Wesley Corpus

Have you never read the Bible? Have you not read, that the Prince of Peace himself was, in this sense, a disturber of the public peace? “When he came into Jerusalem all the city was moved,” (Matt. xxi. 10,) eaeugèn, shaken as with an earthquake. And the disturbance rose higher and higher, till “the whole multitude” cried out together, “Away with him, away with him; crucify him, crucify him !” and Pilate gave sentence it should be done. Such another disturber of the public peace was that Stephen, even from the time he began “disputing with the Libertines and Cyrenians,” till the people “stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stomed him.” Such disturbers of the peace were all those ringleaders of the sect of the Nazarenes, (commonly called Apostles,) who, wherever they came, “turned the world upside down: ” And above all the rest, that Paul of Tarsus, who occasioned so much disturb ance at Damascus, (Acts ix.) at Antioch of Pisidia, (xiii.,) at Iconium, (xiv.) at Lystra, (xiv. 19,) at Philippi, (xvi.) at Thes salonica, (xvii.) and particularly at Ephesus. The consequence of his preaching there was, that “the whole city was filled with confusion.” And “they all ran together with one accord, some crying one thing, some another; ” inasmuch “as the greater part of them knew not wherefore they were come together.” 2. And can we expect it to be any otherwise now? Although what we preach is the gospel of peace, yet if you will violently and illegally hinder our preaching, must not this create disturb ance? But observe, the disturbance begins on your part. All is peace, till you raise that disturbance. And then you very modestly impute it to us, and lay your own riot at our door ! But of all this, our Lord hath told us before: “Think not that I am come to send peace upon earth; ” that this will be the immediate effect, wherever my gospel is preached with power.