Wesley Corpus

I come, in the third place, to observe some instances of this writer's esteem for the Bible. 'We profess ourselves' says he, 'an unworthy though zealous subscriber to the pure, original Scriptures.' But for fear you should believe him, he immediately adds, 'and propagate no system but what coincides with every religious creed that has been or is now professed throughout the known world.' Why, are there not an hundred religious creeds now in the word that are taffy contradictory to each other How, then, can your system coincide with them all Certainly you do not understand the word. But if it coincides both with Paganism and Mahometanism, it does not with Christianity. For you everywhere strike at the root of those Scriptures on which alone it is built. This I shall briefly show both with regard to Moses, the Law, the Prophets, and the New Testament. As to the first, 'Moses' detail of the Creation and Fall of Man is clogged with too many incomprehensible difficulties to gain our belief.' (Add, for decency’s sake, 'that it can be understood literally.’) Hence his anger at Milton's diabolical conceits'; because he has shown that detail in all its parts to be not only simple, plain, and comprehensible, but consistent with the highest reason, and altogether worthy of God. Again: 'To suppose the Indians less the care of God than the Israelites,'--that is, to suppose He ever had a peculiar people, or that He regarded the seed of Jacob more than that of Esau,--‘this would arraign His justice.' Then what is Moses, who perpetually supposes this throughout the whole Pentateuch As to the Law: ‘Nothing but the devil himself’ (insert, for decency, 'the Bramins say') 'could have invented bloody sacrifices, so manifestly repugnant to the true spirit of devotion and abhorrent to' (it should be abhorred by) 'God.' This is an home thrust at the Mosaic Law, wherein without shedding of blood there was no remission. Therefore with him it is 'manifestly repugnant to the true spirit of devotion and abhorred by God.' As to the Prophets: 'Gods prescience' (so he affirms) 'of the actions of free agents is utterly repugnant and contradictory to the very nature and essence of free agency.' If so, the inference is plain: the Prophets were all a pack of impostors; for it is certain they all pretended to foretell the actions of free agents.