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84

WESLEY-BOSWELL.

[Wesley on the Expediency of Field Preaching.] "A VAST majority of the immense congregation in Moorfields were deeply serious. One such hour might convince any impartial man of the expediency of field preaching. What building, except St. Paul's church, would contain such a congregation? And if it would, what human voice could have reached them there? By repeated observations I find I can command thrice the number in the open air that I can under a roof."-WESLEY'S Journal, vol. 11, p. 83.

refers to his providential deliverance. "Friday, February 9th, we had a comfortable watch-night at the chapel. About eleven o'clock it came into my mind, that this was the very day and hour in which, forty years ago, I was taken out of the flames. I stopped and gave a short account of that wonderful providence. The voice of praise and thanksgiving went up on high, and great was our rejoicing before the Lord."

[Microscopic Animals—Wonders of.]

"I MET with a tract," says WESLEY (Journal, vol. 10, p. 7), "which utterly confounded all my philosophy. I had long believed that microscopic animals were generated, like all other animals, by parents of the same species. But Mr. Needham makes it highly probable that they constitute a peculiar class of animals, differing from all others in this: that they neither are generated, or generate, nor subsist by food in the ordinary O way."

[Power of the Gospel in Hospitals.] MR. WESLEY himself perceived with what effect religious labourers might be employed in a hospital. Writing in 1741, he says, "I visited a young man in St. Thomas's hospital, who in strong pain was praising God continually. At the desire of many of the patients, I spent a short time with them, in exhortation and prayer. what a harvest night there be, if any lover of souls who ha me upon his hands, would constantly attend these places of distress, and with tenderness and meekness of wisdom, instruct and exhort those on whom God has laid his hands, to know and improve the day of their visitation." -Journal, vol. 5, p. 3.

[Wickedness of the Marshalsea Prison.]

"I VISITED one in the Marshalsea Prison, a nursery of all manner of wickedness. O shame to man, that there should be such a place, such a picture of hell upon earth! And shame to those who bear the name of Christ, that there should need any prison at all in Christendom !"— Journal, vol. 9, p. 41.

[Eating of Blood.]

[Wesley's Doubts on Astronomy.]

"Ar the request of the author, I took some pains in correcting an ingenious book shortly to be published. But the more I consider them, the more I doubt of all systems of astronomy. I doubt whether we can certainly know the distance or magnitude of any star in the firmament. Else why do astronomers so immensely differ, even with regard to the distance of the sun from the earth? Some affirming it to be only twelve, others ninety millions of miles !"-Journal, vol. 10, p. 92.

"I FINISHED Dr. Roger's Essay on the Learning of the Ancients. I think he has clearly proved that they had microscopes and telescopes, and knew all that is valuable in the modern astronomy. But indeed he has fully shown the whole

"A YOUNG gentleman called upon me," says frame of this to be quite uncertain, if not selfWESLEY (Journal, vol. 6, p. 103), "whose father contradictory."—Ibid., p. 109.

is an eminent minister in Scotland, and was in

union with Mr. Glas, till Mr. Glas renounced

ing on Earth.]

him, because they did not agree as to the eating [Question, if those in Paradise know what is passof blood. Although I wonder any should disagree about this, who have read the 15th chapter of the Acts, and considered that no Christian in the universe did eat it, till the Pope repealed the law which had remained ever since Noah's flood."

[Newtonian and Hutchinsonian Principles.]

"WE had as usual most of the inhabitants (of Epworth) at the Cross in the afternoon. I called afterwards on Mr. and his wife, a venera. ble pair, calmly hastening into eternity. If those in Paradise know what passes on earth, I doubt not but my father is rejoicing and praising God, who has in his own manner and time accomplished what he had so often attempted in vain.” Journal, vol. 9, p. 54.

"I READ Mr. Jones's ingenious Essay on the Principles of Natural Philosophy. He seems to have totally overthrown the Newtonian principles. But whether he can establish the Hutchinsonian is another question."-Journal, vol. 14, [Johnson never treated Whitefield's Ministry with

P. 24.

[Wesley's Thanksgiving for his wonderful Deliv

erance.

In his Journal for 1750, Mr. WESLEY thus

Contempt.]

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BISHOP HALL-WORDSWORTH-WESLEY-MICHAELIS.

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[On Blasphemous Thoughts.]

