Wesley Corpus

You say, Thirdly, “The later Fathers had equal piety with the earlier, but more learning and less credulity. If these, then, be found either to have forged miracles them selves, or propagated what they knew to be forged, or to have been deluded by the forgeries of others, it must excite the same suspicion of their predecessors.” (Page 85.) I answer, (1.) It is not plain that the later Fathers had equal piety with the earlier: Nor, (2.) That they had less credulity. It seems, some of them had much more: Witness Hilarion’s camel, and smelling a devil or a sinner; though even he was not so quick scented as St. Pachomius, who (as many believe to this day) could “smell a heretic at a mile’s distance.” (Free Inquiry, pages 89,90.) But if, (3.) The earlier Fathers were holier than the later, they were not only less likely to delude others, but (even on Plato's supposition) to be deluded themselves: For they would have more assistance from God. 11. But you say, Fourthly, “The earlier ages of the Church were not purer than the later. Nay, in some respects they were worse. For there never was any age in which so many rank heresies were professed, or so many spurious books forged and published, under the names of Christ and his Apostles; several of which are cited by the most eminent Fathers of those ages, as of equal authority with the Scriptures. And none can doubt but those who would forge, or make use of forged books, would make use of forged miracles.” (Introd. Disc., pages 86, 87.) I answer, (1.) It is allowed that before the end of the third century the Church was greatly degenerated from its first purity. Yet I doubt not, (2.) But abundantly more rank heresies have been publicly professed in many later ages; but they were not publicly protested against, and therefore historians did not record them. (3.) You cannot but know it has always been the judgment of learned men, (which you are at liberty to refute if you are able,) that the far greater part of those spurious books have been forged by heretics; and that many more were compiled by weak, well-meaning men, from what had been orally delivered down from the Apostles.