Wesley Corpus

3. It has indeed been imagined by some great and good men, that as it requires that same almighty power to annihilate things as to create; to speak into nothing or out of nothing; so no part of, no atom in, the universe, will be totally or finally destroyed. Rather, they suppose that, as the last operation of fire, which we have yet been able to observe, is to reduce into glass what, by a smaller force, it had reduced to ashes; so, in the day God hath ordained, the whole earth, if not the material heavens also, will undergo this change, after which the fire can have no farther power over them. And they believe this is intimated by that expression in the Revelation made to St. John: "Before the throne there was a sea of glass, like unto crystal" (Rev. 4:6). We cannot now either affirm or deny this; but we shall know hereafter. 4. If it be inquired by the scoffers, the minute philosophers, "How can these things be Whence should come such an immense quantity of fire as would consume the heavens and the whole terraqueous globe" we would beg leave, first, to remind them, that this difficulty is not peculiar to the Christian system. The same opinion almost universally obtained among the unbigoted Heathens. So one of these celebrated freethinkers speaks, according to the generally received sentiment, -- Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur, affore tempus, Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia coeli Ardeat, et mundi moles operosa laboret. [The following is Dryden's translation of this quotation from Ovid: -- Rememb'ring, in the fates, a time when fire Should to the battlements of heaven aspire; And all the blazing world above should burn, And all the' inferior globe to cinders turn. -- EDIT.]