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"MANY persons about fifty or a hundred years ago," says MICHAELIS, "found themselves grievously oppressed with spiritual trials as they were called, and were filled with anguish on account of blasphemous thoughts which Satan was said to suggest. Books were written about this time, which still sometimes appear in auctions, under the title of Tela ignita Satanæ. Divines too treated of these high trials, and gave advices as to the best plan for encountering Satan, which if collected together might with the greatest propriety be intituled, Advices how to have Blasphemous Thoughts hourly and momentarily in the mind: for the more pains a man takes to guard against any idea which he regards with peculiar horror, the more apt will it be to intrude."Commentaries on the Law of Moses, translated by Dr. Smith, vol. 2, p. 270.

[Increase of Ungodliness admitted by the Assembly.]

Conformist. You make an outcry through the nation and tell the people that all ungodliness hath overflown it only since Bishops and Com mon Prayer came home again. Which is an arrant lie, as will be made good if need be against the best of you. For it began to break in upon us when the Bishops and all good order were thrown down, and the kingdom put into arms. Then men ran into excess of riot when there was no restraint upon them. I will not say into so much drunkenness, but into whoring (I may add atheism and irreligion) and such like wickedness, which are said now to be the reign. ing sins. And though men were not presently openly lascivious and profane (for the older wickedness grows the bolder it is), yet then they got loose from their chains, and these works of darkness secretly lurked and were privately prac. tised.

“Non-Conformist. I do not believe you.

"C. You will believe the Assembly I am sure, and they say so.

"N. C. Where?

"C. In their petition to the Parliament of July 19, 1644, where they desire in the seventh branch of it, that some severe course may be taken against fornication, adultery and incest; which do greatly abound, say they, especially of late, by reason of impunity."-Friendly Conference, p. 114.

[Punishments enforced against Catholics.]

"AFTER talking largely with both the men and woman leader, we agreed it would prevent great expense, as well of health as of time, and of money, if the poorer people of our society could be persuaded to leave off drinking of tea. We resolved ourselves to begin and set the example. I expected some difficulty, in breaking off a custom of six-and-twenty years' standing. And accordingly the three first days my head aked, more or less, all day long, and I was half asleep from morning to night. The third day, "THE law made by Protestants prohibiting on Wednesday in the afternoon, my memory the practise of other religions beside their own, fail'd, almost intirely. In the evening I sought allotteth out the same punishment to all them my remedy in prayer. On Thursday morning that do any way vary from the public communmy headache was gone. My memory was as ion book, or otherwise say service than is apstrong as ever. And I have found no inconven-pointed there, as it doth to the Catholiques for ience, but a sensible benefit in several respects, hearing or saying of a mass. And although the from that very day to this."-WESLEY'S Jour-world knoweth, that the order set down in that nal, vi., p. 135. book be commonly broken by every minister at

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DUGDALE-DAMIANUS-FRIENDLY CONFERENCE, ETC.

his pleasure, and observed almost no where; yet, the danger of losing them (for many might in a small punishment hath ever ensued thereof. But passion fly off, if they heard the name of saint for hearing of a mass, were it never so secret, given to any but themselves) they will not offend or uttered by never so weak means, what im- their tender ears by naming that abominable prisoning, what arrayning, what condemning word."-Friendly Conference, p. 48. hath there been!"-Brief Discourse why Catholiques refuse to go to Church, 1580.

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[The Disputant and the Devil.]

"ONE that used often to preach for Mr. HunA SORT of inferior royalty was attached to a tington, was talking one Lords-day morning at Chief who had a Cathedral within his territories: Providence Chapel, about a trial he underwent Regnante Kinwino rege West-Saxonum, erat in his own parlour wherein the Devil had ‘set in' quidam nobilis vir, Cyssa nomine, et hic erat reg- with his unbelief to dispute him out of some ulus in cujus dominio erat Wiltesire et pars max-truth that was essential to salvation. He said ima de Berksire. Et quia habebat in dominio he was determined that the Devil should not suo episcopalem sedem in Malmesbiria, regulus have his way and he therefore 'drew a chair appellabatur. Metropolis vero urbs regni ipsius for him, and desired him to sit down that they erat Bedewinde.". DUGDALE'S Monasticon, vol. might have it out together.' According to his 1, p. 97. own account he gained a great victory over the empty chair.”—The Voice of Years concerning the late Mr. Huntington, p. 12.

