Wesley Corpus

7. Let us consider this point yet a little farther. ‘What is it you would have us prove by miracles The doctrines we preach’ We prove these by Scripture and reason, and (if need be) by antiquity. What else is it, then, that we are to prove by miracles At length we have a distinct reply: ‘Wise and sober men will not otherwise be convinced’ (that is, unless you prove this by miracles) ‘that God is, by the means of such teachers and such doctrines, working a great and extraordinary work in the earth’ (Preface, p. 6). So, then, the determinate point which you in their name call upon us to prove by miracles is this, ‘that God is by these teachers working a great and extraordinary work in the earth.’ What I mean by ‘a great and extraordinary work’ is, the bringing multitudes of gross notorious sinners in a short space to the fear and love and service of God, to an entire change of heart and life. Now, then, let us take a nearer view of the proposition, and see which part of it we are to prove by miracles. ‘Is it (1) that A. B. was for many years without God in the world, a common swearer, a drunkard, a Sabbath-breaker ‘Or (2) that he is not so now ‘Or (3) that he continued so till he heard these men preach, and from that time was another man ‘Not so. The proper way to prove these facts is by the testimony of competent witnesses. And these witnesses are ready, whenever required, to give full evidence of them. ‘Or would you have us prove by miracles (4) that this was not done by our own power or holiness that God only is able to raise the dead, to quicken those who are dead in trespasses and sins' Surely no. Whosoever believes the Scriptures will want no new proof of this. Where, then, is the wisdom of those men who demand miracles in proof of such a proposition one branch of which, ‘that such sinners were reformed by the means of these teachers,’ being a plain fact, can only be proved by testimony, as all other facts are; and the other, ‘that this is a work of God, and a great and more than ordinary work,’ needs no proof, as carrying its own evidence to every thinking man.