Wesley Corpus

You go on: “Fire and brimstone, or manna, rained on the earth, are only one and the same love. It was the same love that preserved Noah, burned up Sodom, and overwhelmed Pharaoh in the Red Sea.” (Spirit of Love, Part II., pp. 72,78.) Surely nothing can equal this, unless you add, (which indeed you must do, to be consistent with yourself) “It is one and the same love which will say, ‘Come, ye blessed,’ and, ‘Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’” You add: “‘Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.’ Here you have God's own word for it, nothing but love chasteneth.” (Page 81.) We know his love chasteneth his children. Of these only God is speaking here, as appears from the latter clause of the sentence. And yet we cannot say even as to them, “It is nothing but his love.” It is mercy mixed with justice. You cite one text more: “I have smitten you; Yet have ye not returned to me;” (Amos iv. 9;) and say, “Now, how is it possible for words to give stronger proof?” (Ibid.) Proof of what? Not that God did not punish them; but that “ in the midst of wrath He remembered mercy.” To these texts of Scripture (wide enough of the point) you subjoin: “The doctrine of atonement made by Christ is the strongest demonstration, that the wrath to be atoned cannot be in God.” (Page 85.) Who talks of wrath to be atoned? “The wrath to be atoned” is neither sense nor English, though it is a solecism you perpetually run into: (I hope, 486 EXTRACT OF A Lb TTER not on purpose to puzzle the cause:) That the sin to be atoned cannot be in God, we all allow; but it does not affect the question. Once more, to silence all contradiction at once, to stop the mouths of all gainsayers, you say, “This (that there is no anger, no vindictive justice in God, no punishment at all inflicted by him) is openly asserted, constantly affirmed and repeated, in the plainest letter of Scripture.” Whether this, or the very reverse, is true, will appear from a few out of numberless texts, which I shall barely set down, without any comment, and leave to your cool consideration. You say, (1.) There is no vindictive, avenging, or punitive justice in God. (2.) There is no wrath or anger in God.