[Question of false Principles.] "You may have some good done you by false principles," says the Conformist in the Dialogue, nay, those very principles may make you do some things well, which shall make you do other things ill.

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N. C. That's strange.

66 C. Not so strange as true. For what principle was it that led the Quakers to be just in their dealing?

"N. C. That they ought to follow the light within them.

"C. This led them also to be rude and clownish, and disrespectful to governments. For all is not reason that is in us: there is a world of fancy also, and the flashes of this now and then are very sudden and amazing, just like lightning out of a cloud."-Friendly Conference, p. 131.

[False Miracles.]

[Encouragement given to the German Peasants by Thomas Monetarius.]

P. RICHEOME, the Jesuit, says that Thomas Monetarius in his epistle to the German peasants during their insurrection, encouraged them thus: "Battez sur l'enclume de Nembrot, et renversez la tour; il n'est possible de vous delivrer de la erainte des hommes, tandes que ceux-ci (les magistrats, Empereurs and Roys) vivent; on ne vous sçauroit rien dire de Dieu, tandis qu'ils vous commandent. C'est la signification de l'enclume martelee par trois mareschaux, qu'ils faisoient mettre a la premiere page de leurs livres."-Plainte Apologetique, p. 170.

[Forced Abolition of Superstition.]

P. RICHEOME quotes this from Calvin's Commentary on Daniel C. 6, "Les Princes terriens s' B. PETRUS DAMIANUS in his Life of St. Romu-eslevent contre Dieu, se privent de leur puissance, aldo complains of the false miracles with which ains sont indignes d'estre mis au nombre des hagiology abounded in his days. He says, "Non-hommes. Il faut donc plutost leur cracher au visage nulli enim Deo se deferre existimant, si in extol- que leur obeir, s'ils n'abolissent toute superstition.” landis Sanctorum virtutibus mendacium fingant.-Plainte Apologetique, p. 171.

Hi nimirum ignorantes Deum nostro non egere mendacio, relicta veritate, quæ ipse est, falsitatis ei putant se placere posse commento. Quos bene Jeremias redarguit, dicens-docuerunt linguas suas loqui, mendacium; ut inique agerant laboraverunt."-Acta SS. Feb., tom. 2, p. 104

[Appropriation of the Title of Saint.] "THEY will by no means give the title of Saint to one of the Apostles or Evangelists of the Lord (though I think they will call them holy, which is the same), no, not when they read a text out of their writings; for which I can conceive no other reason but that their good dames and masters do not like it; they are afraid that it is popish. And rather than these men servers will be at the pains of convincing them of their error, or, to speak more properly, rather than venture

[Instance of Profound Humility.]

BARCENA, the Jesuit, told another of his order that when the Devil appeared to him one night, out of his profound humility he rose up to meet him, and prayed him to sit down in his chair, for he was more worthy to sit there than he."-THOMAS ADAMS'S Divine Herbal.

[Princes of the Nations in Heaven.] "THE seventy nations which people the earth have their princes in heaven, who surround the throne of God, as officers ready to execute the orders of their King. They encompass the ineffable name, and every first day of the year petition for their new years' gifts-that is, for a certain portion of blessings which they are tc

JOHN

WALSH-MATHER--DUBRARIUS-BISHOP CROFT, ETC. 87

shed upon the people committed to their charge.

Jerome.]

To this measure which is then granted, nothing [Bible translated into the Sclavonic Tongue by can be added or diminished: the princes may beg and pray all the days of the year, and the people petition their princes, but all to no purpose. And this makes the peculiar difference between the people of Israel and other nations; for as the name of Jehovah is peculiar to the Jews, they may every day obtain new graces.” -BASNAGE, book 3, ch. 13.

[Jordan and the Demoniac.]

"THE blessed Jordan, second general of the Dominicans, is said to have pacified a raging madman by acceding to his wishes in a venturous experiment. The Demoniac who had violent and mischievous fits, being one day fast bound, and lying upon a bed, grinned at him and exclaimed, Oh if I could but get at thee, I would break every bone in thy body. Jordan immediately ordered him to be loosed, and the man lay still as if he could not move. He uttered however another pleasant wish ;-Oh if I could but have thy nose between my teeth, and Jordan bent down and put his nose close to the madman's mouth. The story says that the Demoniac having no power to bite, licked it like a dog.”— Acta SS. Feb., tom. 2, p. 729.

ness.

