Wesley Corpus

I was obliged to lie down most part of the day, being easy only in that posture. In the evening, beside the pain in my back and head, and the fever which still continued upon me, just as I began to pray I was seized with such a cough that I could hardly speak. At the same time came strongly into my mind: ‘These signs shall follow them that believe.’ I called on Jesus aloud, to “increase my faith, and to ‘confirm the word of his grace.” While I was speaking, my pain vanished away, the fever left me, my bodily strength returned, and for many weeks I felt neither weakness nor pain. Unto thee, O Lord, do I give thanks.” (Ibid. p. 310.) When you first cited these as proofs of enthusiasm, I am swered, “I will put your argument into form:-- “He that believes those are miraculous cures which are not so, is a rank enthusiast; but “You believe those are miraculous cures which are not so: Therefore, you are a rank enthusiast. “What do you mean by miraculous? If you term every thing so, which is ‘not strictly accountable for by the ordi nary course of natural causes, then I deny the latter part of the minor proposition. And unless you can make this good, unless you can prove the effects in question are ‘strictly ac countable for by the ordinary course of natural causes, your argument is nothing worth.” You reply, “Your answer to the objection is very evasive, though you pretend to put my argument in form. You mis take the major proposition, which should have been: “He that represents those cures as the immediate effects of his own prayers, and as miraculous, which are not so, is a rank enthusiast, if sincere: “‘But, This you have done: Ergo, &c.’” To this clumsy syllogism I rejoin, (1.) That the words, “if sincere,” are utterly impertinent: For if insincerity be supposed, enthusiasm will be out of the question. (2.) That those words, “as the effects of his own prayers,” may likewise be pared off; for they are unnecessary and cumbersome, the argument being complete without them. (3.) That, with or without them, the proposition is false; unless so far as it coincides with that you reject.