Wesley Corpus

The passage in my Journal stands thus: 'Mrs. Sparrow told me two or three nights since, "Miss Gr-- met me and said, I assure you Mr. Wesley is a Papist." Perhaps I need observe no more upon this than that Miss Gr-- had lately been raving mad in consequence of a fever (not of an anathema, which never had any being); that as such she was tied down in her bed; and as soon as she was suffered to go abroad went to Mr. Whitefield to inquire of him whether she was not a Papist. But he quickly perceived she was only a lunatic, the nature of her disorder soon betraying itself.' Certainly, then, my allowing her to be mad is no proof of my partiality. I will allow every one to be so who is attended with 'all these circumstances of madness.' (4) 'He pronounces sentence of enthusiasm upon another, and tells us wherefore without any disguise: "Here I took leave of a poor, mad, original enthusiast, who had been scattering lies in every quarter."' [See Journal, iii. 181-2. The asylum in Box (Wilts.) adjoined the churchyard. The parson's fee for the burial of a lunatic was one penny; three pence for a sane person.] It was the famous John Adams, since confined at Box, whose capital lie (the source of the rest) was that he was a prophet greater than Moses or any of the Apostles. And is the pronouncing him a madman a proof of my partiality (5) 'I had much conversation with Mr. Simpson, an original enthusiast I desired him in the evening to give an exhortation. He did so, and spoke many good things in a manner peculiar to himself'--without order or connexion, head or tail, and in a language very near as Mystical as that of Jacob Behmen. 'When he had done, I summed up what he had said, methodizing and explaining it. Oh what pity it is this well-meaning man should ever speak without an interpreter!' (Page 223.)