Wesley Corpus

Shall the cannon-ball be rewarded for flying towards the sun, or punished for receding from it? As incapable of either punish ment or reward is the man who is supposed to be impelled by a force he cannot resist. Justice can have no place in reward ing or punishing mere machines, driven to and fro by an external force. So that your supposition of God’s ordaining from etermity whatsoever should be done to the end of the world; as well as that of God’s acting irresistibly in the elect, and Satan’s acting irresistibly in the reprobates; utterly over throws the Scripture doctrine of rewards and punishments, as well as of a judgment to come. 38. Thus ill does that election which implies reprobation agree with the Scripture account of God’s justice. And does it agree any better with his truth? How will you reconcile it with those plain passages?--“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways and live? Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed: For why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord: Wherefore, turn yourselves, and live ye.” (Ezek. xviii. 23, &c.) “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways: For why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek. xxxiii. 11.) 39. But perhaps you will say, “These ought to be limited and explained by other passages of Scripture; wherein, this. doctrine is as clearly affirmed, as it is denied in these.” I must answer very plain: If this were true, we must give up all the Scriptures together; nor would the Infidels allow the Bible so honourable a title as that of a “cunningly-devised fable.” But it is not true. It has no colour of truth. It is absolutely, notoriously false. To tear up the very roots of reprobation, and of all doctrines that have a necessary con nexion therewith, God declares in his word these three things, and that explicitly, in so many terms: (1) “Christ died for all,” (2 Cor. v.