Wesley Corpus

and, (4.) That he was on this account called the Second Adam? “The Second Adam is now to do that which the first should have done.” (Page 84.) Is he to do no more than that? no more than a mere creature should have done? Then what need is there of his being any more than a creature? What need of his being God? “Our having from him a new heavenly flesh and blood, raised in us by his spiritual power, is the strongest proof that we should have been born of Adam by the same spiritual power.” (Page 85.) Had Adam then the very same spiritual power which Christ had ? And would he, if he had stood, have trans mitted to us the very same benefit? Surely none that be lieves the Christian Revelation will aver this in cool blood | “From Adam’s desire turned toward the world, the earth got a power of giving forth an evil tree. It was his will which opened a passage for the evil hid in the earth,” (I know not how it came there before Adam fell,) “to bring forth a tree in its own likeness. No sooner was it brought forth, than God assured him that death was hid in it: A plain proof that this tree was not from God, but from a power in the earth, which could not show itself, till Adam desired to taste something which was not paradisiacal.” (Page 96.) This is the marvellous in the highest degree, and affords many questions not very easy to be answered. But, waving all these, can anything be more flatly contradictory to the Mosaic account? We read there, “The Lord God formed man. And the Lord planted a garden. And out of the ground made the Lord God every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” (Gen. ii. 7-9.) Is it not here plainly taught that this tree was from God? that, not the desire of Adam, but the Lord God, made this tree to grow, as well as the tree of life?