Wesley Corpus

There is some moderation and good nature in the Toupinambaltions, who eat no men but their enemies; while we learned and polite and Christian Europeans, like so many pikes and sharks, prey upon everything that we can swallow.” . Are Protestant nations nothing concerned in that humorous but terrible picture, drawn by a late eminent hand?--“He was perfectly astonished (and who would not, if it were the first time he had heard it?) at the historical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres; the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce. Even in times of peace, how many innocent and excellent persons have been condemned to death or banish ment, by great Ministers practising upon the corruption of Judges, and the malice of factions! How many villains have been exalted to the highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit! By what methods have great numbers, in all countries, procured titles of honour and vast estates ! Perjury, oppres sion, subornation, fraud, panderism, were some of the most excusable; for many owed their greatness to sodomy or incest; others, to the prostituting of their own wives or daughters; others, to the betraying of their country, or their Prince; more, to the perverting of justice to destroy the innocent.” Well might that keen author add, “If a creature pretending to reason can be guilty of such enormities, certainly the cor ruption of that faculty is far worse than brutality itself.” Now, are Popish nations only concerned in this? Are the Protestants quite clear? Is there no such thing among them (to take one instance only) as “perverting of justice,” even in public courts of judicature? Can it not be said in any Protest ant country, “There is a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, according as they are paid, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white? For example : If my neighbour has a mind to my cow, he hires a Lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must hire another to defend my right, it being against all rules of law that a man should speak for him self.