Wesley Corpus

I. As to the first, I read a remarkable passage in the third Journal, (vol.I., page 196,) the truth of which may be still attested by Mr. Durbin, Mr. Westell, and several others then present, who are yet alive:-" A young man who stood behind, sunk down, as one dead; but soon began to roar out, and beat himself against the ground, so that six men could scarce hold him. This was Thomas Maxfield.” Was this you? If it was, how are you “the first-fruits of Mr. Whitefield's ministry?” And how is it, that neither I, nor your fellow-labourers, ever heard one word of this during all those years wherein you laboured in connexion with us? II. “When he went abroad again, he delivered me, and many thousands, into the hands of Mr. -.” When? where? in what manner? This is quite new to me! I never heard one word of it before ! But stay! here is something more curious still ! “I heard Mr. Whitefield say, at the Tabernacle, in the presence of five or six Ministers, a little before he left England the last time, ‘I delivered thirty thousand people into the hands of you and your brother when I went abroad.’” Mr. Whitefield’s going abroad, which is here referred to, was in the year 1741. Did he then deliver you into my hands? Was you not in my hands before? Had you not then, for above a year, been a member of the society under my care? Nay, was you not, at the very time, one of my Preachers? Did you not then serve me as a son in the Gospel? Did you not eat my bread, and lodge in my house? Is not this then a total misrepresentation? Would to God it be not a wilful one ! “I heard,” you say, “Mr. Whitefield say, at the Taber macle, in the presence of five or six Ministers, a little before he left England the last time:”--Who then can doubt the truth of what follows? For here is chapter and verse! Here both the time, the place, and the persons present, are specified. And they ought to be; seeing the crime alleged is one of a very heinous mature. Many a man has been justly sentenced to death for sins which, in the sight of God, were not equal to this.