Wesley Corpus

Thirdly. “How could the devil be called the prince of this world if it was not once his own kingdom?” (Ibid.) May he not be so called, because he now reigns therein? Is he not now “the ruler of the darkness,” or wickedness, “of this world P” Fourthly. “Had it not been their own kingdom, the devils. could have no power here. This may pass for a demonstration, that this is the very place in which the angels fell.” (Page 51.) I doubt it will not pass. Cannot God permit Satan to exert his power wherever it pleaseth him? Hitherto then we have not a grain of sound proof. Yet you pronounce with all peremptoriness, “The grounds of true religion cannot be truly known but by going so far back as this fall of angels.” (Pages 37, 38.) Cannot Positively cannot How few men in England, in Europe, can or do go back so far ! And are there none but these, no not one, who knows the grounds of true religion? “It was their revolt which brought wrath and fire and thickness and darkness into nature.” (Ibid.) If it was sin that brought fire in the world, (which is hard to prove,) did it bring darkness, and thickness too? But if it did, what harm is there in either? Is not thickness as good in its place as thinness? And as to darkness, you say yourself, “It has not only no evil in it, but is the only ground of all possible good.” Touching creation in general you aver, “A creation out of nothing is no better sense than a creation into nothing.” (Page 60.) “A creation into nothing ” is a contradiction in terms. Can you say a creation out of nothing is so? It is indeed tautology; since the single term creation is equivalent with production out of nothing. “That all things were created out of nothing has not the least tittle of Scripture to support it.” (Page 55.) Is it not supported (as all the Christian Church has thought hitherto) by the very first verse of Genesis? “Nay, it is a fiction big with the grossest absurdities. It is full of horrid consequences. It separates everything from: God. It leaves no relation between God and the creature.