Wesley Corpus

And what does this prove? The fifth passage is this: “In applying which my soul was so enlarged, that methought I could have cried out, (in another sense than poor vain Archimedes,) ‘Give me where to stand; and I will shake the earth.’” My meaning is, I found such freedom of thought and speech, (jargon, stuff, enthusiasm to you,) that methought, could I have then spoken to all the world, they would all have shared in the blessing. 4. The passage which you quote from the Third Appeal, I am obliged to relate more at large:- “There is one more excuse for denying this work of God, taken from the instruments employed therein; that is, that they are wicked men; and a thousand stories have been handed about to prove it. “Yet I cannot but remind considerate men, in how remark able a manner the wisdom of God has, for many years, guarded against this pretence, with regard to my brother and me in par ticular.” “This pretence, that is, ‘of not employing fit instru ments.’” These words are yours, though you insert them as mine. The pretence I mentioned, was, “that they were wicked men.” And how God guarded against this, is shown in what follows: “From that time, both my brother and I, utterly against our will, came to be more and more observed and known; till we were more spoken of than perhaps two so incon siderable persons ever were before in the nation. To make us more public still, as honest madmen at least, by a strange con currence of providences, overturning all our preceding resolu tions, we were hurried away to America.” Afterward it follows: “What persons could, in the nature of things, have been (antecedently) less liable to exception, with regard to their moral character at least, than those the all-wise God hath now employed? Indeed I cannot devise what man ner of men could have been more unexceptionable on all accounts. Had God endued us with greater natural or acquired abilities, this verything might have been turned into an objec tion. Had we been remarkably defective, it would have been matter of objection on the other hand. Had we been Dissenters of any kind, or even Low-Churchmen (so called), it would have been a greatstumbling-block in the way of those who are zealous for the Church.