Wesley Corpus

But every conqueror may do what he will; the laws of the land are no laws to him. And who can doubt, but one who should conquer England by the assistance of France, would copy after the French rules of government? 4. How dreadful then is the condition wherein we stand? on the very brink of utter destruction | But why are we thus? I am afraid the answer is too plain to every con siderate man: Because of our sins; because we have well-nigh “filled up the measure of our iniquities.” For, what wicked ness is there under heaven which is not found among us at this day? Not to insist on the Sabbath-breaking in every corner of our land; the thefts, cheating, fraud, extortion; the injustice, violence, oppression; the lying and dissimu lating; the robberies, sodomies, and murders; which, with a thousand unnamed villanies, are common to us and our neighbour Christians of Holland, France, and Germany; consider, over and above, what a plentiful harvest we have of wickedness almost peculiar to ourselves. For who can vic with us in the direction of Courts of Justice; in the manage ment of public charities; or in the accomplished, barefaced wickedness which so abounds in our prisons, and fleets, and armies? Who in Europe can compare with the sloth, laziness, luxury, and effeminacy of the English Gentry; or with the drunkenness, and stupid, senseless cursing and swearing which are daily seen and heard in our streets? one great inlet, no doubt, to that flood of perjury, which so increases among us day by day; the like whereunto is not to be found in any other part of the habitable earth. 5. Add to all these, (what is indeed the source as well as completion of all,) that open and professed Deism and rejection of the Gospel, that public, avowed apostasy from the Christian faith, which reigns among the rich and great, and hath spread from them to all ranks and orders of men, the vulgar themselves not excepted, and made us a people fitted for the “destroyer of the Gentiles.” 6. Because of these sins is this evil come upon us. For, whether you are aware of it or no, there is a God; a God who, though he sits upon the circle of the heavens, sees and knows all that is done upon earth.