Wesley Corpus

"And is it not reasonable to suppose that a Christian education should have no other end but to teach them how to think, and judge, and act according to the strictest rules of Christianity "At least one would suppose, that in all Christian schools, the teaching them to begin their lives in the spirit of Christianity, -- in such abstinence, humility, sobriety, and devotion as Christianity requires, -- should not only be more, but a hundred time more, regarded that nay or all things else. "For those that educate us should imitate our guardian angels; suggest nothing to our minds but what is wise and holy; help us to discover every false judgement of our minds, and to subdue every wrong passion in our hearts. "And it is as reasonable to expect and require all this benefit from a Christian education, as to require that physic should strengthen all that is right in our nature, and remove all our diseases." 4. Let it be carefully remembered all this time, that God, not man, is the physician of souls; that it is He, and none else, who giveth medicine to heal our natural sickness; that all "the help which is done upon earth, he doeth it himself;" that none of all the children of men is able to "bring a clean thing our of an unclean;" and, in a word, that "it is God who worketh in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." But is generally his pleasure to work by his creatures; to help man by man. He honours men to be, in a sense, "workers together with him." By this means the reward is ours, while the glory redounds to him. 5. This being premised, in order to see distinctly what is that way wherein we should train up a child, let us consider, What are the diseases of his nature What those spiritual diseases which every one that is born of a woman brings with him into the world