Wesley Corpus

8. To sum up this: No truly wise or sober man can possibly desire or expect miracles to prove either, (1.) That these doc trines are true;--this must be decided by Scripture and reason; or, (2.) That these facts are true;--this can only be proved by testimony; or, (3.) That to change sinners from darkness to light, is the work of God alone; only using what instruments he pleases;-- this is glaringly self-evident; or, (4.) That such a change wrought in so many notorious sinners, within so short a time, is a great and extraordinary work of God: this also carries its own evidence. What then is it which remains to be proved by miracles? Perhaps you will say, It is this: “That God hath called or sent you to do this.” Nay, this is implied in the third of the foregoing propositions. If God has actually used us therein, if his work hath in fact prospered in our hands, then he hath called or sent us to do this. I entreat reasonable men to weigh this thoroughly, whether the fact does not plainly prove the call; whether He who enables us thus to save souls alive, does not commission us so to do; whether, by giving us power to pluck these brands out of the burning, He does not authorize us to exert it? O that it were possible for you to consider calmly, whether the success of the gospel of Jesus Christ, even as it is preached by us, the least of his servants, be not itself a miracle, never to be forgotten one which cannot be denied, as being visible at this day, not in one, but a hundred places; one which cannot be accounted for by the ordinary course of any natural cause whatsoever; one which cannot be ascribed, with any colour of reason, to diabolical agency; and, lastly, one which will bear the infallible test,-the trial of the written word. VI. 1. But here I am aware of abundance of objections. You object, That to speak anything of myself, of what I have done, or am doing now, is mere boasting and vanity. This charge you frequently repeat. So, p. 102: “The following page is full of boasting.” “You boast very much of the numbers you have converted;” (p.