Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · September 17, 1867

Without Charity, Nothing.

“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity; I am nothing.”—I Cor. xiii, 2.

On this text John Wesley gives the following remarkable case of a person endowed with the spirit of prophecy, yet receiving no profit for lack of the more essential heavenly graces. It is a notable instance of the exercise of spiritual gifts, and hence a good proof of their perpetuity, in this dispensation. At the same time it is a warning to all not to let any special endowment lead to a neglect of genuine heart work, which alone will give us acceptance with God, and without which we shall surely fall. We quote from his sermons, Vol. ii, p. 284:—

“Though I have the gift of Prophecy!”—of foretelling those future events which no creature can foresee; and “though I understand all [the] mysteries” of nature, of Providence, and the word of God; and “have all knowledge” of things, divine or human, that any mortal ever attained to; though I can explain the most mysterious passages of Daniel, of Ezekiel and the Revelation;—yet if I have not humility, gentleness, and resignation, “I am nothing” in the sight of God.

A little before the conclusion of the late war in Flanders, one who came from thence gave us a very strange relation. I knew not what judgment to form of this; but waited till John Haime should come over, of whose veracity I could no more doubt, than of his understanding. The account he gave was this:—

“Jonathan Pyrah was a member of our society in Flanders. I knew him some years, and knew him to be a man of an unblamable character. One day he was summoned to appear before the board of general officers. One of them said, What is this which we hear of you? We hear you are turned prophet, and that you foretell the downfall of the bloody house of Bourbon, and the haughty house of Austria. We should be glad if you were a real prophet, and if your prophecies came true. But what sign do you give, to convince us you are so; and that your predictions will come to pass? He readily answered, ‘Gentlemen, I give you a sign. To-morrow at twelve o’clock, you shall have such a storm of thunder and lightning, as you never had before since you came into Flanders. I give you a second sign: as little as any of you expect any such thing, as little appearance of it as there is now, you shall have a general engagement with the French within three days. I give you a third sign: I shall be ordered to advance in the first line. If I am a false prophet I shall be shot dead at the first discharge. But if I am a true prophet, I shall only receive a musket ball in the calf of my left leg.’ At twelve the next day there was such thunder and lightning as they never had before in Flanders. On the third day, contrary to all expectation, was the general battle of Fontenoy. He was ordered to advance in the first line. At the very first discharge, he did receive a musket ball in the calf of his left leg.”

And yet all this profited him nothing, either for temporal or eternal happiness. When the war was over, he returned to England; but the story was got before him: in consequence of which he was sent for by the countess of St——s, and several other persons of quality, who were desirous to receive so surprising an account from his own mouth. He could not bear so much honor. It quite turned his brain. In a little time he ran stark mad. And so he continues to this day, living still, as I apprehend, on Wibsey Mooreside, within a few miles of Leeds.