Wesley Collected Works Vol 9
| Author | John Wesley |
|---|---|
| Type | treatise |
| Year | None |
| Passage ID | jw-wesley-collected-works-vol-9-218 |
| Words | 390 |
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. 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
at 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, Atakovos, servant of Christ and his
Church, who ovro Buakovet, “so ministers’ as to save souls from
death, to reclaim sinners from their sins; and that every Chris
tian, 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.