Wesley Corpus

“The fourth property is fire; the fifth, the form of light and love;” (what is the form of love? and are light and love the same thing?) “the sixth, sound or understanding;” (the same thing doubtless!) “the seventh, a life of triumph ing joy.” Is then “a life of triumphing joy,” “that which brings the three and three properties into union?” If so, how is it “the result of that union?” Once more: “Attraction is an incessant working of three contrary properties,--drawing, resisting, and whirling.” That is, in plain terms, drawing is incessant drawing, resist ance, and whirling. Such is the philosophy which Jacob received by immediate inspiration; (to mention only the first principles of it;) and by which he is to explain all religion, and the whole revela tion of God! 1. As to his divinity, I object, First, to the very design of explaining religion by any philosophy whatever. The Scrip ture gives us no direction, no, nor any permission, so to do. I object, much more, to the execution of his design; the attempting to explain it by that base, unmeaning, self contradictory jargon, which is as far remote from all true, genuine philosophy, as it is from the Scripture itself. 2. But be the foundation as it may, he builds no super structure upon it, but what we knew before, either with regard to internal or external holiness. We knew before, “Neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircum cision, but faith that worketh by love.” And what does he teach us by all his hard, uncouth words, more than this plain truth ? We knew before that we “must be born again; ” inwardly changed from all evil tempers to all good; “from an earthly, sensual, devilish mind, to the mind that was in Christ Jesus.” And what more does he teach us on this head, by all his vain, precarious, mystical philosophy? We knew before that “the loving God with all our heart, and the loving our neighbour as ourselves, is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment,” the sum of all reli gion. And what has he told us more than this, in all his nineteen volumes?- We knew before that the whole of religion is, a heart and life totally devoted to God. Has he told us, or can he tell us, any thing more?