Wesley Corpus

I want the proof. Though I am but one of the vulgar, yet I am not half so credulous as you apprehend the first Christians to have been. Ipse diri will not satisfy me; I want plain, clear, logical proof; especially when I consider how much you build upon this; that it is the main foundation whereon your hypothesis stands. You yourself must allow, that in the Epistles of St. Paul, wys, wariza Xapiapata, spiri tual gifts, does always mean more than faith, hope, and charity; that it constantly means miraculous gifts. How then do you prove, that, in the Epistles of St. Ignatius, it means quite another thing? not miraculous gifts, but only the ordinary gifts and graces of the gospel? I thought “the reader” was to “find no evasive distinctions in the following sheets.” (Preface, p. 31.) Prove then that this distinction is not evasive; that the same words mean absolutely different things. Till this is clearly and solidly done, reasonable men must believe that this and the like expressions mean the same thing in the writings of the apostolical Fathers as they do in the writings of the Apostles; namely, not the ordinary graces of the gospel, but the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost. 3. You aim indeed at a proof, which would be home to the point, if you were but able to make it out. “These Fathers themselves seem to disclaim all gifts of a more extraordinary kind. Thus Polycarp, in his Epistle to the Philippians, says, “Neither I, nor any other such as I am, can come up to the wisdom of the blessed Paul.” And in the same Epistle he declares, ‘It was not granted to him to practise that, Be ye angry, and sin not.’ St. Ignatius also, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, says, “These things I prescribe to you, not as if I were somebody extraordinary. For though I am bound for his name, I am not yet perfect in Christ Jesus.” (Pages 7, 8.) I think verily, these extraordinary proofs may stand without any reply. 4.