Wesley Corpus

God," as I have not heard since I came into the kingdom. Mon. 23. About ten, I preached to a considerable number ofplain, serious, country-people, at Rait, a little town in the middle of that lovely valley, called the Carse of Gowry. In riding on to Dundee, I was utterly amazed at reading and con- sidering a tract put into my hands, which gave a fuller account than I had ever seen of the famous Gowry conspiracy in 1600. AndIwasthroughlyconvinced,-1. Fromthe utterimprobability, if one should not rather say, absurdity, of the King's account, the greater part of which rests entirely on his own single word ; 2. From the many contradictions in the depositions which were made to confirm some parts of it ; and, 3. From the various collateral circumstances, related by contemporary writers, that the whole was a piece of king-craft ; the clumsy invention of a covetous and blood-thirsty tyrant, to destroy two innocent men, thathemightkillandalso take possession of their large fortunes. In the evening I preached at Dundee, and on Tuesday, 24, went on to Arbroath. In the way I read LordK-'s plausible "Essays on Morality andNatural Religion." Did everman take somuch pains to so little purpose, as he does in his Essay on Liberty and Necessity ? Cui bono ? What good would it do to mankind, if he could convince them that they are a mere piece of clock-work ? that they have no more share in directing their own actions, than in directing the sea or the north wind ? He owns, that " if men saw themselves in this light, all sense of moral obligation, ofright andwrong, of good or ill desert, would immediately cease." Well, my Lord sees himself in this light ; consequently, if his own doctrine is true, he has no " sense of moral obligation, of right and wrong, ofgood or ill desert." Is he not then excellently well-qualified for a Judge ? Will he condemn aman for not " holding the wind in his fist ? " Thehigh and piercing windmade it impracticable to preach abroad in the evening. But the House contained the people tolerably well, as plain and simple as those at Rait. I set out earlyinthemorning; but,not being able to ford the North-Esk, swollen with the late rains, was obliged to go round some miles. However, I reached Aberdeen in the evening.