Wesley Corpus

Not that I claim any gift above other men; but only that I believe God now hears and answers prayer, even beyond the ordinary course of nature: Otherwise, the Clerk was in the right, who, in order to prevent the fana ticism of his Rector, told him, “Sir, you should not pray for fair weather yet; for the moon does not change till Saturday.” While the two accounts (pp. 143, 146) which are next recited lay before me, a venerable old Clergyman calling upon me, I asked him, “Sir, would you advise me to publish these strange relations, or not?” He answered, “Are you sure of the facts?” I replied, “As sure as that I am alive.” “Then,” said he, “publish them in God’s name, and be not careful about the event.” The short of the case is this: Two young women were tor mented of the devil in an uncommon manner. Several serious persons desired my brother and me to pray with them. We, with many others, did; and they were delivered. But where, meantime, were the “exorcisms in form, according to the Roman fashion ?” I never used them : I never saw them: I know nothing about them. “Such were the blessings which Mr. W. distributed among his friends. For his enemies he had in store the judgments of Heaven.” (Page 144.) Did I then ever distribute, or profess to distribute, these? Do I claim any such power? This is the present question. Let us calmly consider the eight quotations brought to prove it. 1. “I preached at Darlaston, late a den of lions. But the fiercest of them God has called away, by a train of surprising strokes.” (Ibid.) But not by me: I was not there. 2. “I preached at R., late a place of furious riot and persecution; but quiet and calm, since the bitter Rector is gone to give an account of himself to God.” (Page 145.) 3. “Hence we rode to T-n, where the Minister was slowly recovering from a violent fit of the palsy, with which he was struck immediately after he had been preaching a virulent sermon against the Methodists.” (Page 145.) 4. “The case of Mr. W n was dreadful indeed, and too notorious to be denied.” (Ibid.) 5.