God ?— Ministers that cry aloud to the world; else they will be proud; and then God will leave them, and they will lose their own souls.""

With all his knowledge of the human heart, (and few persons have had such opportunities of extensive and intimate observation,) Wesley had not discovered that, when occasion is afforded for imposture of this kind, the propensity to it is a vice to which children and young persons are especially addicted. If there be any natural obliquity of the mind, sufficient motives are found in the pride of deceiving their elders, and the pleasure which they feel in exercising the monkey-like instinct of imitation.This is abundantly proved by the recorded tales of witchcraft in this country, in New-England, and in Sweden; and it is from subjects like this girl, whose acting Wesley beheld with reverential credulity, instead of reasonable suspicion, that the friars have made regular bred saints, such as Rosa of Peru, and Catharine of Sienna. With regard to the bodily effects that ensued, whenever the spiritual influenza began, there could be no doubt of their reality; but it had so much the appearance of an influenza, raging for a while, affecting those within its sphere, and then dying away, that Wesley could not be so fully satisfied concerning the divine and supernatural exciting cause, as he had been when first the disease manifested itself at Bristol, and as he still desired to be. "I have generally observed," said he, "more or less of these outward symptoms to attend the beginning of a general work of God. So it was in NewEngland, Scotland, Holland, Ireland, and many parts of England; but, after a time, they gradually decrease, and the work goes on more quietly and silently. Those whom it pleases God to employ in his work, ought to be quite passive in this respect: they should choose nothing, but leave entirely to him all the circumstances of his own work."

Returning to Everton, about four months afterwards, he found a remarkable difference as to the manner of the work. None now were in trances, none cried out, none fell down, or were convulsed.

Only some trembled exceedingly; a low murmur was heard, and many were refreshed with the multitude of peace." The disease had spent itself, and the reflections which he makes upon this change, show that others had begun to suspect its real nature, and that he himself was endeavouring to quiet his own suspicions. "The danger was," says he, "to regard extraordinary circumstances too much,-such as outcries, convulsions, visions, trances, as if these were essential to the inward work, so that it could not go on without them. Perhaps the danger is, to regard them too little; to condemn them altogether; to imagine they had nothing of God in them, and were a hindrance to his work; whereas the truth is, 1. God suddenly and strongly convinced many that they were lost sinners, the natural consequences whereof were sudden outcries, and strong bodily convulsions. 2. To strengthen and encourage them that believed, and to make his work more apparent, he favoured several of them with divine dreams; others with trances and visions. 3. In some of these instances, after a time, nature mixed with grace. 4. Satan likewise mimicked this work of God, in order to discredit the whole work; and yet it is not wise to give up this part, any more than to give up the whole. At first it was, doubtless, wholly from God: it is partly so at this day; and He will enable us to discern how far, in every case, the work is pure, and when it mixes or degenerates. Let us even suppose that, in some few cases, there was a mixture of dissimulation; that persons pretended to see or feel what they did not, and imitated the cries or convulsive motions of those who were really overpowered by the Spirit of God; yet even this should not make us either deny or undervalue the real work of the Spirit. The shadow is no disparagement of the substance, nor the counterfeit of the real diamond."

His tone, perhaps, was thus moderated, because, by recording former extravagancies of this kind in full triumph, he had laid himself open to attacks which he had not been able to repel. Warburton

had censured these things with his strong sense and powers of indignant sarcasm; and they had been exposed still more effectually by Bishop Lavington, of Exeter, in "A Comparison between the Enthusiasm of Methodists and of Papists." Here Wesley, who was armed and proof at other points, was vulnerable. He could advance plausible arguments, even for the least defensible of his doctrines; and for his irregularities, some that were valid and incontestable.

