Monday, September 30, 2013

Mr. Conyers Middleton, 1749: Apostolic Teachers, No Miracles, and Pentecostalists

Empty heads, anti-intellectual, un-read, loud, narcissistic, worshipper-of-experiences, and extremely hubristic
 
H/t to Mr. Andy Underhile for this 1749 quote:
 
“In collecting all the facts and testimonies, which relate to the present argument, from the earliest inquiry, after the days of the Apostles, our first thoughts are carried of course to the Apostolic Fathers, that is, to those, who had lived and conversed with the Apostles, and who, by the special appointment, were ordained to succeed them in the Government of the Church. For as there are several of this character, whose writings still remain to us, St. Barnabas, St. Clement, St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, St. Hermas, so it is natural to expect, that, in these valued remains, the History of the miraculous gifts, which are so much celebrated by the writers of the New Testament, should be carried on still in the same manner by these their immediate successors through the next generation. For if any such gifts had been actually subsisting in their days, it is highly probable, that men of their eminent zeal and piety, who had seen the wonderful effects... of them, under the management of the Apostles, and must have themselves possessed a large share of them, would have made some appeal or reference to them, in their circular epistles to the Churches, as their predecessors had done, for the honor of the Gospel, and the credit of their own ministry. But instead of this, it is remarkable, that 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; nor to any standing power of working miracles, as residing still among them, for the conversion of the Heathen world."
 
- A Free Inquiry Into The Miraculous Powers Which Are Supposed To Have Subsisted In The Christian Church From The Earliest Ages Through The Several Successive Centuries, by Conyers Middleton D.D. 1749
 
 
 

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