Wesley Corpus

“But is there not another ground of fear? Is there not ‘a God that judgeth the earth?’ And have not England and Ireland (to speak in the language of Scripture) “filled up the measure of their iniquity?’” I answer, (1.) I allow that wickedness of various kinds has overspread the land like a flood. It would be easy to enlarge upon this melancholy truth; it cannot be denied that, Th E 1NHABITANTS OF IRELAND. 153 The rich, the poor, the high, the low, Have wander'd from his mild command: The floods of wickedness o'erflow, And deluge all the guilty land: People and Priest lie drown'd in sin, And Tophet yawns to take them in. But yet, (2.) I totally deny that either England or Ireland have yet “filled up the measure of their iniquities.” “Why, what have they not done? What abomination can be named or conceived which they have not committed?” I will tell you: They have not done what was done of old, before God delivered up the Jews to destruction. They have not “shed the blood of the just in the midst of Jerusalem.” Neither in London, Dublin, nor any other of our cities, has there been any instance of the kind. To which of our Governors in either England or Ireland can those words of our Lord be applied ? “Behold, I send unto you Prophets; and some of them ye will kill; and some of them ye will scourge, and persecute from city to city. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou killest the Prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee!” (Matt. xxiii. 34, &c.) Now, neither England nor Ireland has done this, at least during the present century. Therefore, it cannot be affirmed that they have “filled up the measure of their iniquities.” Conse quently we have no reason to believe that our Lord will yet say, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate 1” 12. I have another reason to believe that God will yet have compassion upon a sinful land: What was it which he said of old time to Abraham interceding for guilty Sodom? “I will not destroy the city, if there be fifty, twenty, yea, ten righteous men found in it.” And are there not ten, twenty, fifty righteous men to be found in our Sodom?