Wesley Corpus

13, 14.) 22. You have now finished the third thing you proposed; which was, “to show the particular characters of the several Fathers, who attest” that they were eye and ear witnesses of the extraordinary gifts in the primitive Church. You named nine of these : Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Theo philus, Tertullian, Minutius Felix, Origen, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius; at the same time observing, that many other writers attest the same thing. But let the others stand by. Are these good men and true? That is the present question. You say, “No; ” and to prove that these nine are knaves, bring several charges against two of them. These have been answered at large: Some of them proved to be false; some, though true, yet not invalidating their evidence. But supposing we wave the evidence of these two, here are seven more still to come. O, but you say, “If there were twice seven, they only repeat the words which these have taught them.” You say; but how often must you be reminded, that saying and proving are two things? I grant, in three or four opinions, some (though not all) of these were mistaken, as well as those two. But this by no means proves that they were all knaves together; or that if Justin Martyr or Irenaeus speaks wrong, I am therefore to give no credit to the evidence of Theophilus or Minutius Felix. 23. You have therefore made a more lame piece of work on this head, if possible, than on the preceding. You have promised great things, and performed just nothing. You have left above three parts in four of your work entirely untouched; as these two are not a fourth part even of the writers you have named, as attesting the continuance of the “extraordinary gifts” after the age of the Apostles. But you have taught that trick at least to your “vagrant jugglers,” to supply the defect of all other arguments. At every dead lift you are sure to play upon us these dear creatures of your own imagination. They are the very strength of your battle, your tenth legion. Yet if a man impertinently calls for proof of their existence, if he comes close and engages them hand to hand, they immediately vanish away. IV.