Wesley Corpus

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. And this God is holy; he does not love sin; he is just, rendering to all their due; and he is strong, there is none able to withstand him; he hath all power in heaven and in earth. He is patient indeed, and suffers leng; but he will at last repay the wicked to his face. He often does so in this world; especially when a whole nation is openly and insolently wicked. Then doth God “arise and maintain his own cause;” then doth he terribly show both his justice and power; that if these will not repent, yet others may fear, and flee from the wrath to come. 7. There hath been, among them that feared God, a general expectation, for many years, that the time was coming when God would thus arise to be avenged on this sinful nation. At length the time is come. The patience of God, long pro voked, gives place to justice. The windows of heaven begin to be opened, to rain down judgments on the earth.