Wesley Corpus

should we allow, that the great Spirit, the Father of all, filleth both heaven and earth; yet is the finest of our senses utterly incapable of perceiving either Him or them. 6. All our external senses are evidently adapted to this external, visible world. They are designed to serve us only while we sojourn here, -- while we dwell in these houses of clay. They have nothing to do with the invisible world; they are not adapted to it. And they can take no more cognizance of the eternal, than of the invisible world; although we are as fully assured of the existence of this, as of anything in the present world. We cannot think death puts a period to our being. The body indeed returns to dust; but the soul, being of a nobler nature, is not affected thereby. There is, therefore, an eternal world, of what kind soever it be. But how shall we attain the knowledge of this What will teach us to draw aside the veil "that hangs 'twixt mortal and immortal being" We all know, "the vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us;" but we are not constrained to add, "Yet clouds, alas! and darkness rest upon it." 7. The most excellent of our senses, it is undeniably plain, can give us no assistance herein. And what can our boasted reason do It is now universally allowed, Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu: "Nothing is in the understanding, which was not first perceived by some of the senses." Consequently, the understanding, having here nothing to work upon, can afford us no help at all. So that, in spite of all the information we can gain, either from sense or reason, both the invisible and eternal world are unknown to all that "walk by sight."