Wesley Corpus

11. You observe, Fourthly, “that great numbers of demoniacs subsisted in those early ages, whose chief habita stion was in a part of the church, where, as in a kind of hospital, they were under the care of the exorcists; which will account for the confidence of those challenges made to the Heathens by the Christians, to come and see how they could drive the devils out of them, while they kept such numbers of them in constant pay; always ready for the show; tried and disciplined by your exorcists to groan and howl, and give proper answers to all questions.” (Pages 94, 95.) So now the correspondence between the ventriloquist and the exorcist is grown more close than ever! But the misfortune is, this observation, likewise, wholly overthrows that which went before it. For if all the groaning and howling, and other symptoms, were no more than what they “were disciplined to by their exorcists;” (page 95;) then it cannot be, that “many of them could not possibly be cured by all the power of those exorcists 1” (Page 92.) What! could they not possibly be taught to know their masters; and when to end, as well as to begin, the show? One would think that the cures wrought upon these might have been more than temporary. Nay, it is surprising, that, while they had such numbers of them, they should ever suffer the same person to show twice. 12. You observe, Fifthly, “that, whereas this power of casting out devils had hitherto been in the hands only of the meaner part of the laity;” (that wants proof;) “it was, about the year 367, put under the direction of the Clergy; it being then decreed by the Council of Laodicea, that none should be exorcists but those appointed (or ordained) by the Bishop. But no sooner was this done, even by those who favoured and desired to support it, than the gift itself gradually decreased and expired.” (Page 95.) 46 LETTER. To You here overthrow, not only your immediately preceding observation, (as usual,) but likewise what you have observed elsewhere,--that the exorcists began to be ordained “about the middle of the third century.” (Page 86.) If so, what need of decreeing it now, above an hundred years after?