Wesley Corpus

‘(11) Wrath and evil are but two words for the same thing’' (ibid.). This is home; but it cannot be granted without proof. ‘(12) God is as incapable of wrath as of thickness, hardness, and darkness, because wrath can exist nowhere else but in thickness, and hardness, and darkness’ (page 71). So far from it, that wrath cannot exist in thickness or hardness at all. For these are qualities of bodies, and nothing can be wrathful but spirit. ‘(13) Wrath cannot be in any creature till it has lost its first perfection’ (page 72). That remains to be proved. Thus far you have advanced arguments for your doctrine. Your next attempt to answer objections. And to the objection that Scripture speaks so frequently of the wrath of God you answer, -- ‘(1) All the wrath and vengeance that ever was in any creature is to be called and looked on as the wrath and vengeance of God.’ I totally deny that proposition, and call for the proof of it. ‘(2), God works everything in nature. Therefore all death or rage or curse, wherever it is, must be said in the language of Scripture to be the wrath or vengeance of God’ (Page 55.) I deny the consequence. The latter proposition does not follow from the former. And, indeed, it is not true. All death and rage and curse is not in the language of Scripture termed the wrath and vengeance of God. ‘3) Because the devils have their life from God, therefore their cursed, miserable, wrathful life is said to be the curse and misery and wrath of God upon them’(page 53). Neither can this be proved, that the devils having their life from God is the reason why they are said to be under His wrath. Nor does the Scripture ever term their wrathful, miserable life the wrath or misery of God. ‘4) Devils are His as wall as holy angels. Therefore all the wrath and rage of the one must be as truly His wrath and rage burning in them as the joy the others is His joy.’ (Page 54.)