Wesley Corpus

And if this charge be proved on the Fathers, it must be admitted, how far soever the consequences may reach.” (Page 192.) “If it be proved !” Very true. If that charge against the Fathers were really and substantially proved, the authority of the New Testament would be at an end, so far as it depends on one kind of evidence. But that charge is not proved. Therefore even the traditional authority of the New Testament is as firm as ever. 2. “It is objected,” you say, “Secondly, that all suspicion of fraud in the case of the primitive miracles is excluded by that public appeal and challenge which the Christian apolo gists make to their enemies the Heathens, to come and see with their own eyes the reality of the facts which they attest.” (Page 193.) You answer: “This objection has no real weight with any who are acquainted with the condition of the Christians in those days.” You then enlarge (as it seems, with a peculiar pleasure) on the general contempt and odium they lay under, from the first appearance of Christianity in the world, till it was established by the civil power. (Pages 194-196.) “In these circumstances, it cannot be imagined,” you say, “that men of figure and fortune would pay any attention to the apologies or writings of a sect so utterly despised.” (Page 197.) But, Sir, they were hated, as well as despised; and that by the great vulgar, as well as the small. And this very hatred would naturally prompt them to examine the ground of the challenges daily repeated by them they hated; were it only, that, by discovering the fraud, (which they wanted neither opportunity nor skill to do, had there been any,) they might have had a better pretence for throwing the Christians to the lions, than because the Nile did not, or the Tiber did, overflow. 3. You add: “Much less can we believe that the Emperor or Senate of Rome should take any notice of those apologies, or even know indeed that any such were addressed to them.” (Ibid.) Why, Sir, by your account, you would make us believe, that all the Emperors and Senate together were as “senseless, stupid a race of blockheads and brutes,” as even the Christians themselves. But hold.