Wesley Corpus

Well collected indeed! But I desire a little better testimony than either that of Philo the Jew, or Suidas a lexicographer of the eleventh century, before I believe this. How little Tertullian is to be regarded on this head you yourself show in the very next page. 3. You say, fourthly: 'Montanus and his associates were the authors of these trances. They first raised this spirit of enthusiasm in the Church, and acquired great credit by their visions and ecstasies.' Sir, you forget: they did not 'raise this spirit,' but rather Joel and St. Peter; according to whose words the 'young men saw visions' before Montanus was born. 4. You observe, fifthly, how Tertullian was 'imposed upon by the craft of ecstatic visionaries' (page 99), and then fall upon Cyprian with all your might: your objections to whom we shall now consider. And, first, you lay it down as a postulatum that he was 'fond of power and episcopal authority' (page 101). I cannot grant this, sir: I must have some proof; else this and all you infer from it will go for nothing. You say, secondly: 'In all questionable points of doctrine or discipline, which he had a mind to introduce into the Christian worship, we find him constantly appealing to the testimony of visions and divine revelations. Thus he says to Caecilius that he was divinely admonished to mix water with wine in the sacrament in order to render it effectual.' You set out unhappily enough. For this can never be a proof of Cyprian's appealing to visions and revelations in order to introduce questionable points of doctrine or discipline into the Christian worship; because this point was unquestionable, and could not then be 'introduced into the Christian worship,' having had a constant place therein, as you yourself have showed (Introductory Discourse, p. 57), at least from the time of Justin Martyr. Indeed, neither Justin nor Cyprian use those words, 'in order to render it effectual.' They are an ingenious and honest addition of your own, in order to make something out of nothing.