Wesley Corpus

There, sir, now I have done as you require; I have quoted your whole remark. But does all this prove that I ‘boast of curing bodily distempers by prayer without the use of any other means’ If you say, Although it does not prove this, it proves that ‘you seem to desire to have it believed that an extraordinary blessing attended your prayers,’ and this is another sort of enthusiasm, it is very well: so it does not prove the conclusion you designed; but it proves another, which is as good! 11. The last two instances of my enthusiasm which you bring (pages 72-3) I had summed up in two lines, thus: ‘At two several times, being ill and in violent pain, I prayed to God, and found immediate ease.’ [Ibid., sect. III. 12.] But since you say I ‘must not hope to escape so; these instances must once more be laid before me particularly’ (Second Letter, p. 140), I must yield to necessity and set them down from the beginning to the end: -- ‘Saturday, March 21. I explained in the evening the 33rd chapter of Ezekiel, in applying which I was seized with such a pain in my side I could not speak. I knew my remedy, and immediately kneeled down. In a moment the pain was gone.’ (Journal, ii. 437.) ‘Friday, May 8. I found myself much out of order. However, I made shift to preach in the evening; but on Saturday my bodily strength failed, so that for several hours I could scarce lift up my head. Sunday, 10. I was obliged to lie down most part of the day, being easy only in that posture. In the evening, beside the pain in my back and head, and the fever which still continued upon me, just as I began to pray I was seized with such a cough that I could hardly speak. At the same time came strongly into my mind, “These signs shall follow them that believe.” I called on Jesus aloud to “increase my faith” and to “confirm the word of His grace.” While I was speaking, my pain vanished away, the fever left me, my bodily strength returned, and for many weeks I felt neither weakness nor pain. “Unto Thee, O Lord, do I give thanks.”’ (ii. 454-5.)