Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/284

 3. We see, when God opens our eyes, that we were before [Greek: atheoi en Kosmô;] without God, or rather Atheists in the world. We had by nature no knowledge of God, no acquaintance with him. It is true, as soon as we came to the use of reason, we learned the invisible things of God, ''even his eternal power and Godhead, from the things that are made''. From things that are seen, we infered the existence of an eternal, powerful Being, that is not seen. But still, although we acknowledge we had no acquaintance with him. As we know there is an Emperor of China, whom yet we do not know; so we knew, there was a King of all the earth; yet we know him not. Indeed we could not; by any of our natural faculties. By none of these could we attain the knowledge of God. We could no more perceive him by our natural understanding, than we could see him with our eyes. For ''no one knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son willeth to reveal him. And no one knoweth the Son but the Father, and he to whom the Father revealeth him.''

4. * We read of an antient king, who being desirous to know, what was the natural language of men, in order to bring the matter to a certain issue, made the following experiment. He ordered two infants as soon as they were born, to be conveyed to a place prepared for them, where they were brought up without any instruction at all, and without ever hearing an human