Wesley Corpus

6. Suppose, I say, this minister settles at for some years, and yet saves no soul at all, saves no sinners from their sins; but, after he has preached all this time to five or six hundred persons, cannot show that he has converted one from the error of his ways, many of his parishioners dying as they lived, and the rest remaining just as they were before he came,-- 7. Will you condemn a man who, having compassion on dying souls and some knowledge of the gospel of Christ, without any temporal reward, saves many from their sins whom the minister could not save-- 8. At least, did not: nor ever was likely to do it; for he did not go to them, and they would not come to him. 9. Will you condemn such a preacher, because he has not learning or has not had an university education What then He saves those sinners from their sins whom the man of learning and education cannot save. A peasant being brought before the College of Physicians in Paris, a learned doctor accosted him, 'What, friend, do you pretend to prescribe to people that have agues Dost thou know what an ague is' He replied, 'Yes, sir. An ague is what I can cure and you cannot.' 10. Will you object, 'But he is no minister, nor has any authority to save souls' I must beg leave to dissent from you in this. I think he is a true, evangelical minister, diakonos, servant of Christ and His Church, who outw diakonei, so ministers, as to save souls from death, to reclaim sinners from their sins; and that every Christian, if he is able to do it, has authority to save a dying soul. But, if you only mean he has no authority to take tithes, I grant it. He takes none; as he has freely received, so he freely gives. 11. But to carry the matter a little farther. I am afraid it will hold, on the other hand, with regard to the soul as well as the body, medicus non est qui non medetur;--I am afraid reasonable men will be much inclined to think he that saves no souls is no minister of Christ.