Wesley Corpus

Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” 23. There is one instance more of (I know not what to term it) injustice, oppression, sacrilege, which hath long cried aloud in the ears of God. For among men, who doth hear? I mean the management of many of those who are entrusted with our public charitics. By the pious munificence of our forefathers we have abundance of these of various kinds: But is it not glaringly true, (to touch only on a few generals,) that the managers of many of them either (1.) do not apply the bene faction to that use for which it was designed by the benefactor; or (2.) do not apply it with such care and frugality as in such a case are indispensably required; or (3.) do not apply the whole of the benefaction to any charitable use at all; but secrete part thereof, from time to time, for the use of themselves and their families; or, lastly by plain barefaced oppression, exclude those from having any part in such benefaction, who dare (though with all possible tenderness and respect) set before them the things that they have done? Yet Brutus is an honourable man: So are they all: All honourable men 1 And some of them had in esteem for religion; accounted pat terns both of honesty and piety But God “seeth not as man seeth.” He “shall repay them to their face;” perhaps even in the present world. For that scripture is often still fulfilled: “This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth. I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of Hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief,” (such he is, and no better, in the eyes of God, no whit honester than a highway man,) “and it shall remain in the midst of the house, and shall consume it, with the timber thereof, and the stones thereof.” 24. And is not truth, as well as “justice, fallen in our streets?” For who “speaketh the truth from his heart?” Who is there that makes a conscience of speaking the thing as it is, whenever he speaks at all? Who scruples the telling of offi cious lies? the varying from truth, in order to do good?