Wesley Corpus

But (to wave the case of those who will not employ him; and would you have eventheir lives thrown away?) he does not heal those that do employ him. He that was sick before, is sick still; or else he is gone hence, and is no more seen. “Therefore his authority is not worth a rush; for it serves not the end for which it was given. “13. And surely he has not authority to kill them, by hindering another from saving their lives! “14. If he either attempts or desires to hinder him, if he condemns or dislikes him for it, it is plain to all thinking men, he regards his own fees more than the lives of his patients. “II. Now to apply. 1. Seeing life everlasting, and holi mess or health of soul, are things of so great importance, it is highly expedient that Ministers, being Physicians of the soul, should have all advantage of education and learning. “2. That full trial should be made of them in all respects, and that by the most competent judges, before they enter on the public exercise of their office, the saving souls from death: “3. That, after such trial, they be authorized to exercise that office by those who are empowered to convey that authority. (I believe Bishops are empowered to do this, and have been so from the apostolic age.) “4. And that those whose souls they save ought, meantime, to provide them what is needful for the body. “5. But suppose a gentleman bred at the University of Dublin, with all the advantages of education, after he has undergone the usual trials, and been regularly authorized to save souls from death: “6. Suppose, I say, this Minister settles at -for some years, and yet saves no souls 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.