Wesley Corpus

28. It may be expected that I should mention what some have accounted a Fourth sort of enthusiasm, namely, the imagining those things to be owing to the providence of God which are not owing thereto. But I doubt: I know not what things they are which are not owing to the providence of God; in ordering, or at least in governing, of which, this is not either directly or remotely concerned. I except nothing but sin; and even in the sins of others, I see the providence of God to me. I do not say His general providence; for this I take to be a sounding word. which means just nothing. And if there be a particular providence, it must extend to all persons and all things. So our Lord understood it, or He could never have said, "Even the hairs of your head are all numbered;" and, "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without" the will of "your Father" which is in heaven. But if it be so, if God preside universis tanquam singulis, et singulis tanquam universis; "over the whole universe as over every single person, and over every single person as over the whole universe;" what is it (except only our own sins) which we are not to ascribe to the providence of God So that I cannot apprehend there is any room here for the charge of enthusiasm. 29. If it be said, the charge lies here: "When you impute this to Providence, you imagine yourself the peculiar favourite of heaven": I answer, you have forgot some of the last words I spoke: Praesidet universis tanquam singulis: "His providence is over all men in the universe, as much as over any single person." Do you not see that he who, believing this, imputes anything which befalls him to Providence, does not therein make himself any more the favourite of heaven, than he supposes every man under heaven to be Therefore you have no pretence, upon this ground, to charge him with enthusiasm.