Wesley's Great Defluxion of Rheum

Monday, September 13.—My cold remaining, I was ill able to speak. In the evening I was much worse, my palate and throat being greatly inflamed. However, I preached as I could; but I could then go no farther. I could swallow neither liquids nor solids, and the windpipe seemed nearly closed. I lay down at my usual time, but the defluxion of rheum was so uninterrupted that I slept not a minute till nearly three in the morning. On the following nine days I grew better.

The Journal of John Wesley

Yes, but who's life was changed that day?

Saturday, 21.--I preached in Illogan and at Redruth; Sunday, 22, in St. Agnes church town, at eight; about one at Redruth; and at five, in the amphitheater at Gwennap. The people both filled it and covered the ground round about to a considerable distance. Supposing the space to be fourscore yards square and to contain five persons in a square yard, there must be above two and thirty thousand people, the largest assembly I ever preached to. Yet I found, upon inquiry, all could hear even to the skirts of the congregation! Perhaps the first time that a man of seventy had been heard by thirty thousand persons at once! 

The Journal of John Wesley

Becoming Acceptable

Monday, August 16.--In the evening I preached at St. Austle; Tuesday, 17, in the coinage hall at Truro; at six, in the main street at Helstone. How changed is this town since a Methodist preacher could not ride through it without hazard of his lifel

The Journal of John Wesley

Cold light of day

Yet the enemy injected a fear: "If thou dost believe, why is there not a more sensible change?" I answered, (yet not I): "That I know not. But this I know: I now have peace with God. And I sin not to-day, and Jesus has forbid me to take thought for the morrow."

   "But is not any sort of fear," continued the tempter, "a proof that thou dost not believe?" I desired my Master to answer for me, and opened his Book upon those words of St. Paul, 'Without were fightings, within were fears.' Then, inferred I, well might my fears be within me, but I must go on and tread them under my feet.

The Journal of John Wesley, May 25, 1738

Devastation by Earthquake

I went, by moderate stages, from Liverpool to Madeley where I arrived on Friday, 9. The next morning we went to see the effects of the late earthquake; such it undoubtedly was. On Monday, 27, at four in the morning, a rumbling noise was heard, accompanied with sudden gusts of wind and wavings of the ground. Presently the earthquake followed, which shook only the farmer's house and removed it entire about a yard, but carried the barn about fifteen yards and then swallowed it up in a vast chasm. It tore the ground into numberless chasms, large and small; in the large, threw up mounts, fifteen or twenty feet high; it carried a hedge, with two oaks, above forty feet, and left them in their natural position. It then moved under the bed of the river; which, making more resistance, received a ruder shock, being shattered in pieces, and heaved up about thirty feet from its foundations. By throwing this and many oaks into its channel, the Severn was quite stopped up and constrained to flow backward, till, with incredible fury, it wrought itself a new channel. Such a scene of desolation I never saw. Will none tremble when God thus terribly shakes the earth? 

The Journal of John Wesley

At Ease in Body and Mind

Monday, July 5.--About eleven we crossed Dublin Bar, and were at Hoy lake the next afternoon. This was the first night I ever lay awake in my life, though I was at ease in body and mind. I believe few can say this: in seventy years I never lost one night's sleep!

The Journal of John Wesley 

In the evening of May 24

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
   I began to pray with all my might.... I then testified openly.... Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation.

The Journal of John Wesley, May 24, 1738