Wesley Corpus

7. Have you considered, sir, how the case stood in our own country scarce two hundred years ago Not a multitude indeed, and yet not a few, of our own countrymen then expired in the flames. And it was not a general persuasion among them that martyrs feel no pain in death. That these have feeling as well as other men plainly appeared in the case of Bishop Ridley crying out, 'I cannot burn! I cannot burn!' when his lower parts were consumed. Do you think the fear of shame or the desire of praise was the motive on which these acted Or have you reason to believe it was mere obstinacy that hindered them from accepting deliverance Sir, since 'human nature has always been the same, so that our experience of what now passes in our own soul will be the best comment on what is delivered to us concerning others,' let me entreat you to make the case your own. You must not say, 'I am not one of the ignorant vulgar; I am a man of sense and learning.' So were many of them--not inferior even to you, either in natural or acquired endowments. I ask, then, Would any of these motives suffice to induce you to burn at a stake I beseech you, lay your hand on your heart, and answer between God and your own soul what motive could incite you to walk into a fire but an hope full of immortality. When you mention this motive, you speak to the point. And yet even with regard to this both you and I should find, did it come to a trial, that the hope of a fool or the hope of an hypocrite would stand us in no stead. We should find nothing else would sustain us in that hour but a well-grounded confidence of a better resurrection; nothing less than the 'steadfastly looking up to heaven, and beholding the glory which shall be revealed.' 8. 'But heretics,' you say, 'have been martyrs.' I will answer more particularly, when you specify who and when. It may suffice to say now, whosoever he be, that, rather than he will offend God, calmly and deliberately chooses to suffer death, I cannot lightly speak evil of him.