Wesley Corpus

In treating of which, you strongly intimate, -First, that such gifts did never subsist; and, Secondly, that the Apostles were equally wise and good with the “wonder workers” (your favourite term) that followed them. When therefore you add, “My opinion is this, that, after our Lord’s ascension, the extraordinary gifts he had promised were poured out on the Apostles, and the other primary instruments of planting the gospel, in order to enable them to overrule the inveterate prejudices both of the Jews and Gentiles, and to bear up against the discouraging shocks of popular rage and persecution;” (page 28;) I look upon all this to be mere grimace. You believe not one word of what you say. You cannot possibly, if you believe what you said before. For who can believe both the sides of a contradiction? 10. However, I will suppose you do believe it, and will argue with you from your own words. But first let us have a few more of them: “In process of time, as miraculous powers began to be less and less wanted, so they began gradually to decline, till they were finally withdrawn.” (Page 29.) “And this may probably be thought to have happened while some of the Apostles were still living.” These were given, you say, to the first planters of the * Non omnibus omnia-ita tamen cuilibet credenti tune data sit admirabilis Jacultas, quae se, non semper Quidem, sed dalá occasione explicaret.-GROTI Us in Marcum xvi. 17. 6 LETTER. To gospel, “in order to enable them to overrule the inveterate prejudices both of Jews and Gentiles, and to bear up against the shocks of persecution.” Thus far we are agreed. They were given for these ends. But if you allow this, you cannot suppose, consistently with yourself, that they were withdrawn till these ends were fully answered. So long, therefore, as those prejudices subsisted, and Christians were exposed to the shocks of persecution, you cannot deny but there was the same occasion for those powers to be continued, as there was for their being given at first. And this, you say, is “a postulatum which all people will grant, that they continued as long as they were necessary to the Church.” (Page 11.) 11. Now, did those prejudices cease, or was persecution at an end, while some of the Apostles were still living? You have yourself abundantly shown they did not.