Wesley Corpus

'Deceived,' say you, 'by their own impostors' Why, I thought they were the very men who set them to work! who opposed one cheat to another! Apt scholars, who acted their part so well as even to deceive their masters! But, whatever the heathen were, we cannot grant that all the 'Jewish exorcists were impostors.' Whether the heathens cast out devils or not, it is sure the sons of the Jews cast them out. I mean, upon supposition, that Jesus of Nazareth cast them out; which is a point not here to be disputed. 7. But 'it is very hard to believe what Origen declares, that the devils used to possess and destroy cattle.' You might have said what Matthew and Mark declare concerning the herd of swine; and yet we shall find you by-and-by believing far harder things than this. Before you subjoined the silly story of Hilarion and his camel, [St. Jerome says in his Vita Hilarions Eremitae that a raging camel, who had already trampled on many, was brought with ropes by more than thirty men to Hilarion. Its eyes were bloody, its mouth foaming. Hilarion dismissed the men; and when the camel would have rushed on him, he stretched out his hands and said, 'Thou wilt not terrify me, O devil, with thy vast body; both in the little fox and in the camel thou art one and the same.' The camel fell humbly at his feet with the devil cast out. Kingsley does not give this story in The Hermits.] you should in candour have informed your reader that it is disputed whether the life of Hilarion was wrote by St. Jerome or no. But, be it as it may, I have no concern for either; for they did not live within the first three ages. 8. I know not what you have proved hitherto, though you have affirmed many things and intimated more. But now we come to the strength of the cause contained in your five observations.