Daille; I impute a great part of this mischief to those men, who, before the invention of printing, were the transcribers and copiers out of manuscripts. We may well presume that these men took the same liberty in forging as St. Jerome complains they did in corrupting books; especially since this course was beneficial to them, which the other was not.' Much more to the same effect we have in his treatise Of the right use of the Fathers, part I. chap. iii.-N. B. These transcribers were not all Christians, no, not in name: perhaps few, if any of them, in the first century. 6. By what evidences do you prove, that these spurious books "are frequently cited by the most eminent Fathers, as not only genuine, but of equal authority with the Scriptures themselves?" Or, lastly, that they either forged these books themselves, or made use of what they knew to be forged? These things also you are not to take for granted, but to prove, before your argument can be of force.

12. We are come at last to your "general conclusion. There is no sufficient reason to believe, that any miraculous powers subsisted in any age of the church after the times of the apostles," p. 91.

But pretended miracles, you say, rose thus. "As the high authority of the apostolic writings excited some of the most learned Christians" (prove that) "to forge books under their names; so the great fame of the apostolic miracles, would naturally excite some of the most crafty, when the apostles were dead, to attempt some juggling tricks in imitation of them. And when these artful pretenders had maintained their ground through the three first centuries, the leading elergy of the fourth understood their interest too well to part with the old plea of miraculous gifts," p. 92.

Round assertions indeed! But surely, Sir, you do not think that reasonable men will take these for proofs! You are here advancing a charge of the blackest nature. But where are your vouchers? Where are the witnesses to support it? Hitherto you have not been able to produce one, through a course of three hundred years; unless you bring in those Heathen, of whose senseless, shameless prejudices, you have yourself given so clear an account.

But you designed to produce your witnesses in the Free Inquiry, a year or two after the Introductory Discourse was published. Soyou condemn them first, and try them afterwards; you will pass sentence now, and hear the evidence by and by! A genuine specimen of that impartial regard to truth, which you profess on all occasions.

"The

13. Another instance of this is in your marginal note. primitive Christians were perpetually reproached for their gross credulity." They were; but by whom? Why, by Jews and Heathens. Accordingly the two witnesses you produce here, are, Celsus, the Jew, and Julian, the apostate. But lest this should not suffice, you make them confess the charge. "The Fathers," your words are, "defend themselves by saying, that they did no more than the philosophers had always done: that Pythagoras's precepts were inculcated with an ipse dixit, and they found the same method useful with

the vulgar," (p. 93.) And is this their whole defence? Do the very men to whom you refer, Origen and Arnobius, in the very tracts to which you refer, give no other answer, than this argument, ad hominem? Stand this as another genuine proof of Dr. Middleton's candour and impartiality!

14. A further proof of your "frank and open nature," and of your "contenting yourself with the discharge of your own conscience, by a free declaration of your real sentiments," I find in the very next page. Here you solemnly declare, "Christianity is confirmed by the evidence of such miracles, as, of all others on record, are the least liable to exception, and carry the clearest marks of their sincerity; being wrought by Christ and his apostles, for an end so great, so important, as to be highly worthy the interposition of the Deity: wrought by mean and simple men, and delivered by eye-witnesses, whose characters exclude the suspicion of fraud," (p. 94.) Sir, do you believe one word of what you so solemnly declare? You have yourself declared the contrary. But if you do not, where shall we have you? Or how can we believe you another time? How shall we know, I will not say, when you speak truth, but when you would have us think you do? By what criterion shall we distinguish between what is spoken in your real, and what in your personated character? How discern when you speak as Dr. Middleton, and when as the public librarian?

15. You go on, "By granting the Romanists but a single age of miracles after the apostles, we shall be entangled in difficulties whence we can never extricate ourselves, till we allow the same powers to the present age!" (p. 96.) I will allow them, however, three ages of miracles, and let them make what advantage of it they can.

You proceed. "If the Scriptures are a complete rule," (I reject the word sufficient, because it is ambiguous,) "we do not want the Fathers as guides, or if clear, as interpreters. An esteem for them has carried many into dangerous errors, the neglect of them can have no ill consequences," (p. 97.) I answer, 1. The Scriptures are a complete rule of faith and practice; and they are clear in all necessary points. And yet their clearness does not prove, that they need not be explained; nor their completeness, that they need not be enforced. 2. The esteeming the writings of the three first centuries, not equally with, but next to the Scriptures, never carried any man yet into dangerous errors, nor probably ever will. But it has brought many out of dangerous errors, and particularly out of the errors of popery. 3. The neglect, in your sense, of the primitive Fathers, that is, the thinking they wer all fools and knaves, has this natural consequence, (which I grant is no ill one, according to your principles,) to make all who are not real Christians, think Jesus of Nazareth and his apostles, just as honest and wise as they.

