Wesley Corpus

17, 18.) A further account is given of them by St. Peter, on the very day whereon that promise was fulfilled: “This is that which was spoken of by the Prophet Joel, And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” (Acts ii. 16, 17.) The account given by St. Paul is a little fuller than this: “There are diversities of gifts,” (xapiquatov, the usual scrip tural term for the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost,) “but the same Spirit: For to one is given the word of wisdom; to another the gifts of healing; to another the working of” other “miracles; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues. All these worketh that one and the same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.” (1 Cor. xii. 4-11.) Hence we may observe, that the chief Xapiapata, spiritual gifts, conferred on the apostolical Church, were, 1. Casting out devils: 2. Speaking with new tongues: 3. Escaping dangers, in which otherwise they must have perished: 4. Healing the sick: 5. Prophecy, foretelling things to come: 6. Visions: 7. Divine dreams: And, 8. Discerning of spirits. . Some of these appear to have been chiefly designed for the conviction of Jews and Heathens,--as the casting out devils and speaking with new tongues; some, chiefly for the benefit of their fellow-Christians,--as healing the sick, foretelling things to come, and the discernment of spirits; and all, in order to enable those who either wrought or saw them, to “run with patience the race set before them,” through all the storms of persecution which the most inveterate prejudice, rage, and malice could raise against them. I. 1. You are, First, “to draw out in order all the principal testimonies which relate to miraculous gifts, as they are found in the writings of the Fathers from the earliest ages after the Apostles.” You begin with the apostolic Fathers; that is, those who lived and conversed with the Apostles. “There are several,” you say, “of this character, whose writings still remain to us: St. Barnabas, St. Clemens, St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, St. Hermas.