Wesley Corpus

As I hope for salvation, I have eaten flesh in Lent l” The same sort of conscience undoubtedly it was, which con strained the late Most Christian King, in defiance of the most solemn treaties, yea, of all ties, divine and human, most gra ciously to murder so many thousands of his quiet, unresisting subjects; to order his dragoons, wherever they found the Pro testants worshipping God, to fall in upon them, sword in hand, without any regard to sex or age. It was conscience, no ques tion, which induced so many of the Dukes of Savoy, notwith standing the public faith engaged over and over, to shed the blood of their loyal subjects, the Vaudois, like water, to ravage their fields, and destroy their cities. What but conscience could move the good Catholics of a neighbouring kingdom, in the last century,tomurder (according to their own account) two hundred and fifteen thousand Protestants in six months? A costly sacri fice this! What is a hecatomb, a hundred oxen, to two hun dred thousand men? And yet what is even this to the whole number of victims who have been offered up in Europe since the beginning of the Reformation; partly by war, partly by the Inquisition, and a thousand other methods of Romish cruelty? No less, within forty years, if the computation of an eminent writer be just, than five-and-forty millions ! Such is the conscience, such the religion, of Romish Chris tians! Of their Inquisition (the House of Mercy, as it is most unfortunately called) I should give some account, but that it has been largely described by others. Yet it may not be im proper to give a specimen of that mercy which they show to those under their care. At the Act of Faith, so called, which was celebrated some years ago, when Dr. Geddes was in Por tugal, a prisoner, who had been confined for nine years, was brought out to execution. Looking up, and seeing, what he had not seen for so long a time, the sun in the midst of heaven, he cried out, “How can any one, who sees that glorious creature, worship any but the God that made it?” The Father who attended immediately ordered a gag to be run through his lip, that he might speak no more.