Prayer and Health, part 2

London
"And above all, to add to the rest [of treatments for illness], (for it is not labour lost) that old unfashionable Medicine, Prayer. And have faith in God who 'killeth and maketh alive, who bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up,'" wrote Wesley in his introduction to Primitive Physick (xii). In "Advice with Respect to Health," he recommended, "[A]s God is the sovereign disposer of all things ... I earnestly advise every one, together with all other medicines, to use the medicine of medicines -- prayer." (quoted in Maddox, "Eccentric Parent," 20). In a letter, he directed, "Therefore expect from Him, not what you deserve, but what you want -- health of soul and health of body: ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; and not for your worthiness, but because 'worthy is the Lamb.'" (quoted in Webster, Robert. "'Health of Soul and Health of Body': The Supernatural Dimensions of Healing in John Wesley" in Madden, Deborah, ed. "Inward and Outward Health", 213.)
Wesley advised prayer, preventive health techniques, and medical care for the health of the early Methodists. Examples of this were prayers that led to cures, distribution of medications after meetings, and electrifying himself and others (Webster, 214).
"Even a brief perusal of his correspondence will show that he was always quick to encourage use of medical care," states Maddox ("Holistic Health," 11). Wesley believed God could work through both natural and supernatural healing, and that they complimented each other. Healing was an act of God's grace (Webster, 218).
Sometimes Wesley felt that prayer alone was sufficient. He wrote about two persons on separate occasions who prayed to be able to walk and were spontaneously able to do so (Webster, 213, 219-20).
The Methodists were being trained to be a disciplined people. Besides prayer, Wesley advocated the use of fasting and the receiving of Holy Communion. He felt God healed through these "means of grace", by helping Christians experience, per Webster, "a realm of existence that was intangible to the human senses" (220). Wesley records a time when his brother Charles was healed by taking the Sacrament (Webster, 223). Conversely, he prescribed the spittle remaining after fasting for relieving or curing various conditions from blindness to warts to rheumatism to a swelled liver! (Wesley, Primitive Physick, 125.)
Medical works were on Wesley's list of readings he assigned to his traveling lay assistants who provided pastoral care. Lay preachers were expected to offer medical as well as spiritual advice (Maddox, "Eccentric Parent," 18). Health and spiritual instruction were so intertwined for Wesley, he directed a sexually wayward preacher to both stop preaching and to stop teaching about physick! (Maddox, "Holistic Health," 9.)