Wesley Corpus

Baroe, Bishop Wilkins, Dr. Clark, and George Bell, are utterly thrown away. As to George Bell, Mr. Richard says, Mr. M d “justly censures the enthusiasm and credulity of Mr. John, in paying so much attention to Bell’s ridiculous reveries; in calling him a sensible man, and entreating him to continue in his society, on account of the great good he did. However, Bell refused to remain in connexion with him, because of his double dealings and unfaithful proceedings; for he sometimes was full of Bell’s praises; at other times, he would warn the people against him. He also gives a particular narration of what he rightly calls the ‘comet enthusiasm.” Mr. John preached more than ten times about the comet, which he supposed was to appear in 1758, to burn up all the produce of the earth, and 424 REMARKs on MR. HILL’s lastly to execute its grand commission on the globe itsclf, causing the stars to fall from heaven.” (Farrago, p. 37.) What an heap of dirt is here raked together ! I must not let it pass quite unnoticed. (1.) He “justly censures the enthu siasm and credulity of Mr. Wesley in paying so much atten tion to Bell’s ridiculous reveries.” Nay, so very little, that I checked them strongly, as soon as ever they came to my know ledge; particularly his whim about the end of the world, which I earnestly opposed, both in private and public. (2) “Bragging of the many miraculous cures he had wrought.” I bragged of--that is, simply related, the case of Mary Special, and no other; in the close of which I said, “Here are three plain facts,--She was ill; she is well; she became so in a moment. Which of these can with any modesty be denied?” I still ask the same question. (3.) That I ever called him “a sensible man,” is altogether false. A man of faith and love I then knew him to be; but I never thought him a man of sense. (4.) That I “entreated him to continue in the society,” is likewise totally false. (5.) Nor did I ever tell him, on that or any other occasion, of “the great good” he did. I know he was an instrument in God’s hands of convincing and converting many sinners. But though I speak this now to all the world, I never spoke it to himself.