explicitly, in so many terms: (1) “Christ died for all,” (2 Cor. v. 14) namely, all that were dead in sin, as the words immediately following fix the sense: Here is the fact affirmed. (2.) “He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world,” (1 John ii. 2) even of all those for whom he died: Here is the consequence of his dying for all. And, (3) “He died for all, that they should not live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them,” (2 Cor. v. 15,) that they might be saved from their sins: Here is the design, the end of his dying for them. Now, show me the scriptures wherein God declares in equally express terms, (1.) “Christ” did not die “for all,” but for some only. (2.) Christ is not “the propitiation for the sins of the whole world;” and, (3) “He” did not die “for all,” at least, not with that intent, “that they should live unto him who died for them.” Show me, I say, the scriptures that affirm these three things in equally express terms. You know there are none.