Wesley Corpus

You say, “If what was lost by “the disobedience of one’ person might afterward be recovered by “the obedi ence’ of another, then matters would have stood upon an equal footing.” (Page 113.) And this is, indeed, the truth. For “all that was lost to us by Adam’s ‘disobedience’ is fully recovered by Christ’s “obedience; however we denominate the relation in which the one and the other stands to us.” In this we agree; but not in what follows: “By law, in the fifth of the Romans, as in several other places, the Apostle does not mean, barely a rule of duty; but such a rule, with the penalty of death threatened to every transgression of it. Such was the law given by Moses;” that is, “a rule, to every transgression of which the penalty of death was threatened.” (Pages 114, 115.) Not so; there were a thousand transgres sions of it, to which death was not threatened. Observe: By death, we now mean temporal death, according to the whole tenor of your argument. “But is it not said, ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the law to do them?’” It is. But whatever this curse implied, it did not imply temporal death. For a man might neglect to do many “things written in the law,” and yet not be punish able with death. Neither can I agree with your interpretation of Rom. vii. 9: “‘I was alive without the law once;’ namely, before the giv ing of the law at Mount Sinai. The Jew was then alive; that is, because he was not then under the law, he was not slain by his sin. His sin was not so imputed to him as to subject him to death. “But when the commandment came,’ with the penalty of death annexed, “sin revived,’--acquired full life and vigour,”--(How so? One would have expected just the contrary !) “‘ and I died;’ that is, was a dead man in law, upon the first transgression I committed.” (Page 116.) Beside many other objections to this strange interpretation, an obvious one is this: It supposes every transgression punish able with death. But this is a palpable mistake: Therefore, all that is built on this foundation falls to the ground at once. Upon the whole: Whatever objections may lie against Dr.