Wesley Corpus

John preached more than ten times about the comet he supposed was to appear in 1758, and to consume the globe.” This is a foolish slander, as it is so easily confuted. A tract was published at that very time, entitled, “Serious Thoughts occasioned by the Earthquake at Lisbon.” The thing which I then accidentally mentioned in preaching (twice or thrice; it may be, four times) is there set down at large, much more at large than ever I mentioned it in any sermon. The words are these :-- “Dr. Halley fixes the return of the comet, which appeared in 1682, in the year 1758.” Observe, Dr. Halley does this, not I. On which he adds: “But may the great, good God avert such a shock or contact of such great bodies, moving with such forces, (which, however, is by no means impossi ble,) lest this most beautiful order of things be entirely destroyed, and reduced into its ancient chaos.” (Serious Thoughts, Vol. XI., pp. 8, 9.) “But what, if God should not avert this contact? what would the consequence be?” That consequence I afterwards describe: “Burning up all the produce of the earth, and then the globe itself.” But do I affirm, or suppose, that it actually will do this? I suppose, nay, affirm, at the bottom of the same page, the direct contrary: “What security is there against all this, on the infidel hypothesis? But on the Christian there is abundant security; for the prophecies are not yet fulfilled.” 21. So much for the comet-enthusiasm. We return now to the point of unconditional election: “One would imagine,” says Mr. Hill, “by Mr. W.’s quoting the Thirty-first Article, in contradiction to the Seventeenth, that he thought the Reformers as inconsistent as himself.” (Farrago, p. 54.) I did not quote the Thirty-first in contradiction to the Seven teenth, but in explication of it. The latter, the Thirty-first, can bear but one meaning; therefore it fixes the sense of the former. “Nay, this Article speaks nothing of the extent of Christ’s death, but of its all-sufficiency.” (Pages 54, 55.) Nothing of the extent / Why, it speaks of nothing else; its all-sufficiency is out of the question.