Wesley Corpus

9. What you relate of Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, you have not from himself, but only from one who lived near an hundred years after Dionysius was dead. Therefore he is not at all accountable for it; as neither am I for any vision of St. Jerome. But I am concerned in the consequence you draw from it: 'If this was a fiction, so were Cyprian's too.' That will not follow. Many objections may lie against the one which have no place with regard to the other. 10. You now bring forth your grand discovery, that 'all the visions of those days were contrived, or authorized at least, by the leading men of the Church. For they were all applied, either (1) to excuse the conduct of particular persons, in some instances of it liable to censure; or (2) to enforce some doctrine or discipline pressed by some, but not relished by others; or (3) to confirm things not only frivolous but sometimes even superstitious and hurtful.' (Page 103.) Well, sir, here is the proposition. But where is the proof I hope we shall have it in your next Free Inquiry; and that you will then give us a few instances of such applications from the writers of the first three centuries. 11. Being not disposed to do this at present, you fall again upon the poor 'heretic Montanus, who first gave a vogue' (as you phrase it) 'to visions and ecstasies in the Christian Church' (page 110). So you told us before. But we cannot believe it yet, because Peter and Paul tell us the contrary.