Wesley Corpus

I doubt much whether you can produce one single apologist for any 'ridiculous comment on sacred writ,' who anywhere 'alleges that the second or third century could not relish or endure any better.' But if they were all to say this with one voice, yet no reasonable man could believe them; for it is notoriously contrary to matter of fact. It may be allowed that some of these Fathers, being afraid of too literal a way of expounding the Scriptures, leaned sometimes to the other extreme. Yet nothing can be more unjust than to infer from hence 'that the age in which they lived could not relish or endure any but senseless, extravagant, enthusiastic, ridiculous comments on sacred writ.' Will you say that all the comments on Scripture still to be found in the writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, Athenagoras, or even of Origen and Clemens Alexandrinus, are senseless and extravagant If not, this charge must fall to the ground; it being manifest that even 'the age in which they lived' could both 'endure and relish' sound, sensible, rational (and yet spiritual) comments on holy writ. Yet this extravagant charge you have repeated over and over in various parts of your work, thrusting it upon your reader in season and out of season: how fairly, let all candid men judge. 3. Touching the miraculous gift of expounding Scripture, you say, 'Justin Martyr affirms it was conferred on him by the special grace of God' (page 117). I cannot find where he affirms this. Not in the words you cite, which, literally translated (as was observed before), runs thus: 'He hath revealed to us whatsoever things we have understood by His grace from the Scriptures also.' You seem conscious these words do not prove the point, and therefore eke them out with those of Monsieur Tillemont.[Louis Sebastien de Tillemont (1637-98),the ecclesiastical historian; Ordained priest 1676. He took his name from Tillemont, near Paris where he settled.] But his own words, and no other, will satisfy me. I cannot believe it, unless from his own mouth.