how much more comfortable is the condition of these spirits in hell than that of the galley slaves at Marseilles, or the Indians in the mines of Potosi ! "But if we will not finish our work we receive neither food nor clothes.'" Clothes! I never knew before that we should want any in the other world. "If any does mischief to another he is thrown into a corner of the cavern upon a couch of cursed dust." Does he mean of hot ashes? "Here he is miserably tormented till the governor sees he repents, and then he is taken off and ordered again to his work.” Was ever any thing more curious or more encouraging to men that resolve to live and die in their sins? You see, there is place for repentance even in hell! If he repent of his sins even there, though he may be tormented awhile, yet the devil, seeing him penitent, will have mercy upon him! But here is more comfort still: "Every one in hell is at liberty to walk, converse, and to sleep when he has done his work. He is then "”—surely, such a thought never entered into the heart of a Christian before!“ He is then led into the inner part of the cavern, where there are harlots, and he is permitted to take one for himself." Amazing! So the Christian Koran exceeds even the Mohammedan! Mohammed allowed such to be in paradise, but he never thought of placing them in hell! The baron should have concluded here, for nothing can exceed this. But he adds: "Hell consists of such caverns, which are nothing but eternal work-houses. The work of those who were unjust judges is to prepare vermilion and to mix it up into a paint to paint the faces of harlots. The most abandoned spirits are driven into a wilderness and compelled to carry burdens."

So here is the uttermost punishment that is allotted for the worst of all the damned spirits!

30. I will add but one more of the baron's dreams, to illustrate one of the preceding: "Satan was once permitted to ascend out of hell with a woman to my house. She was of the tribe of Sirens, who can assume all figures and all habits of beauty and ornament. All such are harlots in the world of spirits. I asked Satan if the woman was his wife. He answered, 'Neither I nor any in our society have wives; she is my harlot.' She then inspired him with wanton lust, and he kissed her and cried, ‘Ah, my Adonis!" I said, 'What do thou and thy companions think of God?' He said, 'God, heaven, angels, and the like are all empty words.' I answered, 'O, Satan, thou hast lost thy understanding! Recollect that thou hast lived in another world!' Immediately his recollection returned, and he saw his error. But the cloud soon returned upon his understanding, and he was just the same as before."

31. Having now taken a sufficient view of the baron's reveries,

let us turn to the oracles of God. What saith the Scripture? What account does God himself give of the state of wicked men after death? Not to multiply texts, I will cite a very few out of many that might be produced: "Tophet is ordained of old he hath made it deep and large" (God himself, not man). "The pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it" (Isa. xxx, 33). "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark ix, 47. 48). "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. xxv, 41). "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power" (2 Thess. i, 9). And in what condition are those that are punished with this everlasting destruction? Do they eat and drink and wear apparel and chose themselves harlots and walk and enjoy sweet sleep? Nothing less. If the word of God is true, if "the Scripture cannot be broken," the wicked, one and all, "are cast into a lake of fire burning with brimstone" (Rev. xix, 20). Yea, "whosoever is not found written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire" (xx, 15). But they will not eat or drink or converse or dally with women, neither will they sleep there. For "they have no rest day nor night; but the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever."

32. Who illuminated either Jacob Behmen or Baron Swedenborg flatly to contradict these things? It could not be the God of the holy prophets; for he is always consistent with himself. Certainly, it was the spirit of darkness. And, indeed, "the light which was in them was darkness," while they labored to kill the never-dying worm and to put out the unquenchable fire! And with what face can any that profess to believe the Bible give any countenance to these dreamers? that filthy dreamer in particular who takes care to provide harlots instead of fire and brimstone for the devils and damned spirits in hell! O, my brethren, let none of you that fear God recommend such a writer any more, much less labor to make the deadly poison palatable by sweetening it with all care! All his folly and nonsense we may excuse, but not making God a liar, not his contradicting, in so open and flagrant a manner, the whole oracles of God! True, his tales are often exceeding lively, and as entertaining as the tales of the fairies, but I dare not give up my Bible for them, and I must

give up one or the other. If the preceding extracts are from God, then the Bible is only a fable; but if "all Scriptures are given by inspiration of God," then let these dreams sink into the pit from whence they came. JOHN WESLEY.

WAKEFIELD, May 9, 1782.

CHOICE EXTRACTS FROM MR. WESLEY'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH VARIOUS PERSONS.

To his Father.

LINCOLN COLLEGE, December 19, 1729. DEAR SIR: As I was looking over, the other day, Mr. Ditton's discourse on the Resurrection of Christ, I found toward the end of it a sort of essay on the Origin of Evil. I fancied the shortness of it, if nothing else, would make you willing to read it; though very probably you will not find much in it which has not occurred to your thoughts before.

"Since the supreme Being must needs be infinitely and essentially good, as well as wise and powerful, it has been esteemed no little difficulty to show how evil came into the world. Unde malum [whence came evil] has been a mighty question."

There were some who, in order to solve this, supposed two supreme, governing principles, the one a good, the other an evil one; which latter was independent on, and of equal power with, the former, and the author of all that was irregular or bad in the universe. This monstrous scheme the Manichees fell into and much improved, but were sufficiently confuted by St. Austin, who had reason to be particularly acquainted with their tenets.

