Wesley Corpus

If none ever did, some will be apt to think it is giving a person but hard measure, to bring an accusation against him which never was heard of till sixteen hundred years after his death. But I can the more easily excuse you, because he is a person whom you are wholly unacquainted with ; though it is much, curiosity did not lead you, when you had Archbishop Wake's translation in your hand, to read over if it were but half a dozen pages of his famous “Shepherd.” But charity obliges me to believe you never did. Otherwise, I cannot conceive you would so peremptorily affirm, of him and the rest together, “There is not the least claim or pretension, in all their several pieces, to any of those extraordinary gifts which are the subject of this inquiry.” (Page 3.) I am amazed | Sir, have you never a friend in the world? If you was yourself ignorant of the whole affair, would no one inform you, that all the three books of Hermas, from the first page to the last, are nothing else than a recital of his extraordinary gifts, his visions, prophecies, and revelations? Can you expect after this, that any man in his senses should take your word for anything under heaven? that any one should credit anything which you affirm ? or believe you any farther than he can see you? Jesus, whom you persecute, can forgive you this; but how can you forgive yourself? One would think you should be crying out day and night, “The Shepherd of Hermas will not let me sleep !” 11. You proceed to the testimony of Justin Martyr, who wrote about fifty years after the Apostles: He says, (I trans late his words literally,) “There are prophetic gifts among us even until now. You may see with us both women and men having gifts from the Spirit of God.” He particularly insists on that of “casting out devils, as what every one might see with his own eyes.” (Page 10.) Irenaeus, who wrote somewhat later, affirms, “that all who were truly disciples of Jesus, wrought miracles in his name: “Some cast out devils; others had visions, or the knowledge 22 LETTER.