Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts

by Craig S. Keener

His journal reports many healing miracles, often in response to his own prayers.[210] On one occasion, for example, a man apparently dead returned to life when Wesley prayed for him.[211] Wesley’s brother Charles was raised from a debilitating attack of pleurisy and apparently unconsciousness when a woman moved by a dream declared, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth arise and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thy infirmities.”[212] A doctor denounced the emotion in Wesley’s meetings until one of his own patients, convulsed by emotion, emerged completely cured.[213] One of his Methodist preachers, John Valton, cited both healings and rainfall that occurred in response to prayer.[214] Three different early Wesleyan sources recount the recent healing of Ann Brookes’s blind eye after she prayed for healing and dreamed that Christ touched it.[215] Wesley expected signs of the Spirit regularly in his meetings, though these were often anguished outcries or falling to the ground under the Spirit’s conviction.[216]