Wesley Corpus

Could you only fix in your mind the idea he had of God, (though it is not strictly just, unless we refer it to God. made man,) you would never thus affront him more: H, trai kvavenoriver oppval vevoe Kpovia" Außporial 5' apa Xaltai erepôwaravro avakros Kpatos ar’ affavatoio ueyay 3’ exeAièew OAvurov't Shall not the very Heathen then “rise up in judgment against this generation, and condemn it?” Yea, and not only the learned Heathens of Greece and Rome, but the savages of America; for I never remember to have heard a wild Indian name the name of Sootaleicatee, (Him that sitteth in heaven,) without either laying his hand upon his breast, or casting his eyes down to the ground. And you are a Christian | O how do you cause the very name of Christianity to be blasphemed among the Heathen 5. But is it light swearing only, (inexcusable as that is,) because of which our “land mourneth?” May it not also be said of us, “Though they say, The Lord liveth, surely they * Thinkest thou that God is mocked ? + Jove spake, and nodded with his sable brow, And huge Olympus to his centre shook. oF REASON AND RELIGION. 15] swear falsely?” yea, to such a degree, that there is hardly the like in any nation under heaven; that almost every corner of the land is filled with wilful, deliberate perjury. I speak not now of the perjuries which every common swearer cannot but run into day by day: (And indeed common “swear ing notoriously contributes to the growth of perjury; for oaths are little minded when common use has sullied them, and every minute’s repetition has made them cheap and vulgar:”) Nor of those which are continually committed and often detected in our open Courts of Justice. Only with regard to the latter I must remark, that they are a natural consequence of that monstrous, shocking manner wherein oaths are usually admin istered therein; without any decency or seriousness at all; much less with that awful solemnity which a rational Heathen would expect in an immediate appeal to the great God of heaven. I had once designed to consider all the oaths which are cus tomarily taken by any set of men among us.