Wesley Corpus

“13. For surely he has no authority to murder souls; either by his neglect, by his smooth, if not false, doctrine, or by hindering another from plucking them out of the fire and bringing them to life everlasting. “14. If he either attempts or desires to hinder him, if he condemns or is displeased with him for it, how great reason is there to fear, that he regards his own profit more than the salvation of souls l’’ 11. “But why do you not prove your mission by miracles?” This likewise you repeat over and over. But I have not leisure to answer the same stale objection an hundred times. I there fore give this also the same answer which I gave many years ago : 12. “What is it you would have us prove by miracles? that the doctrines we preach are true? This is not the way to prove that: We prove the doctrines we preach by Scripture and reason. Is it, (1.) That A. B. was for many years without God in the world, a common swearer, a Sabbath-breaker, a drunkard? Or, (2.) That he is not so now? Or, (3.) That he continued so till he heard us 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 it proved by miracles, (4.) That this was not done by our own power or holiness? that God only is able to raise the dead, those who are dead in trespasses and sins? Nay, “if you hear not Moses, and the Prophets, and the Apostles, on this head, neither will you believe ‘though one rose from the dead. It is therefore utterly unreasonable and absurd, to require or expect the proof of miracles, in questions of such a kind as are always decided by proofs of quite another nature.” (Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, Vol. VIII. p. 233.) If you will take the trouble of reading that little Tract, you will find more upon the same head. 13. If you say, “But those who lay claim to extraordinary inspiration and revelation ought to prove that claim by mira cles,” we allow it: But this is not our case.