Wesley Corpus

In vain would you prop it up by saying, “Wrath can have no other nature in body than it has in spirit, because it can have no existence in body, but what it has from spirit.” (Page 15.) Nay, it can have no existence in body at all, as yourself affirm presently after. Yet you strangely go on: “There is but one wrath in all outward things, animate or inanimate.” Most true; for all wrath is in animals; things inanimate are utterly incapable of it. “There can be but one kind of wrath, because nothing can be wrathful but spirit.” (Page 18.) Never then let us talk of wrathful elements, of wrathful tempests or sores, again. “(11.) Wrath and evil are but two words for the samething.” (Ibid.) This is home; but it cannot be granted without proof. “ (12.) God is as incapable of wrath, as of thickness, hard ness, and darkness; because wrath can exist nowhere else but in thickness, hardness, and darkness.” (Page 71.) So far from it, that wrath cannot exist in thicknees or hardness at all. For these are qualities of bodies; and “nothing can be wrathful but spirit.” “(13.) Wrath cannot be in any creature, till it has lost its first perfection.” (Page 72.) That remains to be proved. Thus far you have advanced arguments for your doctrine. You next attempt to answer objections:-- And to the objection, that Scripture speaks so frequently of the wrath of God, you answer, “(1.) All the wrath and vengeance that ever was in any creature, is to be called and looked on as the wrath and ven geance of God.” I totally deny that proposition, and call for the proof of it. “(2.) God works everything in nature. Therefore all death, or rage, or curse, wherever it is, must be said, in the language of Scripture, to be the wrath or vengeance of God.” (Page 55.) I deny the consequence. The latter proposition does not follow from the former. And indeed it is not true. All death, and rage, and curse, is not in the language of Scripture termed the wrath and vengeance of God.