Wesley Corpus

It is a mere vulgar errror! I should be extremely glad to prophesy these smooth things too, did not a difficulty lie in the way. As nothing is more frequently or more expressly declared in Scripture, than God’s anger at sin, and his punishing it both temporally and eter nally, every assertion of this kind strikes directly at the credit of the whole revelation. For if there be one falsehood in the Bible, there may be a thousand; neither can it proceed from the God of truth. However, I will weigh all your assertions. And may the God of truth shine on both our hearts! I must premise, that I have no objection to the using the words wrath (or anger) and justice as nearly synonymous; seeing anger stands in the same relation to justice, as love does to mercy; love and anger being the passions (speaking after the manner of men) which correspond with the dis positions of mercy and justice. Whoever therefore denies God to be capable of wrath or anger, acts consistently in denying his justice also. You begin: “(1.) No wrath (anger, vindictive justice) ever was or ever will be in God. If a wrath of God were any where, it must be everywhere.” (Spirit of Prayer, Part I., p. 27.) So it is, as sure as the just God is everywhere. “(2.) Wrath and pain dwell only in the creatures.” (Page28.) Pain is only in creatures. Of wrath, we are to inquire farther. “(3.) To say, God ever punished any creature out of wrath, is as absurd as to say, He began the creation out of wrath.” I conceive, not. It is not as absurd to say, “God is angry at the guilty,” as to say, “God is angry at the innocent.” Now, it is certain, when God began the creation of man, no guilty men were in being. “(4.) He must always will that to his creatures, which he willed at the creation of them.” True; and he willed, at the very creation of men, “to reward every one as his work should be.” “(5.) God is incapable of willing painto any creature, because he is nothing but goodness.” (Page 29.) You mean, because his goodness excludes justice. Nay, that is the very question.