Wesley Corpus

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,) run 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. But his own words, and no other, will satisfy me. I cannot believe it, unless from his own mouth. 4. Meantime, I cannot but observe an odd circumstance, --that you are here, in the abundance of your strength, con futing a proposition which (whether it be true or false) not one of your antagonists affirms. You are labouring to prove, “there was not in the primitive Church any such miraculous gift as that of expounding the Scriptures.” Pray, Sir, who says there was ? Not Justin Martyr; not one among all those Fathers whom you have quoted as witnesses of the miraculous gifts, from the tenth to the eighteenth page of your “Inquiry.” If you think they do, I am ready to follow you step by step, through every quotation you have made. 5. No, nor is this mentioned in any enumeration of the miraculous gifts which I can find in the Holy Scriptures. Prophecy indeed is mentioned more than once, by the Apostles, as well as the Fathers. But the context shows, where it is promised as a miraculous gift, it means the foretelling things to come. All therefore which you say on this head is a mere ignoratio elenchi, “a mistake of the question to be proved.” Section VI. 1. The Eighth and last of the miraculous gifts you enumerated was the gift of tongues. And this, it is sure, was claimed by the primitive Christians; for Irenaeus says expressly, “‘We hear many in the Church speaking with all kinds of tongues.’ And yet,” you say, “this was granted only on certain special occasions, and then withdrawn again from the Apostles themselves: So that in the ordinary course of their ministry, they were generally destitute of it. This,” you say, “I have shown elsewhere.” (Page 119.) I presume, in some treatise which I have not seen. 2.