Wesley Corpus

this enlightened age is too wise to believe that there is any devil in being ! Satan, avaunt we have driven thee back into the land of shadows; keep thou among thy own kindred : With hydras, gorgons, and chimeras dire. Suppose it then to be a purely natural phenomenon; I ask again, How can we account for it? I apprehend if we could divest ourselves of prejudice, it might be done very easily; and that without concerning ourselves with the hidden springs of action, the motives or intentions of men. Letting these alone, is there not a visible, undeniable cause, which is quite adequate to the effect? The good people of England have, for some years past, been continually fed with poison. Dose after dose has been administered to them, for fear the first, or second, or tenth, should not suffice, of a poison whose natural effect is to drive men out of their senses. Is “the centaur not fabulous?” Neither is Circe's cup. See how, in every county, city, and village, it is now turning quiet, reasonable men, into wild bulls, bears, and tigers l, 44 TIIOUGittS UPON LIBERTY. But, to lay metaphor aside, how long have the public papers represented one of the best of Princes as if he had been one of the worst, as little better than Caligula, Nero, or Domitian! These were followed by pamphlets of the same kind, and aiming at the same point,-to make the King appear odious as well as contemptible in the eyes of his subjects. Letters succeed, wrote in fine language, and with exquisite art, but filled with the gall of bitterness. “Yes, but not against the king; Junius does not strike at him, but at the evil adminis tration.” Thin pretence! Does not every one see the blow is aimed at the King through the sides of his Ministers? All these are conveyed, week after week, through all London and all the nation. Can any man wonder at the effect of this? What can be more natural? What can be expected, but that they who drink in these papers and letters with all greediness, will be thoroughly embittered and inflamed thereby? will first despise and then abhor the King?