[John Walsh and the Earthquake at Lisbon.] "ONE thing I shall mention to you for its oddI was very well acquainted with Lisbon, and sometimes expressed a doubt of Divine Providence, because it was not swallowed up by an earthquake: thus, notwithstanding the Divine question, Who art thou, O man! that judgest? I sometimes puzzled those that were better than myself, with this. Why then is not such a 'cruel place destroyed by earthquakes?' Hence you may imagine that its fall affected me greatly; not so much with compassion alone for the sufferers, but as it was a means of convincing me of my error, and of making me more earnest in the work of faith."-JOHN WALSH. Arminian Magazine, vol. 2, p. 432.

[Cotton Mather of the venerable Eliot.] COTTON MATHER says of the venerable Eliot, "his whole breath seemed in a sort made up of ejaculatory prayers, many scores of which winged messengers he dispatched away to heaven upon pious errands every day. By them he bespoke blessings upon almost every person or affair that he was concerned with; and he carried every thing to God with some pertinent hosannahs or hallelujahs over it. He was a mighty and a happy man that had his quiver full of these heavenly arrows! and when he was never so straitly besieged by human occurrences, yet he fastened the wishes of his devout soul unto them, and very dexterously shot them up to heaven over the head of all."-Magnalia Christi Americana, book 3, P. 176.

ST. JEROME is said to have translated the Old and New Testament into the Illyrian (or Slavonic) language, his native tongue. And this version was still used in the church service when Dubrarius wrote.-DUBRARIUS, p. 4.

[Bishop Croft and the Surplice Question.] "PERCHANCE," says the Humble Moderator, BISHOP CROFT, "I appear a great enemy to the surplice, so often naming it; I confess I am, would you know why? Not that I dislike, but, in my own judgement, much approve a pure white robe on the minister's shoulders, to put him in mind that purity becomes a minister of the gospel: but such dirty, nasty surplices as most of them wear, and especially the singers in cathedrals (where they should be most decent), is rather an imitation of their dirty lives, and have given my stomach such a surfeit of them, as I have almost an averseness to all and I am confident had not this decent habit been so undecently abused, it had never been so generally loathed."

[South's Description of True Wit.] "TRUE wit," says SOUTH, "is a severe and manly thing. Wit in divinity is nothing else but sacred truths suitably expressed. It is not shreds of Latin or Greek, nor a Deus dixit and a Deus benedixit, nor those little quirks or divisions into the or, the diori and the xafór, or the egress, regress and progress, and other such stuff (much like the style of a lease), that can properly be called wit. For that is not wit which consists not with wisdom. For can you think that it had not been an easy matter for any one in the text' here pitched upon by me, to have run out into a long fulsome allegory, comparing the scribe and the householder together, and now and then to have cast in a rhyme, with a quid, a quo and a quomodo, and the like? But certainly it would then have been much more difficult for the judicious to hear such things, than for any, if so inclined, to have composed them. The practice therefore of such persons is upon no terms to be endured."-Sermons, vol. 4, p. 48.

[William Edmundson the Quaker—his Goodness.]

SPEAKING of the Journal of William Edmundson, a Quaker preacher in the seventeenth century, he says, "If the original equalled the picture (which I see no reason to doubt) what an amiable man was this! His opinions I leave : but what a spirit was here! What faith, love, gentleness, long-suffering! Could mistakes send such a man as this to hell? Not so. I am so far from believing this, that I scruple not to say, 'Let my soul be with the soul of William Edmundson!'"-WESLEY's Journal, xiv., p. 14.

1 Matthew, xiii., 52.

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BISHOP HALL-WESLEY-BINGHAM.

[Death of the Good.]

"I was desired by Lady F. to visit her daughter ill of a consumption. I found much pity, both for the parent and the child, pining away in the bloom of youth and yet not without joy, as she was already much convinced of sin, and seemed to be on the very brink of deliverance. I saw her once more, on Sat. 29, and left her patiently waiting for God. Not long after my brother spent some time with her in prayer, and was constrained, to the surprise of all that were present, to ask of God again and again, that he would perfect his work in her soul, and take her to himself. Almost as soon as he had done, she stretched out her hands, said, 'Come, Lord Jesus,' and died."-Journal, vol. 9, p. 70.

