Wesley Corpus

I preached at Sheffield; Thursday, 16, at Hathenham; and Friday, 17, at Hatfield. Here, some time since, a Justice levied a fine on a Local Preacher, on pretence of the Conventicle Act. So did a Justice in Kent, three or four years ago; but it cost him some hundred pounds for his pains. The next day I rested at Epworth. Monday, 20. About eight I preached at Brigg; a noisy, turbulent town, in which no Methodist had preached before. So it was supposed there would be much tumult; but there was none at all; for the fear of God fell upon the whole congregation. I preached in Tealby at one, and Horncastle in the evening; on Tuesday and Wednesday, at Trusthorpe, Louth, and Grimsby. Here I was informed of a good man, Thomas Capiter, dying in the full triumph of faith. He was, between twenty and thirty years, a pillar and an ornament of the society;--a loss, one would think, not soon to be repaired: But what is too hard for God? Thur. 23.--I preached at Barrow, and at five on Friday; about nine, at Awkborough; and at two, for the first time, in Messingham, under a wide-spread tree. One or two poor men, not very sober, made some noise for a time; but they soon walked away, and left me a numerous and attentive congregation. In the evening I preached at Owston; and, after a busy day, lay down and slept in peace. In this journey I read a volume of the “Medical Essays,” lately published at London. I have read a thousand strange things, but none stranger than the account which is here given of three persons who were entirely cured of a confirmed dropsy; one, by drinking six quarts a day of cold water; the second, by drinking two or three gallons of new cider; the third, by drinking a gallon or two of small beer, and the * You will at length extort from me a severe castigation.-EDIT. Aug. 1772.] JOURNAL, 477 same quantity of butter-milk. Why, then, what are we doing, in keeping dropsical persons from small drink? The same as in keeping persons in the small-pox from air. Mon. 27.--I read Mr. Adams's ingenious Comment on the former part of the Epistle to the Romans. I was surprised and grieved. How are the mighty fallen I It is the very quintessence of Antinomianism.