Wesley Corpus

Ant.--The thing itself speaks: “Thou hast forgotten the Lord, and hast trusted in falsehood. Therefore, saith the Lord, I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame may appear.” (Ibid., page 1.) Friend.--Peremptory enough ! But you will “not return railing for railing!” so, out of mere tenderness and respect, you pronounce me a “natural man,” and one who “ hath forgotten the Lord,” and hath “trusted in falsehood l’” Ant.--And so you are, if you do not believe in Christ. Pray let me ask you one question: Do you believe that “Christ hath appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself?” Friend.--I do. Ant.--But in what sense? Friend.--I believe he made, by that one oblation of him self, once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. And yet he hath not “dome all which was necessary for the” absolute, infallible, inevitable “ salvation of the whole world.” If he had, the whole world would be saved; whereas, “he that believeth not shall be damned.” Ant.--But is it not said, “‘He was wounded for our trans gressions, and with his stripes we are healed?’ And is he not ‘the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world?’” (Page 4.) Friend.--Yes. But this does not prove that he “put an end to our sins before they had a beginning !” (Ibid.) Ant.--O ignorance ! Did not our sins begin in Adam? Friend.--Original sin did. But Christ will not put an end to this before the end of the world. And, as to actual, if I now feel anger at you in my heart, and it breaks out in reproachful words; to say Christ put an end to this sin before it began, is a glaring absurdity. Ant.--But I say, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. He hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” And St. Peter says, “Who his own self bare our sins in his body on the tree.” Friend.--To what purpose do you heap these texts together? to prove that Christ “put an end to our sins” before they had a beginning? If not, spare your labour; for they are quite foreign to the present question.