Wesley Corpus

9. You go on: ‘It is the most charitable supposition we can make, that many of the cases you have mentioned in your Journals, and some of which have been represented above, are of this kind’ -- that is, instances of madness (ibid.). Oh tender charity! But cannot your charity reach one hair's breadth farther than this No: for ‘otherwise’ (that is, if those persons were not mad) ‘the presumption and despair are terrible indeed.’ But what if you were to suppose John Haydon (to instance in one) was not mad, but under a temporary possession, and that others were deeply convinced of sin and of the wrath of God abiding on them I should think this supposition (be it true or false) was full as charitable as the other. I said, ‘I cannot find one such instance to this day.’ You reply, ‘Yet once you could not but be under some concern with regard to one or two persons, who seemed to be indeed lunatic as well as sore vexed.’ So they seemed; but it soon appeared they were not. The very next paragraph mentions that one of these within a few hours was ‘filled with the spirit of love and of a sound mind.’ (Journal, ii. 291.) But you are resolved, come what will, to carry this point; and so add, ‘Toward the end of your Farther Appeal, [Part I. See Works, viii. 131-2.] you say you have seen one instance of real, lasting madness. This was one whom you took with you to Bristol, who was afterwards prejudiced against you, and began a vehement invective both against your person and doctrines. In the midst of this he was struck raving mad.’ Add, ‘And so he continued till his friends put him into Bedlam; and probably laid his madness to my charge.’ If they did not, it is now done to their hands. 10. ‘As to the cure of these fits, I observed’ (so you, Second Letter, p. 139, proceed) ‘that you had frequently represented them as miraculous, as the instantaneous consequences of your prayers.’ My former answer to this was, ‘I have set down the facts just as they were, passing no judgment upon them myself, and leaving every man else to judge as he pleases.’