Wesley Corpus

As to monkery, the worship of relics, invocation of saints, and the superstitious use of images, you have not even attempted to prove that these Fathers were guilty; so that, for aught appears, you might as well have charged them on the Apostles. 'Yet it is no more,' you solemnly assure us, 'than what fact and truth oblige you to say'! (Page 65.) When I meet with any of these assurances for the time to come, I shall remember to stand upon my guard. 6. In the following pages you are arguing against the miracles of the fourth and fifth century. After which you add: 'But if these must be rejected, where, then, are we to stop And to what period must we confine ourselves This, indeed, is the grand difficulty, and what has puzzled all the other doctors who have considered the same question before me.' (Page 71.) Sir, your memory is short. In this very discourse you yourself said just the contrary. You told us awhile ago that not only Dr. Marshall, [Thomas Marshall, D.D., Rector of Lincoln College 1672.] Dr. Dodwell, and Archbishop Tillotson, but the generality of the Protestant doctors were agreed to what period they should confine themselves, believing that miracles subsisted through the first three centuries and ceased in the beginning of the fourth (page 46 et seq.). 7. However, that none of them may ever be puzzled any more, you will 'lay down some general principles, which may lead us to a more rational solution of the matter than any that has hitherto been offered' (ibid.). Here again I was all attention. And what did the mountain bring forth What are these general principles, preceded by so solemn a declaration, and laid down for thirteen pages together (Pages 71-84.) Why, they are dwindled down into one--'that the forged miracles of the fourth century taint the credit of all the later miracles'! I should desire you to prove that the miracles of the fourth century were all forged, but that it is not material to our question.