Wesley Corpus

You answer: “There is more than enough sin among man kind, to deserve all the sufferings God inflicts upon them. And the Scriptures represent those sufferings as disciplinary, for correction and reformation.” What, all the sufferings of all mankind? This can in nowise be allowed. Where do the Scriptures say, that all sufferings, those of infants in particular, are purely disciplinary, and intended only “for correction and reformation?” Neither can this be reconciled to matter of fact. How did the sufferings of Grecian or Roman infants tend to their correction and reformation? Neither do they tend to the correction or reformation of their parents, or of any other persons under heaven. And even as to adults: If universal suffering is a proof of universal sin, and universal sin could not take place unless men were natu rally prone to evil, then the present sufferings of mankind are a clear and strong evidence that their nature is prone to evil. 9. Notwithstanding all God’s provision for the good of man, still the Scripture represents men while they are in their fallen state, as destitute of God’s favour, and without hope. You answer: “How can men be destitute of God’s favour, when he has vouchsafed them a Redeemer?” (Page 207.) By destitute of God’s favour, we mean, children of wrath, objects of God’s displeasure; and because they were so, the Redeemer was given, to reconcile them to God by his own blood; but, notwithstanding this, while we and they were in our fallen state, we were all objects of God’s displeasure. “But how can they be without hope, when he ‘hath given them the hope of eternal life?’” All men who are not born again, born of God, are without hope at this day. God, indeed, “hath given,” but they have not accepted, “the hope of eter nal life.” Hence the bulk of mankind are still as void of this hope, as are the beasts that perish. And so (the Scripture declares) are all men by nature, whatever difference grace may make. “By nature” all are “children of wrath, without hope, without God in the world.” 10.