N17286:503
The saints everlasting rest
The saints everlasting rest: or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory: extracted from the works of Mr. Richard Baxter, by John Wesley, M.A. late fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford.
Philadelphia: printed by Prichard & Hall, 1790
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. And in the way of our callings, every good christian is a teacher, and hath a charge of his neighbour's soul. Let it be only the voice of a Cain to say, Am I my brother's keeper? I would one of these men, that are so loth that private men should teach them, to tell me, what if a man fall down in a swoon in the streets, though it be your father or superior, would you not take him up presently, and use all means to recover him? Or would you let him lie and die, and say, it is the work of the physician, and not mine: I will not invade the physician's calling. In two cases every man is a physician; first, in case of necessity, and when a physician cannot be had: and secondly, in case the hurt be so small, that every man can do as ⟨p. 222⟩well as the physician. And in the same two cases, every man must be a teacher.
Object. Some will further object, to put off this duty, that the party is so ignorant, or stupid, or careless, or rooted in sin, and hath been so oft exhorted in vain, that there is no hope.
I answer, How know you when there is no hope? Cannot GOD yet cure him? And have not many as far gone been cured? Should not a merciful physician use means while there is life? and is it not inhuman cruelty in you to give up your friend to the devil as hopeless, upon mere backwardness to your duty, or upon groundless discouragements? What if you had been so given up yourself when you were ignorant?