Wesley Corpus

Is it not enough to make one's blood run cold 2 “The great God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Father of the spirits of all flesh, the God of truth, has encompassed with falsehood every soul that he has made I has given up all mankind ‘to a strong delusion, to believe a lie! yea, all his creation is a lie; all the natural and all the moral world !” If so, you make God himself, rather than the devil, (horrid thought !) “the father of lies !” Such you doubtless represent him, when you say, not only that he has surrounded us with illusion on every side; but that the feelings which he has interwoven with our inmost nature are equally illusive That all these shadows, which for things we take, Are but the empty dreams which in death's sleep we make I And yet, after this, you make a feint of disputing in defence of a material world ! Inconsistency all over ! What proof have we of this, what possible proof can we have, if we cannot trust our own eyes, or ears, or any or all of our senses? But it is certain I can trust none of my senses, if I am a mere machine. For I have the testimony of all my outward and all my inward senses, that I am a free agent. If therefore I cannot trust them in this, I can trust them in nothing. Do not tell me there are sun, moon, and stars, or that there are men, beasts, or birds, in the world. I cannot believe one tittle of it, if I cannot believe what I feel in myself, namely, that it depends on me, and no other being, whether I shall now open or shut my eyes, move my head hither and thither, or stretch my hand or my foot. If I am necessitated to do all this, contrary to the whole both of my inward and outward senses, I can believe nothing else, but must necessarily sink into universal scepticism. Let us now weigh the main argument on which this author builds the melancholy hypothesis of necessity: “Actions neces sarily arise from their several motives: Therefore, all human actions are necessary.” Again: “In all cases the choice must be determined by that motive which appears the best upon the whole.