Wesley Corpus

Hereby he incurred death of every kind; not only temporal, but also spiritual and eternal. By losing his original righteousness, he became not only mortal as to his body, but also spiritually dead, dead to God, dead in sin; void of that principle which St. Paul terms, ‘the life of God;’ (Eph. iv. 18;) St. John, “eternal life abiding in us.” (1 John iii. 15.) A creature formed with a capacity of knowing, loving, and serving God, must be either ‘dead in sin,” or ‘alive to God.” Adam, in his primitive state, was ‘alive to God;’ but after he had sinned, dead in sin, as well as dead in law.” (Page 20.) “But Dr. Taylor is sure, only temporal death was to be the consequence of his disobedience. ‘For death is the loss of life, and must be understood according to the nature of the life to which it is opposed. Most true; and the life to which it is here opposed, the life Adam enjoyed, till lost by sin, was not only bodily life, but that principle of holiness which the Scrip ture terms, ‘the life of God. It was also a title to eternal life. All this, therefore, he lost by sin. And that justly; for ‘death is the due “wages of sin;’ death, both temporal, spiritual, and eternal.” (Page 21.) “IV. Adam’s first sin was the sin of a public person,-one whom God had appointed to represent all his descendants. “This also has been proved. In one sense, indeed, Adam’s sin was not ours. It was not our personal fault, our actual transgression. But in another sense it was ours; it was the sin of our common representative: And, as such, St. Paul shows it is imputed to us and all his descendants. Hence,-- “W. All these are from their birth ‘children of wrath;’ void of all righteousness, and propense to sin of all sorts. “In order to clear and confirm this proposition, I intend, “1. To consider a text which proves original sin in the full extent of it. “2. To explain some other texts, which relate either to the guilt or the corruption we derive from our first parents. “3. To add some arguments which Dr. Taylor has taken no notice of, or touched but very slightly. “4. To answer objections. “And, 1.