[Question of Evidence concerning a remarkable Miracle.]

BISHOP HALL, Speaking of the good offices which angels do to God's servants, says, "Of this kind was that marvellous cure which was wrought upon a poor cripple at St. Maderus, in Cornwall, whereof, besides the attestation of many hundreds of the neighbours, I took a strict examination in my last visitation. This man, for sixteen years together, was obliged to walk upon his hands, by reason the sinews of his legs were so contracted. Upon an admonition in his dream to wash in a certain well, he was suddenly so restored to his limbs, that I saw him able to walk and get his own maintenance. The name of this cripple was John Trebble." "And were," says John Wesley, "many hundreds of the neighbors, together with Bishop Hall, deceived in so notorious a matter of fact, or did they all join together to palm such a falsehood on the world? O incredulity, what ridiculous shifts art thou driven to, what absurdities wilt thou not believe, rather than own any extraordinary work of God!"

[An Impostor Prophet.]

"I RODE with Mr. Piers to see one who called himself a prophet. We were with him about an hour; but I could not at all think that he was sent of God: 1. because he appeared to be full of himself, vain, heady and opinionated: 2. because he spoke with extreme bitterness both of the king and of all the bishops and all the clergy: 3. because he aimed at talking Latin, but could not; plainly shewing, he understood not his own calling."-WESLEY'S Journal, vol. 6, p. 128.

[Catharine of Sienna-one of her lying Revelations.]

It is one of the lying revelations of St Catharine of Sienna, that the Agony in the Garden was occasioned in our Saviour by the thought of those who would derive no salvation from his death. And that if he had prayed for them, even the

reprobate must inevitably have been saved, but the love of justice prevented this, and made him add to his prayer the words, "nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.”—“ Ipsa in quadam abstractione didicit, quod Salvator tristiam et stdorem sanguineum passus est, orationemque illam fecit propter illos, quos prævidebat fructum sue passionis non debere participare; sed quia diligebat justitiam apposuit conditionem, verumtamen non mea, sed tua voluntas fiat; quam si non apposuisset, dicebat ipsa, quod omnes salvati fuissent. Impossibile namque erat, orationem filii Dei frustrari suo effectu."-Acta Sanctorum, Ap. 30, p. 905.

[Saint Furseus.

"De minimis non curat Lex."]

"IN one of the ecstasies of St. Furseus, the devil accused him of speaking idle words, and it appeared that the good axiom, de minimis non curat lex, was current law in heaven: cumque victus Satanas sicut contritus coluber, caput relevasset venenosum, dixit, otiosos sermones sæpe protulit, et ideo non debet illæsus vità perfrui beatà;' Sanctus Angelus dixit, ‘Nisi principalia produceris crimina, propter minima non peribit.” —Acta Sanctorum, 16 Jan., p. 38.

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Extempore Preaching.

ACCORDING to BINGHAM, "Origen was the first that began this way of preaching in the church. But Eusebius says, he did it not till he was above sixty years old, at which age, having got a confirmed habit of preaching by continual use and exercise, he suffered the raxvypápot, or notaries, to take down his sermons which he made to the people, which he would never allow before. Pamphilus, in his Apology for Origen, speaks the matter a little more plainly: for he makes it an instance of his sedulity in study. ing and preaching the word of God, that he not only composed a great number of laborious treatises upon it, but preached almost every day extempore sermons in the church, which were tak en from his mouth by the notaries, and so con. veyed to posterity by that means only."

"Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, St. Augustine, and, above all, he of the golden mouth, were in the habit of extempore preaching; and both he and Augustine use expressions concerning 'illapses and assistances of the Spirit' in such preaching, which give more sanction to fanatics than Bingham is willing to allow. 'If a man,' he says, 'would disingenuously interpret these and the like expressions of the ancients, he might make them seem to countenance that preaching by the Spirit, which some so vainly boast of, as if they spake nothing but what the Spirit immediately dictated to them, as it did to the apostles by extraordinary inspiration. Which were to set every extempore, as well as composed discourse, upon the same level of infallibility with the Gospel. Which sort of enthusiasm the ancients never dreamed of. All they pretended to from the assistance of the Spirit, was only that ordina

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