of these creatures, caught the contagious emotion himself, and even while he was biting his lips and knitting his brows, dropt down as if he had been struck by lightning. “The agony he was in,” says Wesley, “was even terrible to behold; we besought God not to lay folly to his charge, and he soon lifted up his head and cried aloud, Now I know thou art a prophet of the Lord.'" There was a certain weaver, by name John Haydon, who being informed that people fell into strange fits at these societies, went to see and judge for himself. Wesley describes him as a man of regular life and conversation; who constantly attended the public prayers and sacraments, and was zealous for the church, and against dissenters of every denomination. What he saw satisfied him so little, that he went about to see his acquaintance one after another, till one in the morning, labouring to convince them that it was all a delusion of the devil. This might induce a reasonable doubt of his sanity at the time; nor is the suspicion lessened by the circumstance, that when he had sat down to dinner the next day, he chose, before he began to eat, to finish a sermon which he had borrowed upon Salvation by Faith. In reading the last page he changed colour, fell off his chair, beat himself against the ground, and screamed so terribly that the neighbours were alarmed and ran into the house. Wesley was presently informed that the man was fallen raving mad." I found him,” he says, “ on the floor, the room being full of people, whom his wife would have kept without, but he cried out aloud, No, let them all come, let all the world see the just judgement of God!' Two or three men were holding him as well as they could. He immediately fixed his eyes upon me, and stretching out his hand, cried, Aye, this is he who I said was a deceiver of the people! But God has overtaken me. I said it was all a delusion ; but this is no delusion!" He then roared out, ‘O thou devil, thou cursed devil, yea, thou legion of devils! thou canst not stay! Christ will cast thee out! I know his work is begun! Tear me to pieces if thou wilt; but thou canst not hurt me!' He then beat himself against the ground again, his breast heaving at the same time as in the pangs of death, and great drops of sweat trickling down his face. We all betook ourselves to prayer. His pangs ceased, and both his body and soul were set at liberty." The next day Wesley found him with his voice gone, and his body weak as an infant's, "but his soul was in peace, full of love, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God." In later years Wesley neither expected paroxysms of this kind, nor encouraged them; nor are his followers in England forward to excite or boast of them. They maintain however, that these early cases were the operation of grace, and attempt to prove it by the reality of the symptoms, and the permanence of the religious impressions which were produced. Perhaps," says Wesley, "it might be because of the hardness of our hearts, unready to receive any thing, unless we see it with our eyes and hear it with our ears, that God in tender con descension to our weakness suffered so many outward signs at the very time when he wrought the inward change, to be continually seen and heard among us. But although they saw signs and wonders, for so I must term them, yet many would not believe." These things, however, occasioned a discussion with his brother Samuel: and Wesley perhaps remembered towards the latter end of his life, and felt the force of the arguments which had no weight with him while he was in this state of exaltation. When Wesley wrote to his eldest brother from Marienborn, he accused him and his wife of evilspeaking. Mrs. Wesley had once interrupted Charles, when he offered to read to them a chapter in Law's Serious Call: it was intended as an indirect lecture, and she told him, with no unbecoming temper, that neither she nor his brother wanted it. Wesley observed in his letter, that he was much concerned at this. Yes, my sister," he says, "I must tell you, in the spirit of love, and before God who searcheth the heart, you do want it; you want it exceedingly. I know no one soul that wants to read and consider deeply so much the chapter of universal love and that of intercession. The cha racter of Susurrus there, is your own. I should be false to God and you, did I not tell you so. Oh, may it be so no longer; but may you love your neighbour as yourself, both in word and tongue, and in deed and truth." The abundant sincerity of this letter might atone for its lack of courtesy. Wesley did justice to his brother, in believing that he would always receive kindly what was so in tended; and after his return to England, he resumed the attack, "I again," he says, "recommend the character of Susurrus both to you and my sister, as (whether real or feigned) striking at the root of a fault, of which both she and you were, I think, more guilty than any other two persons I have known in my life. O may God deliver both you and me from all bitterness and evil speaking, as well as from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism." He then entered upon a vindication of his own conduct, and the doctrine which he had newly espoused, in reply to some remarks which Mrs. Hutton's letter had drawn from his brother. "With regard to my own character," he says, "and my doctrine likewise, I shall answer you very plainly. By a Christian, I mean one who so believes in Christ, as that sin hath no more dominion over him; and in this obvious sense of the word, I was not a Christian till May the 24th last past. For till then sin had the dominion over me, although I fought with it continually; but surely then, from that time to this, it hath not; such is the free grace of God in Christ. What sins they were which till then reigned over me, and from which by the grace of God I am now free, I am ready to declare on the house-top, if it may be for the glory of God. If you ask by what means I am made free (though not perfect, neither infallibly sure of my perseverance), I answer, by faith in Christ; by such a sort or degree of faith as I had not till that day. The πληροφορία πιςεως, the seal of the spirit, the love of God shed abroad in my heart, and producing joy --- Those in the Holy Ghost, joy which no man taketh away, joy unspeakable and full of glory; this witness of the spirit I have not, but I patiently wait for it. I know many who have already received it, more than one or two in the very hour we were praying for it. And having seen and spoken with a cloud of witnesses abroad, as well as in my own country, I cannot doubt but that believers who wait and pray for it, will find these scriptures fulfilled in themselves. My hope is that they will be fulfilled in me. I build on Christ, the rock of ages; on his sure mercies described in his word, and on his promises, all which I know are yea and amen. who have not yet received joy in the Holy Ghost, the love of God, and the plerophory of faith, (any, or all of which I take to be the witness of the spirit, with our spirit that we are the sons of God,) I believe to be Christians in that imperfect sense wherein I call myself such. O brother, would to God you would leave disputing concerning the things which you know not (if indeed you know then not), and beg of God to fill up what is yet wanting in you! Why should not you also seek till you receive that peace of God which passeth all understanding? Who shall hinder you, notwithstanding the manifold temptations, from rejoicing with joy unspeakable by reason of glory? Amen! Lord Jesus! May you, and all who are near of kin to you (if you have it not already), feel his love shed abroad in your hearts, by his spirit which dwelleth in you, and be sealed with the holy spirit of promise which is the earnest of your inherit |