An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion
| Author | John Wesley |
|---|---|
| Type | treatise |
| Year | 1743 |
| Passage ID | jw-earnest-appeal-280 |
| Words | 386 |
14. But can you find any tincture of this in the case
before us? Do not all who have known the love of
God, know what spirit they are of ? And that the Son
of Man is not come to destroy men's lives but to suve them? Do they approve of the using any kind or degree of
violence, on any account or pretence whatsoever in matters of Religion? Do they not hold the right every
man has to judge for himself, to be sacred and inviolable ? Do they allow any method of bringing even
those who are the farthest out of the way, who are in
the grossest errors, to the knowledge of the truth, except the methods of Reason and Persuasion ? Of Love,
Patience, Gentleness, Long-suffering? Is there any
thing in their practice which is inconfistent with this
their constant profeion / Do they in fact hinder their
own relations or dependents from worshipping God according to their own conscience © When they believe
them to be in error, do they use force of any kind, in
order to bring them out of it? Let the instances, if
there are such, be produced. But if no such are to be
found, then let all reasonable men, who believe the
Bible, own, that a work of God 1s wrought in our
land: and such a work (if we survey in one view the
extent of it, the swiftness with which it is spread, the
depth of that Religion which was fo swiftly diffused, and
its purity from all corrupt mixtures,) as it must be acknowledged, cannot easily be parallelled, in all these
concurrent circumstances, by any thing that is found in
the English Annals, since Christianity was first planted
in this island. * H. 1. And yet those who can discern the face of the
fy, cannot difcern the figns 1 times. Yet those who
are estcemed wise men, do Hot know that God is nowreviving his work upon earth. Indeed concerning fome
of these the reason is plain; they know not, because
they think not of it. Their thoughts are otherwise employed ; their minds are taken up with things of quite
a different nature. Or, perhaps they may think of it'
a little now and then, when they have nothing.