JOHN WESLEY AND ETERNAL TORTURE.
LTO THE EDITOR OF TIZR "SPECTATOR,"]
SIR,—The writer of your article of last week on "Christianity and Conversion" makes the following statement about John Wesley :— " He dwelt little in his sermons upon retribution ; he indignantly disclaims the doctrine of reprobation ; he defines damnation as "a state wherein if a man dies he perisheth for ever,' leaving the question of. eternal torture untouched ; and according to his Methodist biographer, he did not wholly repudiate the hope of the Universalist."
It would be very remarkable if all this were true; what is very remarkable is that Dr. Fitchett should have so misled his reviewer.
"Wesley's Sermons" form a part of the burdensome standard of Methodist belief and teaching. Sermon CX. is "On the Discoveries of Faith." Faith discovers—" (9) the souls of un- holy men ; seized the moment they depart from the quivering lips, by those ministers of vengeance, the evil angels, and dragged away to their own place." Up to the end of the world "they will probably be employed by their bad master in advancing hig infernal kingdom. . . . . Wherever they seek rest, they will find none; they carry with them their own hell." Then," (11) By faith we are also shown the immediate consequences of the general judgment We see the execution of that dreadful sentence, pronounced upon those on the left hand Then
shall the ministers of divine vengeance plunge them into the lake of fire burning with brimstone ; where they have no rest day or night, but the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.'" In one of the sermons, entitled" Of Hell" (CXXIII.), Wesley is terribly explicit. He insists that the fire is real fire"; he meets the objection that fire consumes by referring to the Unum asbes- tinum. He argues: "Surely it would be torment enough to have the flesh burnt off from only one finger: what then will it be, to have the whole body plunged into a lake of fire burning with brimstone P" "The inhabitants of hell," he says, "are perfectly
wicked, having no spark of goodness remaining They can die no more: they are strong to sustain whatever the united malice, skill, and strength, of angels can inflict upon them Be their suffering ever so intense, there is no possibility of their fainting away; no not for a moment Suppose millions of days, of years, of ages elapsed, still we are only on the threshold of eternity ! Neither the pain of body or of soul is any nearer an end, than it was millions of ages ago.'
"Such," continues Wesley, "is the account which the Judge of all gives of the punishment which he has ordained for impenitent
sinners When we ask a friend that is sick, how he does ; I am in pain now,' says he, but I hope to be easy soon.' This is a sweet mitigation of the present uneasiness. But how dreadful would his case be if he should answer, I am all over pain, and I shall never be eased of it. I lie under exquisite torment of body, and horror of soul, and I shall feel it for ever ! ' Such is the case of the damned sinners in hell. Suffer any pain, then, rather than come into that place of torment !"
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