Wesley Corpus

Is not the doctrine of original sin necessary to account for the being of so much wickedness in the world?” You answer, “Adam’s nature, it is allowed, was not sinful; and yet he sinned. Therefore this doctrine is no more neces sary to account for the wickedness of the world than to ac count for Adam’s sin.” (Page 231.) Yes, it is. I can account for one man’s sinning, or a hundred, or even half mankind, suppose they were evenly poised between vice and virtue, from their own choice, which might turn one way or the other: But I cannot possibly, on this supposition, account for the general wickedness of mankind in all ages and nations. Again: “If men were never drawn into sin any other way than as Adam was, namely, by temptations offered from with out, there might be something in this answer; but there are numberless instances of men sinning, though no temptation is offered from without. It is necessary, therefore, some other account should be given of their sinning, than of Adam’s. And how to account for the universal spread of sin over the whole world without one exception, if there were no corruption in their common head, would be an insur mountable difficulty.” (Jennings's Vindication, p. 110.) “2. How, then, are we born into the world?” You answer, “As void of actual knowledge as the brutes.” (Taylor's Doctrine, &c., p. 232.) And can you really imagine that text, “Wain man would be wise,” (evidently spoken of man in general,) “though a man be born like a wild ass’s colt,” (Job xi. 12,) implies no more than, “Men are born void of actual knowledge?” Do we need inspiration to make this discovery, that a new-born child has po actual knowledge? Is man compared to a “wild ass,” of all animals the most stupid, to teach us no more than this? “yea, a wild ass’s colt?” Does not this intimate anything of untractableness, sullenness, stubbornness, perverseness? “How keenly is the comparison pointed ! Like the “ass;” an animal stupid even to a proverb: Like the ‘ass’s colt; ” which must be still more egregiously stupid than its dam: Like the ‘wild ass’s colt;’ which is not only blockish, but stubborn and refractory; neither has valuable qualities by nature, nor will easily receive them by discipline. The image in the original is yet more strongly touched.