Wesley Corpus

I know not what these eight quotations prove, but that I believe the devil still variously tempts and troubles good men, while he 'works with energy in the children of disobedience.' Certainly they do not prove that I lay claim to any of the preceding gifts. Let us see whether any more is proved by the ten next quotations: 1. 'So many living witnesses hath God given that His hand is still stretched out to heal' (namely, the souls of sinners, as the whole paragraph fixes the sense) 'and that signs and wonders are even now wrought' (page 124) (namely, in the conversion of the greatest sinners). 2. 'Among the poor colliers of Placey, Jo. Lane, then nine or ten years old, was one of the first that found peace with God' (ibid.). 3. 'Mrs. Nowers said her little son appeared to have a continual fear of God and an awful sense of His presence. A few days since, she said he broke out into prayers aloud and said, " I shall go to heaven soon."' This child, when he began to have the fear of God, was, as his parents said, just three years old. 4. I did receive that 'account of the young woman of Manchester from her own mouth.' But I pass no judgement on it, good or bad; nor, 5. On 'the trance' (page 126), as her mother called it, of S--T-- , [See Journal, iii.254-6.] neither denying nor affirming the truth of it. 6. 'You deny that God does work these effects-- at least, that He works them in this manner: I affirm both. I have seen very many persons changed in a moment from the spirit of fear, horror, despair, to the spirit of love, joy, and praise. In several of them this change was wrought in a dream, or during a strong representation to their mind of Christ either on the cross or in glory.' (Page 127.)