4. And that those whose souls they save, ought mean time to provide them what is needful for the body.
5. But suppose a gentleman bred at the university in _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 soul at all; saves no sinners from their sins; but after he has preached all this time to five or six hundred persons, cannot shew, 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, διάκονος, servant of Christ and his church, who οὕτως διακονεῖ, 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 tythes, I grant it. He takes none. As he has freely ♦received, so he freely gives.
♦ “recieved” replaced with “received”
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.
12. “O, but he is ordained, and therefore has authority.”――――
Authority to do what? To save all the souls that will put themselves under his care. True; but (to wave the case of them that will not. And would you desire that even those should perish?) he does not, in fact, save them that are under his care. Therefore, what end does his authority serve? He that was a drunkard, is a drunkard still. The same is true of the sabbath-breaker, the thief, the common swearer. This is the best of the case: for many have died in their iniquity, and their blood will God require at the watchman’s hand.
13. For surely he has no authority to murder souls: either by his neglect, by his smooth if not false doctrine, or by hindering another from plucking them out of the fire, and bringing them to life everlasting.
14. If he either attempts or desires to hinder him, if he condemns or is displeased with him for it, how great reason is there to fear, that he regards his own profit, more than the salvation of souls?
_I am, Rev. Sir,_ _Your affectionate brother_, J. W.
A LETTER To the AUTHOR of the _Enthusiasm_ of _Methodists_ and _Papists_ compared.
_Agedum! Pauca accipe contra._ HORACE.