On that score he was justified by the positive good which Methodism had done, and was doing; but here he stood convicted of a credulity discreditable to himself, and dangerous in its consequences; the whole evil of scenes so disorderly, so scandalous, and so frightful, was distinctly seen by his opponents; and perhaps they did not make a sufficient allowance for the phenomena of actual disease, and the manner in which, upon their first appearance, they were likely to affect a mind, heated as his had been at the commencement of his career. In all his other controversies, Wesley preserved that urbane and gentle tone, which arose from the genuine benignity of his disposition and manners; but he replied to Bishop Lavington with asperity; the attack had galled him; he could not but feel that his opponent stood upon the vantage ground, and, evading the main charge, he contented himself in his reply with explaining away certain passages, which were less obnoxious than they had been made to appear, and disproving some personal chargest which the Bishop had repeated upon evidence that appeared, upon inquiry, not worthy of the credit he had given to

* His Journal shows that he undertook the task with no alacrity. "I began writing a letter to the Comparer of the Papists and Methodists. Heavy work; such as I should never choose; but sometimes it must be done. Well might the ancient say, "God made practical divinity necessary; the devil, controversial." But it is necessary. We must resist the devil, or he will not flee from us."

On this point it is proper to state, that he does justice to the Bishop in his Journal. For when he notices that, calling upon the person who was named as the accuser, she told him readily and repeatedly, that she "never saw or knew any harm by him," he adds, "yet I am not sure that she has not said just the contrary to others. If so, she, not I, must give account for it to God."

it. But Wesley's resentments were never lasting: of this a passage in his Journal, written a few years afterwards, affords a pleasing proof. Having attended service at Exeter cathedral, he says, "I was well pleased to partake of the Lord's supper with my old opponent, Bishop Lavington. Oh, may we sit down together in the kingdom of our Father!" He understood the happiness of his temper in this respect, and says of it, "I cannot but stand amazed at the goodness of God. Others are most assaulted on the weak side of their soul; but with me it is quite otherwise. If I have any strength at all, (and I have none but what I received,) it is in forgiving injuries; and on this very side am I assaulted more frequently than on any other. Yet leave me not here one hour to myself, or I shall betray myself and Thee!"

Warburton, though a more powerful opponent, assailed him with less effect. Wesley replied to him in a respectful tone, and met the attack fairly. He entered upon the question of Grace, maintained his own view of that subject, and repeated, in the most explicit terms, his full belief, that the course which he and his coadjutors had taken, was approved by miracles. "I have seen with my eyes," said he, "and heard with my ears, several things which, to the best of my judgment, cannot be accounted for by the ordinary course of natural causes, and which, I therefore believe, ought to be ascribed to the extraordinary interposition of God. If any man choose to call these miracles, I reclaim not. I have weighed the preceding and following circumstances; I have strove to account for them in a natural way; but could not, without doing violence to my reason." He instanced the case of John Haydon, and the manner in which he himself, by an effort of faith, had thrown off a fever. The truth of these facts, he said, was supported by the testimony of competent witnesses, in as high a degree as any reasonable man could desire the witnesses were many in number, and could not be deceived themselves; for they saw with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears. He disclaimed for himself any part in these and the other

cases, which might appear to redound to his praise: his will, or choice, or desire, he said, had no place in them; and this, he argued, had always been the case with true miracles; for God interposed his miraculous powers always according to his own sovereign will; not according to the will of man, neither of him by whom he wrought, nor of any other man whatsoever. So many such interpositions, he affirmed, had taken place, as would soon leave no excuse either for denying or despising them. "We desire no favour," said he, "but the justice, that diligent inquiry may be made concerning them. We are ready to name the persons on whom the power was shown, which belongeth to none but God, (not one, or two, or ten or twelve only,)-to point out their places of abode; and we engage they shall answer every pertinent question fairly and directly; and, if required, shall give all their answers upon oath, before any who are empowered to receive them. It is our particular request, that the circumstances which went before, which accompanied, and which followed after the facts under consideration, may be thoroughly examined, and punctually noted down. Let but this be done, (and is it not highly needful it should, at least by those who would form an exact judgment?) and we have no fear that any reasonable man should scruple to say, "this hath God wrought."

It had never entered into Wesley's thoughts, when he thus appealed to what were called the outward signs, as certainly miraculous, that they were the manifestations of a violent and specific disease, produced by excessive excitement of the mind, communicable by sympathy, and highly contagious. We are yet far from understanding the whole power of the mind over the body; nor, perhaps, will it ever be fully understood. It was very little regarded in Wesley's time; these phenomena therefore were considered by the Methodists, and by those who beheld them, as wholly miraculous; by all other persons, as mere exhibitions of imposture. Even Charles Wesley, when he discovered that much was voluntary, had no suspicion that the rest might be natural;