16. You afterwards endeavour to show how the church of England came to have such an esteem for the ancient fathers. There are several particulars in this account which are liable to exception. But I let them pass, as they have little connexion with the point in question.

17. You conclude your introductory discourse thus: "The design of the present treatise, is to fix the religion of the protestants on its proper basis, that is, on the sacred Scriptures," (p. 111.) Here again you speak in your personated character; as also when you "freely own the primitive writers, to be of use in attesting and transmitting to us the genuine books of the Holy Scriptures!" (p. 112.) Books, for the full attestation as well as safe transmission whereof, you have doubtless the deepest concern!

18. I cannot dismiss this discourse without observing, that the uncommon artfulness and disingenuity which glare through the whole, must needs give disgust to every honest and upright heart, nor is it any credit at all to the cause you have espoused. Nay, I am persuaded there are many in these kingdoms, who, though they think as you do concerning the Christian system, yet could not endure the thought of writing against it in the manner that you have done; of combating fraud (if it were so) with fraud, and practising the very thing which they professed to expose and abhor.

In your Free Inquiry itself you propose,*

I. "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; whence we shall see at one view, the whole evidence by which they have hitherto been supported."

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II. To throw together all which those fathers have delivered, concerning the persons said to have been endued with those gifts." III. "To illustrate the particular characters and opinions of the fathers who attest those miracles," (p. 2.)

IV. "To review all the several kinds of miracles which are pretended to have been wrought, and to observe from the nature of each how far they may reasonably be suspected."

V. "To refute some of the most plausible objections, which have been hitherto made."

I was in hopes you would have given, at least, in entering upon your main work, what you promised so long ago, an account of "The proper nature and condition of those miraculous powers, which are the subject of the whole dispute, as they are represented to us in the history of the gospel," (Pref. p. 10.) But as you do not appear to have any thought of doing it at all, you will give me leave at length to do it for you.

The original promise of these runs thus: These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover,' Mark xvi. 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 is spoken of by the prophet Joel, And, it shall come to pass in the last days, (said

* Free Inquiry, p. 1.

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,' (xagoμrav, the usual scriptural 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 tonguesto 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. 8-11.

Hence we may observe, that the chief zagara, 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 the 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." "Now if those gifts had subsisted after the days of the apostles, these must have possessed a large share of them. But if any of them had, he would have mentioned it in his writings, which not one of them has done," (p. 3.) The argument fully proposed, runs thus:

If any such gifts had subsisted in them, or in their days, they must have mentioned them in their Circular Epistles to the Churches (for so their predecessors, the Apostles did :) but they did not mention any such gifts therein.

Sir, Your consequence is not of any force. As will easily appear by a parallel argument.

If such gifts had subsisted in St. Peter, or in his days, he must have mentioned them in his Circular Epistles to the Churches. But he does not mention any such gifts therein. Therefore they did not subsist in him, or in his days. Your argument, therefore, proves too much; nor can it conclude against an apostolic father, without concluding against the apostle too.

If, therefore, the apostolic fathers, had not mentioned any miraculous gifts, in their Circular Epistles to the Churches, you could not have inferred that they possessed none: since neither does he mention them in his Circular Epistles, whom you allow to have possessed them.

Of all the Apostles you can produce but one, St. Paul, who makes mention of those gifts. And that not in his Circular Epistles to the Churches. For know not that he wrote any such.

2. All this time I have been arguing on your own suppositions, that these five apostolic fathers, all wrote Circular Epistles to the Churches, and yet never mentioned these gifts therein. But neither of these suppositions is true. For, 1. Hermas wrote no Epistle at all: 2. Although the rest wrote Epistles to particular Churches, (Clemens to the Corinthians, Ignatius to the Romans, &c.) yet not one of them wrote any Circular Epistles to the Churches, like those of St. James and St. Peter, (unless we allow that to be a genuine epistle, which bears the name of St. Barnabas.) 3. You own, they all "speak of spiritual gifts, as abounding among the Christians of that age :" but assert, "These cannot mean any thing more, than faith, hope, and charity." (p. 3.) You assert-But the proof, Sir; 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 dixi will not satisfy me; I want plain, clear, logical proof; especially, when I consider, how much you build upon this; that is the main foundation whereon your hypothesis stands. You yourself must allow, that in the Epistle of St. Paul, μatina xagerata, spiritual 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," (Pref. 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.

would be home to the point, "These fathers themselves

3. You aim indeed at a proof, which if you were but able to make it out. 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 Epistles 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."" (p. 7, 8.) I think, verily, these extraordinary proofs may stand without any reply.