Wesley Corpus

You are heaping up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Doubtless, if the Scripture is true, and you remain thus, it had been good for you if you had never been born. 40. Howisit that you call yourselves men of reason? Is reason inconsistent with itself? You are the farthest of all men under the sun from any pretence to that character. A common swearer, a Sabbath-breaker, a whoremonger, a drunkard, who says he believes the Scripture is of God, is a monster upon earth, the greatest contradiction to his own, as well as to the reason of all mankind. In the name of God, (that worthy name whereby you are called, and which you daily cause to be blasphemed,) turn either to the right hand or to the left. Either profess you are an infidel, or be a Christian. Halt no longer thus between two opinions. Either cast off the Bible, or your sins. And, in the mean time, if you have any spark of your boasted reason left, do not “count us your enemies,” (as I fear you have done hitherto, and as thousands do wherever we have declared, “They who do such things shall not inherit eternal life,”) “because we tell you the truth; ” seeing these are not our words, but the words of Him that sent us; yea, though, in doing this, we use “great plainness of speech,” as becomes the ministry we have received. “For we are not as many who corrupt” (cauponize, soften, and thereby adulterate, “the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.” 41. But, it may be, you are none of these. You abstain from all such things. You have an unspotted reputation. You are a man of honour, or a woman of virtue. You scorn to do an unhandsome thing, and are of an unblamable life and conver sation. You are harmless (if I understand you right) and use less from morning to night. You do no hurt,-and no good to any one, no more than a straw floating upon the water. Your life glides smoothly on from year to year; and from one season to another, having no occasion to work, You waste away In gentle inactivity the day. 42.