Wesley Corpus

In wisdom hast thou made them all ; the earth is full of thy riches!” (Page 42.) So undoubtedly it is, though it bears so visible signs of ruin and devastation. “We have no authority from Scripture to say, that the earth, in its present constitution, is at all different from what it was at its first creation.” Certainly we have, if the Scrip ture affirms that God “ said,” after Adam sinned, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;” and, that “the earth was of old, standing out of the water, and in the water,” till God destroyed it for the sin of its inhabitants. You go on : “I cannot agree, ‘that disease, anguish, and death have entered into the bowels and veins of multitudes, by an innocent and fatal mistake of pernicious plants and fruits for proper food.’” (Page 43.) Why not? Doubtless, multitudes also have perished hereby, if we take in the account of all ages and nations; multitudes, also, have been the living prey of bears and tigers, wolves and lions; and multitudes have had their flesh and bones crushed and churned between the jaws of panthers and leopards, sharks and crocodiles. And would these things have come upon mankind, were it not on account of Adam’s sin? Yet you think, we have “now a more extensive dominion over all creatures, than Adam had even in his innocence, because we have the liberty of eating them, which Adam never had.” (Page 44.) This will not prove the point. That I have liberty to eat a lamb, does not prove that I have dominion over a lion. Certainly I have not dominion over any creature which I can neither govern nor resist; yea, and if the dread of me is on every beast and fowl, this does not prove that I have any dominion over them. I know, on the contrary, that not only a tiger or a bear, but even a dove, will not stoop to my dominion. “However, we have no authority to say, man himself was cursed, though the ground was.” (Pages 45, 46.) Yes, we have,--the authority of God himself: “Cursed is every man that continueth not in all things” which God hath com manded. The moment, therefore, that he sinned, Adam fell under this curse.