Wesley Corpus

But the attention of all was soon fixed on poor L S ,whom we all knew to be no dissembler. One so violently and variously torn of the evil one did I never see be fore. Sometimes she laughed till almost strangled; then broke out into cursing and blaspheming. At last she faintly called on Christ to help her; and the violence of her pangs ceased.” (Let any who please impute this likewise to hysterics: Only permit me to think otherwise.) 8. “May 17, 1740. I found more and more undeniable proofs, that we have need to watch and pray every moment. Outward trials, indeed, were now removed: But so much the more did inward trials abound; and “if one member suffered, all the members suffered with it.” So strange a sympathy did I never observe before; whatever considerable temptation fell on any one, unaccount ably spreading itself to the rest, so that exceeding few were able to escape it.” (Pages 122, 123.) I know not what these eight quotations prove, but that I believe the devil still variously tempts and troubles good men; while he “works with energy in the children of disobedience.” Certainly they do not prove that I lay claim to any of the pre ccding gifts. Let us see whether any more is proved by the BiSHOP OF GLOUCESTER. 121 ten next quotations: 1. “So many living witnesses hath God given, that his hand is still stretched out to heal,” (namely, the souls of sinners, as the whole paragraph fixes the sense,) “ and that signs and wonders are even now wrought” (page 124) (namely, in the conversion of the greatest sinners). 2. “Among the poor colliers of Placey, Jo. Lane, then nine or ten years old, was one of the first that found peace with God.” (Ibid.) 3. “Mrs. Nowers said her little son appeared to have a continual fear of God, and an awful sense of his presence. A few days since, she said, he broke out into prayers aloud, and said, ‘I shall go to heaven soon.’” This child, when he began to have the fear of God, was, as his parents said, just three years old. 4. I did receive that “account of the young woman of Manchester from her own mouth.” But I pass no judgment on it, good or bad; nor, 5.