Wesley Corpus

Es et ipse lignum.* Take your choice 1 Be King log, or to the block l” Does it not then appear, upon the whole, that it is by no means in the power of the King, by any step which he can possibly take, to put a stop to the present commotions; that especially he cannot make concessions without making a bad matter worse; that the way he has taken, the standing his ground, was as wise a method as he could take, and as likely to restore the peace of the nation, as any the wit of man could devise? If any is more likely, would it not be, vigorously to execute the laws against incendiaries; against those who, by spreading all manner of lies, inflame the people even to madness; to teach them, that there is a difference between liberty, which is the glory of English men, and licentiousness, a wanton abuse of liberty, in contempt of all laws, divine and human? Ought they not to feel, if they will not see, that scandalum regis, “scandalizing the King,” is as punishable as scandalum magnatum ?t that for the future none may dare to slander the King, any more than one of his nobles; much less to print and spread that deadly poison among His Majesty's liege subjects? Is not this little less than high treason? Is it not sowing the seeds of rebellion ? It is possible this might restore peace, but one cannot affirm it would. Perhaps God has “a controversy with the land,” for the general neglect, nay, contempt, of all religion. Perhaps he hath said, “Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” And if this be the case, what can avail, unless his anger be turned away from us? Was there ever a time in which there was a louder call for them..that fear God to humble themselves before him? if haply general humiliation and repentance may prevent general destruction! *You are yourself also a log of wood.-EDIT. + Scandalizing the nobility.-EDIT. I scorn to have my free-born toe Dragoon'd into a wooden shoe.-PRIOR. 1. ALL men in the world desire liberty; whoever breathes, breathes after this, and that by a kind of natural instinct antecedent to art or education. Yet at the same time all men of understanding acknowledge it as a rational instinct.