Wesley Corpus

‘(7) God can no more begin to have any wrath after the creature is fallen than He could be infinite wrath and rage from all eternity’ (Part II. p. 4). No changing the terms. We have nothing to do with rage. This properly means excessive anger. Setting this aside, I answer to the argument, God was infinitely just from all eternity; in consequence of which His anger then began to show itself when man had sinned. ‘(8) No wrath can be in God, unless God was from all eternity an infinity of wrath’ (page 6). That is, infinitely just. So He was and will be to all eternity. ‘(9) There must either be no possibility of wrath or no possibility of its having any bounds’ (page 7). The divine justice cannot possibly have any bounds. It is as unlimited as His power. ‘(10) Two things show the nature of wrath -- a tempest and a raging sore. The former is wrath in the elements; the latter is wrath in the body. Now, both these are a disorder; but there is no disorder in God: therefore there is no wrath in God.’ (Page 13.) “A tempest is wrath in the elements; a raging sore is wrath in the body.’ It is not. Neither the body, the elements, nor anything inanimate is capable of wrath. And when we say, ‘The thing inanimate is capable of wrath. And we say the sore looks angry,’ does any one dream this is to be taken literally The pillars of the argument, therefore, are rotten. Consequently the superstructure falls to the ground. In vain would you prop it up by saying, ‘Wrath can have no other nature in body than it has in spirit, because it can have no existence in body but what it has from spirit’ (page 15). Nay, it can have no existence in body at all, as yourself affirm presently after. You strangely go on: ‘There is but one wrath in all outward things, animate or inanimate.’ Most true: for all wrath is in animal; things inanimate are utterly incapable of it. ‘There can be but one kind of wrath because nothing can be wrathful but spirit (page 18). Never, then, let us talk of wrathful elements, of wrathful tempests or sores again.