Treatise Second Letter On Enthusiasm Of Methodists And Papists
| Author | John Wesley |
|---|---|
| Type | treatise |
| Year | None |
| Passage ID | jw-treatise-second-letter-on-enthusiasm-of-methodists-and-papists-044 |
| Words | 391 |
You keep many from hearing
the word that is able to save their souls. Others who have
heard it, you induce to turn back from God, and to list under
the devil’s banner again. Then you make the success of your
own wickedness an excuse for not acknowledging the work of
God! You urge, ‘that not many sinners were reformed ! and that some of those are now as bad as ever !’
“Whose fault is this? Is it ours, or your own? Why
have not thousands more been reformed ? Yea, for every one
who is now turned to God, why are there not ten thousand 7
Because you and your associates laboured so heartily in the
cause of hell; because you and they spared no pains, either
to prevent or to destroy the work of God. By using all the
power and wisdom you had, you hindered thousands from
hearing the gospel, which they might have found to be the
power of God unto salvation. Their blood is upon your heads. By inventing, or countenancing, or retailing lies, some refined,
some gross and palpable, you hindered others from profiting
* Harmless artillery.--EDIT. + Attic elegance.-EDIT. by what they did hear. You are answerable to God for these
souls also. Many who began to taste the good word and run,
the way of God's commandments, by various methods you
prevailed on to hear it no more. So they soon drew back to
perdition. But know, that, for every one of these also, God
will require an account of you in the day of judgment! “And yet, in spite of all the malice and wisdom and
strength, not only of men, but of ‘principalities and powers,”
of the ‘rulers of the darkness of this world, of the “wicked
spirits in high places, there are thousands found, who are
“turned from dumb idols to serve the living and true God.”
What a harvest then might we have seen before now, if all who
say they are ‘on the Lord’s side, had come, as in all reason
they ought, ‘to the help of the Lord against the mighty l’
Yea, had they only not opposed the work of God, had they
only refrained from his messengers, might not the trumpet
of God have been heard long since in every corner of our
land?