Wesley Corpus

5. But, to blast his credit for ever, you will now reckon up all the heresies which he held. And first: 'He believed the doctrine of the Millennium; or " that all the saints should be raised in the flesh, and reign with Christ, in the enjoyment of all sensual pleasures, for a thousand years before the general resurrection "' (page 31.) These you mark as though they were Justin's words. I take knowledge you hold no faith is to be kept with heretics, and that all means are fair which conduce to so good an end as driving the Christian heresy out of the world. It is by this principle only that I can account for your adding: 'Which doctrine' (that of their enjoying all sensual pleasures) 'he deduces from the testimony of the Prophets and of St. John the Apostle, and was followed in it by the Fathers of the second and third centuries.' The doctrine (as you very well know) which Justin deduced from the Prophets and the Apostles, and in which he was undoubtedly followed by the Fathers of the second and third centuries, is this: The souls of them who have been martyred for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and who have not worshipped the beast, neither received his mark, shall live and reign with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead shall not live again until the thousand years are finished. Now, to say they believed this is neither more nor less than to say they believed the Bible. 6. The second heresy you charge him with is the believing 'that those " sons of God " mentioned Genesis vi. 4, of whom it is there said, " They came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them," were evil angels' (page 32). And I allow, he too lightly received this on the testimony of the Jewish commentators. But this only proves that he was a fallible man; not that he was a knave, or that he had not eyes and ears.