Wesley Corpus

I shall therefore set aside all I find in your work which does not touch the merits of the cause; and likewise contract the question itself to the three first centuries. For I have no more to do with the writers or miracles of the fourth, than with those of the fourteenth, century. 4. You will naturally ask, “Why do you stop there? What reason can you give for this? If you allow miracles before the empire became Christian, why not afterwards too?” I answer, Because, “after the empire became Christian,” (they are your own words,) “a general corruption both of faith and morals infected the Christian Church; which, by that revolution, as St. Jerome says, “lost as much of her virtue, as It had gained of wealth and power.’” (Page 123.) And this very reason St. Chrysostom himself gave in the words you have afterwards cited: “There are some who ask, Why are not miracles performed still? Why are there no persons who raise the dead and cure diseases?” To which he replies, that it was owing to the want of faith, and virtue, and piety in those times. 1. You begin your preface by observing, that the “Inquiry” was intended to have been published some time ago; but, upon reflection, you resolved to “give out, first, some sketch of what you was projecting;” (page l;) and accordingly “published the ‘Introductory Discourse,’” by itself, though “foreseeing it would encounter all the opposition that prejudice, bigotry, and superstition are ever prepared to give to all inquiries” of this nature. (Page 2.) But it was your “comfort, that this would excite candid inquirers to weigh the merit and conse quences of it.” (Page 3.) 2. The consequences of it are tolerably plain, even to free the good people of England from all that prejudice, bigotry, and superstition, vulgarly called Christianity. But it is not so plain, that “this is the sole expedient which can secure the Protestant religion against the efforts of Rome.” (Ibid.) It may be doubted, whether Deism is the sole expedient to secure us against Popery. For some are of opinion, there are persons in the world who are neither Deists nor Papists. 3. You open the cause artfully enough, by a quotation from Mr. Locke. (Page 4.) But we are agreed to build our faith on no man’s authority. His reasons will be considered in their place.