Wesley Corpus

The writings of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Jeremiah, leave us noroom to think that they were reformed by those calamities. Nor was there any lasting reformation in the time of Ezra, or of Nehemiah and Malachi; but they were still, as their forefathers had been, “a faithless and stub born generation.” Such were they likewise, as we may gather from the books of Maccabees and Josephus, to the very time when Christ came into the world. 11. Our blessed Lord has given us a large description of those who were then the most eminent for religion: “Ye devour,” says he, “widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers. Ye make” your proselytes “twofold more the children of hell than yourselves. Ye neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. Ye make 202 THE DocTRINE OF clean the outside of the cup, but within are full of extortion and excess. Ye are like whited sepulchres, outwardly beautiful, but within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damna tion of hell!” (Matt. xxiii. 14, &c.) And to these very men, after they had murdered the Just One, his faithful follower declared, “Ye stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye.” (Acts vii. 51.) And so they continued to do, until the wrath of God did indeed “come upon them to the uttermost;” until eleven hundred thousand of them were destroyed, their city and temple levelled with the dust, and above ninety thousand sold for slaves, and scattered into all lands. 12. Such in all generations were the lineal children of Abra ham, who had so unspeakable advantages over the rest of man kind; “to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises:” Among whom, therefore, we may reasonably expect to find the greatest eminence of knowledge and virtue. If these then were so stupidly, brutishly ignorant, so desperately wicked, what can we expect from the heathen world, from them who had not the knowledge either of his law or promises? Certainly we cannot expect to find more goodness among them.