Wesley Corpus

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 wor ship,” 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. 5. I observe you take much the same liberty in your next quotation from Cyprian. “He threatens,” you say, “to execute what he was ordered to do ‘against them in a vision.’” (Page 102.) Here also the last words, “in a vision,” are an improvement upon the text. Cyprian’s words are, “I will use that admonition which the Lord commands me to use.”* But neither was this in order to introduce any questionable point, either of doctrine or discipline; no more than his using the same threat to Pupianus, who had spoken ill of him and left his communion. 6. You go on: “He says likewise, he was admonished of God to ordain one Numidicus, a Confessor, who had been left for dead, half burnt and buried in stones.” (Pages 103, 104.) True, but what “questionable point of doctrine” or discipline did he introduce hereby ?