Wesley Corpus

9. ‘In the same spirit of enthusiasm,’ (you go on, citing this as a fourth instance,) ‘you describe Heaven as executing judgments, immediate punishments, on those who oppose you. You say, “Mr. Molther was taken ill this day. I believe it was the hand of God that was upon him.”’ (Remarks, p. 66.) I do; but I do not say, as a judgment from God for opposing me: That you say for me. ‘Again you tell us of “one who was exceeding angry at those who pretended to be in fits; and was just going to kick one of them out of the way, when she dropped down herself, and was in violent agonies for an hour.” And you say you “left her under a deep sense of the just judgment of God.”’ So she termed it; and so I believe it was. But observe, not for opposing me. ‘Again, you mention, “as an awful providence, the case of a poor wretch, who was last week cursing and blaspheming, and had boasted to many that he would come again on Sunday, and no man should stop his mouth then.”’ His mouth was stopped before, in the midst of the most horrid blasphemies, by asking him, if he was stronger than God. ‘‘But on Friday, God laid his hand upon him, and on Sunday he was buried.”’ I do look on this as a manifest judgment of God on a hardened sinner, for his complicated wickedness. ‘Again, “one being just going to beat his wife, (which he frequently did,) God smote him in a moment; so that his hand dropped and he fell down upon the ground, having no more strength than a new-born child.”’ (page 67.) And can you, Sir, consider this as one of the common dispensations of Providence Have you known a parallel one in your life But it was never cited by me, as it is by you, as an immediate punishment on a man for opposing me. You have no authority, from any sentence or word of mine, for putting such a construction upon it; no more than you have for that strange intimation, (how remote both from justice and charity!) that ‘I parallel these cases with those of Ananias and Sapphira, or of Elymas the sorcerer!’