Wesley Corpus

But here is more proof: 'At length he gives up all these divine agitations to the devil. "I inquired," says he, "into the case of those who had lately cried out aloud during the preaching. I found this had come upon every one of them in a moment, without any previous notice. In that moment they dropped down, lost all their strength, and were seized with violent pain. Some said they felt as if a sword were running through them; others as if their whole body was tearing in pieces. These symptoms I can no more impute to any natural cause than to the Spirit of God. I make no doubt but it was Satan tearing them as they were coming to Christ."' (Page 236.) 'Now, these were the very symptoms which he had before ascribed to the Spirit of God' (page 237). Never in my life. Indeed, some of them I never met with before. Those outward symptoms which I had met with before, bodily agitations in particular, I did not ascribe to the Spirit of God, but to the natural union of the soul and body. And those symptoms which I now ascribe to the devil I never ascribed to any other cause. The second proof of my prevarication or hypocrisy is therefore just as conclusive as the first. 3. Now for the third: 'Mr. Wesley before spoke contemptuously of orthodoxy to take in the sectaries. But when he would take off Churchmen, then orthodoxy is the unum necessarium.' Did I ever say so No more than, in the other extreme, speak contemptuously of it. 'Yes, you say, "I described the plain, old religion of the Church of England, which is now almost everywhere spoken against under the new name of Methodism."' Very well; and what shadow of prevarication is here May I not still declare the plain, old religion of the Church of England, and yet very consistently aver that right opinion is a very slender part of it 4. The next passage, I am sorry to say, is neither related with seriousness nor truth: 'We have seen him inviting persecution.' Never; though I 'rejoiced,' in the instance alleged, at having an opportunity of calling a multitude of the most abandoned sinners to repentance.