Wesley Corpus

But the largest of all attended at the Garth-Heads in the evening; and great part of them were not curious hearers, but well acquainted with the things of the kingdom of God. Wednesday, 25, and the two following days, being at Sunderland, I took down, from one who had feared God from her infancy, one of the strangest accounts I ever read; and yet I can find no pretence to disbelieve it. The well known character of the person excludes all suspicion of fraud; and the nature of the circumstances themselves excludes the possibility of a delusion. It is true there are several of them which I do not comprehend; but this is, with me, a very slender objection : For what is it which I do comprehend, even of the things I see daily? Truly not The smallest grain of sand, or spire of grass. I know not how the one grows, or how the particles of the other cohere together. What pretence have I then to deny well-attested facts, because I cannot comprehend them? It is true, likewise, that the English in general, and indeed most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions, as mere old wives’ fables. I am sorry for it; and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do not believe it. I owe them no such service. I take knowledge, these are at the bottom of the outcry which has been raised, and with such insolence spread throughout the nation, in direct opposition not only to the Bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best of men in all ages and nations. They well May, 1768.] JOURNAL, 325 know, (whether Christians know it, or not,) that the giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible; and they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of the intercourse of men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air (Deism, Atheism, Materialism) falls to the ground. I know no reason, therefore, why we should suffer even this weapon to be wrested out of our hands. Indeed there are numerous arguments besides, which abun dantly confute their vain imaginations.