Wesley Corpus

(iii.) It is after God, after his image and likeness, now stamped afresh on the soul. (iv.) It con sists in righteousness and holiness, or that knowledge which comprehends both.” (Pages 13, 14.) “Again: To that argument, “Either man at first loved God, or he was an enemy to God,” Dr. Taylor gives only this slight, superficial answer: “Man could not love God before he knew him;’ without vouchsafing the least notice of the arguments which prove, that man was not created without the knowledge of God. Let him attend to those proofs, and either honestly yield to their force, or, if he is able, fairly confute them. “The doctrine of original sin presupposes,-- “(2.) Adam’s being the federal head of all mankind. Seve ral proofs of this having been given already, I need not pro duce more until those are answered. “2. God imputes our sins, or the guilt of them, to Christ. He consented to be responsible for them, to suffer the punish ment due for them. This sufficiently appears from Isai. liii., which contains a summary of the Scripture doctrine upon this head. “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” The word nasa (borne) signifies, (1.) To take up somewhat, as on one’s shoulders: (2.) To bear or carry something weighty, as a porter does a burden: (3.) To take away : And in all these senses it is here applied to the Son of God. He carried, as a strong man does a heavy burden, (the clear, indisputable sense of the other word, sabal,) our sorrows; the suffering of various. kinds which were due to our sins. ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. Wounds and bruises are put for the whole of his sufferings; as his death and blood frequently are. He was wounded and bruised, not for sins of his own; not merely to show God’s hatred of sin; not chiefly to give us a pattern of patience; but for our sins, as the proper, impulsive cause. Our sins were the procuring cause of all his sufferings. His sufferings were the penal effects of our sins.