Wesley Corpus

I must premise that I have no objection to the using the words ‘wrath’ (or ‘anger’) and ‘justice’ as nearly synonymous; seeing anger stands in the same relation to justice as love does to mercy, love and anger being the passions (speaking after the manner of men) which correspond with the dispositions of mercy and justice. Whoever therefore denies God to be capable of wrath or anger acts consistently in denying His justice also. You begin: ‘(1) No wrath (anger, vindictive justice) ever was or ever will be in God. If a wrath of God were anywhere, it must be everywhere.’ (Spirit of Prayer, Part I. p. 27.) So it is, as sure as the just God is everywhere. ‘(2) Wrath and pain dwell only in the creatures’ (page 28). Pain is only in creatures. Of wrath we are to inquire farther. ‘(3) To say God ever punished any creature out of wrath is as absurd as to say, He began the creation out of wrath.’ I conceive not. It is not as absurd to say ‘God is angry at the guilty’ as to say ‘God is angry at the innocent.’ Now, it is certain, when God began the creation of man, no guilty men were in being. ‘(4) He must always will that to His creatures which He willed at the creation of them.’ True; and He willed, at the very creation of men, ‘to reward every one as his work should be.’ ‘(5) God is incapable of willing pain to any creature because He is nothing but goodness’ (page 29). You mean, because His goodness excludes justice. Nay, that is the very question. ‘(6) God can give nothing but happiness from Himself because He hath nothing else in Himself’ {Spirit of Love, Part I. p. 3). As if you had said, ‘God can give nothing but infinity from Himself because He has nothing else in Himself.’ It is certain He has not. He is all infinity. Yet that argument will not hold.