Wesley Corpus

But can you find any tincture of this in the case before us? Do not all who have lately known the love of God, know “what spirit they are of; ” and that the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them? Do they approve of the using any kind or degree of violence, on any account or pretence whatsoever, in matters of religion? Do they not hold the right every man has to judge for himself, to be sacred and inviolable? Do they allow any method of bringing even those who are farthest out of the way, who are in the grossest errors, to the knowledge of the truth, except the methods of reason and persuasion; of love, patience, gen tleness, long-suffering? Is there anything in their practice which is inconsistent with this their constant profession? Do they in fact hinder their own relations or dependents from worshipping God according to their own conscience? When they believe them to be in error, do they use force of any kind, in order to bring them out of it? Let the instances, if there are such, be produced. But if no such are to be found, then let all reasonable men, who believe the Bible, own that a work of God is wrought in our land; and such a work (if we survey in one view the extent of it, the swiftness with which it has spread, the depth of that religion which was so swiftly diffused, and its purity from all corrupt mixtures) as, it must be acknowledged, cannot easily be paralleled, in all these con current circumstances, by any thing that is found in the Eng lish annals, since Christianity was first planted in this island. II. 1. And yet those who “can discern the face of the sky, cannot discern the signs of the times.” Yet those who are esteemed wise men do not know that God is now reviving his work upon earth. Indeed, concerning some of these, the rea son is plain: They know not, because they think not of it. Their thoughts are otherwise employed; their minds are taken up with things of quite a different nature: Or, perhaps, they may think of it a little now and then, when they have nothing else to do; but not seriously or deeply; not with any closeness or attention of thought.