Wesley Corpus

This was not done once or twice, but many times. And I have sometimes seen him on these occasions, once in particular, so filled with the love of God, that he could contain no more; but cried out, ‘O my God, withhold thy hand, or the vessel will burst.” But he afterwards told me, he was afraid he had grieved the Spirit of God; and that he ought rather to have prayed that the Lord would have enlarged the vessel, or have suffered it to break; that the soul might have no farther bar or inter ruption to its enjoyment of the supreme good.” This is certainly a just remark. The proper prayer on such an occasion would have been, Give me the enlarged desire, And open, Lord, my soul, Thy own fulness to require, And comprehend the whole ! Stretch my faith's capacity Wider, and yet wider still ; Then with all that is in thee My ravish'd spirit fill ! 11. “Such was the ordinary employment of this man of God while he remained at Trevecka. He preached the word of life to the students and family, and as many of the neighbour's as desired to be present. He was ‘instant in season, out of season;’ he ‘reproved, rebuked, exhorted, with all long suffering. He was always employed, either in discovering; some important truth, or exhorting to some neglected duty, or administering some needful comfort, or relating some useful anecdote, or making some profitable remark or observation upon anything that occurred. And his devout soul, always burning with love and zeal, led him to intermingle prayer with all he said. Meanwhile his manner was so solemn, and at the same time so mild and insinuating, that it was hardly pos sible for any who had the happiness of being in his company not to be struck with awe and charmed with love, as if in the presence of an angel or departed spirit. Indeed I frequently thought, while attending to his heavenly discourse and divine spirit, that he was so different from, and superior to, the gene rality of mankind, as to look more like Moses or Elijah, or some Prophet or Apostle come again from the dead, than a mortal man dwelling in a house of clay. It is true, his weak and long afflicted body proclaimed him to be human.