Wesley Corpus

It leaves no relation between God and the creature. For ” (mark the proof!) “if it is created out of nothing, it cannot have something of God in it.” (Page 58.) The consequence is not clear. Till this is made good, can any of those propositions be allowed ? “Nature is the first birth of God.” Did God create it or not? If not, how came it out of him? If he did, did he create it out of something, or nothing? “St. Paul says, All things are of, or out of, God.” And what does this prove, but that God is the cause of all things? “The materiality of the angelic kingdom was spiritual.” (Spirit of Prayer, Part II., p. 27.) What is spiritual materi ality? Is it not much the same with immaterial materiality? “This spiritual materiality brought forth the heavenly flesh and blood of angels.” (Ibid. p. 57.) That angels have bodies, you affirm elsewhere. But are you sure they have flesh and blood? Are not the angels spirits? And surely a spirit hath not flesh and blood. “The whole glassy sea was a mirror of beauteous forms, colours, and sounds, perpetually springing up, having also fruits and vegetables, but not gross, as the fruits of the world. This was continually bringing forth new figures of life; not animals, but ideal forms of the endless divisibility of life.” (Part I., pp. 18, 19.) This likewise is put into the mouth of God. But is non sense from the Most High P What less is “a mirror of beauteous sounds?” And what are “figures of life?” Are they alive or dead, or between both, as a man may be between sleeping and waking? What are “ideal forms of the endless divisibility of life?” Are they the same with those forms of stones, one of which Maraton took up (while he was seeking Yaratilda) to throw at the form of a lion? * “The glassy sea being become thick and dark, the spirit converted its fire and wrath into sun and stars, its dross and darkness into earth, its mobility into air, its moisture into water.” (Part II., p. 29.) Was wrath converted into sun or stars, or a little of it bestowed on both ? How was darkness turned into earth, or mobility into air? Has not fire more mobility than this?