Source: Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation, p. 82
“It is true, likewise, that the English in general, and indeed most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions, as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it; and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do not believe it. I owe them no such service. I take knowledge these are at the bottom of the outcry which has been raised, and with such insolence spread throughout the nation, in direct opposition not only to the Bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best of men in all ages and nations. They well know (whether Christians know it or not), that the giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible; and they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of the intercourse of men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air (Deism, Atheism, Materialism) falls to the ground. I know no reason, therefore, why we should suffer even this weapon to be wrested out of our hands. Indeed there are numerous arguments besides, which abundantly confute their vain imaginations. But we need not be hooted out of one; neither reason nor religion require this.”
Nehemiah Curnock, ed., 'The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M.', London, Charles H. Kelly, vol. 5, p. 265 https://archive.org/stream/a613690405wesluoft#page/265/mode/1up (entry of 25 May 1768)
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John Wesley 77
Christian theologian 1703–1791Related quotes
Upon The Mother Of The Gods (c. 362-363)
Letter X: Reply to the Edinburgh Reviewers, Miscellaneous works of the late Thomas Young https://archive.org/details/miscellaneouswo01youngoog (1855), p. 215
Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1889/jul/25/the-royal-grants#S3V0338P0_18890725_HOC_142 in the House of Commons (25 July 1889)
1880s
Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God
Letter to Gertrude Natkin, 2 March 1906 http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/53b4cf90-7739-0132-f12c-58d385a7b928
As quoted in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (1979) by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow
Context: I am a witch, by which I mean that I am somebody who believes that the earth is sacred, and that women and women's bodies are one expression of that sacred being. My spirituality has always been linked to my feminism. Feminism is about challenging unequal power structures. So, it also means challenging inequalities in race, class, sexual preference. What we need to be doing is not just changing who holds power, but changing the way we conceive of power. There is the power we're all familiar with — power over. But there is another kind of power — power from within. For a woman, it is the power to be fertile either in terms of having babies or writing books or dancing or baking bread or being a great organizer. It is the kind of power that doesn't depend on depriving someone else.