Wesley Corpus

A Word in Season: Advice to an Englishman Source: The Works of John Wesley, Volume 11 (Zondervan) Author: John Wesley --- 1. Do you ever think? Do you ever consider? If not, it is high time you should. Think a little, before it is too late. Consider what a state you are in ; and not you alone, but our whole nation. We would have war; and we have it. And what is the fruit? Our armies broken in pieces; and thousands of our men either killed on the spot, or made prisoners in one day. Nor is this all. We have now war at our own doors; our own countrymen turning their swords against their brethren. And have any hitherto been able to stand before them? Have they not already seized upon one whole kingdom? Friend, either think now, or sleep on and take your rest, till you drop into the pit where you will sleep no more ! 2. Think what is likely to follow, if an army of French also should blow the trumpet in our land ' What desolation may we not then expect? what a wide-spread field of blood? And what can the end of these things be? If they prevail, what but Popery and slavery? Do you know what the spirit of Popery is? Did you never hear of that in Queen Mary’s reign; and of the holy men who were then burned alive by the Papists, because they did not dare to do as they did; to worship angels and saints, to pray to the Virgin Mary, to * This was published at the beginning of the late rebellion. bow down to images, and the like? If we had a King of this spirit, whose life would be safe? at least, what homest man’s? A knave indeed might turn with the times. But what a dreadful thing would this be to a man of conscience: “Either turn or burn: Either go into that fire, or into ‘the fire that never shall be quenched?’” 3. And can you dream that your property would be any safer than your conscience? Nay, how should that be? Nothing is plainer than that the Pretender cannot be King of England, unless it be by conquest. But every conqueror may do what he will; the laws of the land are no laws to him.