Wesley Corpus

68. That one who is a true believer, or, in other words, one who is holy or righteous in the judgment of God himself, may nevertheless finally fall from grace, appears, (1.) From the word of God by Ezekiel: “When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity: In his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.” (xviii. 24.) Do you object, “This chapter relates wholly and solely to the Jewish Church and nation ?”* I answer, Prove this. Till then, I shall believe that many parts of it concern all mankind. If you say, (2.) “The righteousness spoken of in this chap ter was merely an outward righteousness, without any inward principle of grace or holiness:” I ask, How is this consistent with the thirty-first verse: “Cast away from you all your trans gressions whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit?” Is this a “merely outward righteous ness, without any inward principle of grace or holiness?” 69. Will you add, “But admitting the person here spoken of to be a truly righteous man, what is here said is only a supposition?” That I flatly deny. Read over the chapter again; and you will see the facts there laid down to be not barely supposed, but expressly asserted. That the death here mentioned is eternal death, appears from the twenty-sixth verse: “When a righteous man turn eth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them,”--here is temporal death; “for his iniquity that he hath done he shall die.” Here is death eternal. If you assert, “Both these expressions signify the same thing, and not two different deaths,” you put a palpable force upon the text, in order to make the Holy Ghost speak nonsense. “‘Dying in his iniquity,’” you say, “is the same thing as “dying for his iniquity.’” Then the text means thus: “When he dieth in them, he shall die in them.” A very deep discovery ! But you say, “It cannot be understood of eternal death; because they might be delivered from it by repentance and reformation.” And why might they not by such repentance as is mentioned in the thirty-first verse be delivered from eternal death?