Wesley Corpus

That grisly phan tom, religion, (so you describe her,) will now and then haunt you still. Righteousness looking down from heaven is indeed to us no unpleasing sight. But how does it appear to you? Horribili super aspecta mortalibus instans ? * How often are you in fear of the very things you deny? How often in racking suspense? What, if there be an hereafter, a judgment to come, an unhappy eternity? Do you not start at the thought? Can you be content to be always thus? Shall it be said of you akso?-- “Here lies a dicer, long in doubt If death could kill the soul, or not : Here ends his doubtfulness; at last Convinced: But, O, the die is cast !” Or, are you already convinced there is no hereafter? What a poor state then are you in now? taking a few more dull turns upon earth, and then dropping into nothing ! What kind of spirit must you be of, if you can sustain yourself under the thought ! under the expectation of being in a few moments swept away by the stream of time, and then for ever swallow'd up, and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night ! But neither indeed are you certain of this; nor of anything else. It may be so; it may not. A vast scene is behind: * The following is Dr. Mason Good's translation of this quotation from Lucretius, and of the lines connected with it:-- “Them long the tyrant power Of SUPERSTItion sway’d, uplifting proud Her head to heaven, and with horrific limbs Brooding o'er earth.”--EDIT. But clouds and darkness rest upon it. All is doubt and uncer tainty. You are continually tossed to and fro, and have no firm ground for the sole of your foot. O let not the poor wis dom of man any longer exalt itself against the wisdom of God! You have fled from him long enough; at length, suffer your eyes to be opened by Him that made them. You want rest to your soul. Ask it of Him who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not ! You are now a mere riddle to yourself, and your condition full of darkness and perplexity.