But the plain truth is, the hypothesis requires no more to the confutation of it than the bare proposing it. Two supreme, independent principles is next door to a contradiction in terms. It is the very same thing, in result and consequence, as saying two absolute infinites; and he that says two had as good say ten or fifty or any other number whatever. Nay, if there can be two essentially distinct, absolute infinites, there may be an infinity of such absolute infinites; that is as much as to say, none of them all would be an absolute infinite, or that none of them all would be properly and really infinite. "For real infinity is strict and absolute infinity, and only that." I am, dear sir,

Your dutiful and affectionate son.

To the Same.

January, 1781.

DEAR SIR: Though some of the postulata upon which Archbishop King builds his hypothesis of the Origin of Evil be such as very few will admit of, yet, since the superstructure is regular and well-contrived, I thought you would not be unwilling to see

the scheme of that celebrated work. He divides it into five chapters.

The sum of the first chapter is this: The first notions we have of outward things are our conceptions of motion, matter, and space. Concerning each of these, we soon observe that it does not exist of itself; and, consequently, that there must be some first cause to which all of them owe their existence. Although we have no faculty for the direct perception of this First Cause, and so can know very little more of him than a blind man of light, yet thus much we know of him by the faculties we have, that he is one infinite in nature and power, free, intelligent, and omniscient; that, consequently, he proposes to himself an end in every one of his actions; and that the end of his creating the world was the exercise of his power and wisdom and goodness; which he, therefore, made as perfect as it could be made by infinite goodness and power and wisdom.

Chapter II. But if so, how came evil into the world? If the world was made by such an agent with such an intention, how is it that either imperfection or natural or moral evils have a place in it? Is not this difficulty best solved by the Manichæan supposition that there is an evil as well as a good principle? By no means; for it is just as repugnant to infinite goodness to create what it foresaw would be spoiled by another as to create what would be spoiled by the constitution of its own nature; their supposition, therefore, leaves the difficulty as it found it. But if it could be proved that to permit evils in the world is consistent with, nay, necessarily results from, infinite goodness, then the difficulty would vanish; and to prove this is the design of the following treatise.

Chapter III. All created beings, as such, are necessarily imperfect; nay, infinitely distant from supreme perfection. Nor can they all be equally perfect, since some must be only parts of others. As to their properties, too, some must be perfecter than others; for suppose any number of the most perfect beings created, infinite goodness would prompt the Creator to add less perfect beings to those, if their existence neither lessened the number nor conveniences of the more perfect. The existence of matter, for instance, neither lessens the number nor the conveniences of pure spirits. Therefore, the addition of material beings to spiritual was not contrary to, but resulted from, infinite goodness.

Chapter IV. As the evils of imperfection necessarily spring from this, that the imperfect things were made out of nothing, so natural evils necessarily spring from their being made out of matter. For matter is totally useless without motion, or even without such a motion as will divide it into parts; but this cannot be done without a contrariety of motions, and from this necessarily flows generation and corruption.

The material part of us being thus liable to corruption, pain is necessary to make us watchful against it, and to warn us of what

tends toward it; as is the fear of death likewise, which is of use in many cases that pain does not reach. From these all the passions necessarily spring; nor can these be extinguished while those remain. But if pain and the fear of death were extinguished, no animal could long subsist. Since, therefore, these evils are necessarily joined with more than equivalent goods, the permitting these is not repugnant to, but flows from, infinite goodness. The same observation holds as to hunger, thirst, childhood, age, diseases, wild beasts, and poisons. They are all, therefore, permitted because each of them is necessarily connected with such a good as outweighs the evil.

Chapter V. Touching moral evils (by which I mean "inconveniences arising from the choice of the sufferer "), I propose to show: 1. What is the nature of choice or election. 2. That our happiness consists in the elections or choices we make. 3. What elections are improper to be made. 4. How we come to make such elections. And, 5. How our making them is consistent with the divine power and goodness.

1. By liberty I mean an active, self-determining power, which does not choose things because they are pleasing, but is pleased with them because it chooses them.

That God is endued with such a power I conclude, (1) Because nothing is good or evil, pleasing or displeasing to him before he chooses it. (2) Because his will or choice is the cause of goodness in all created things. (3) Because if God had not been endued with such a principle he would never have created any thing.

But it is to be observed, farther, that God sees and chooses whatever is connected with what he chooses in the same instant ; and that he likewise chooses whatever is convenient for his creatures, in the same moment wherein he chooses to create them.

That man partakes of this principle I conclude, (1) Because experience shows it. (2) Because we observe in ourselves the signs and properties of such power. We observe we can counteract our appetites, senses, and even our reason, if we so choose; which we can no otherwise account for than by admitting such a power in ourselves.

2. The more of this power any being possesses, the less subject he is to the impulses of external agents, and the more commodious is his condition. Happiness rises from a due use of our faculties; if, therefore, this be the noblest of all our faculties, then our chief happiness lies in the due use of this; that is, in our elections. And, farther, election is the cause why things please us; he, therefore, who has an uncontrolled power of electing may please himself always; and if things fall out contrary to what he chooses he may change his choice and suit it to them, and so still be happy. Indeed, in this life his natural appetites will sometimes disturb his elections, and so prevent his perfect happiness; yet is it a fair step toward it that he has a power that can at all times find pleasure in itself, however outward things vary.