N17286:554
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
Part 2 › Chapter 12: An Advice to some more particularly to help others to this Rest.
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.
1. They are under your hands while they are young, and tender, and flexible; but they come to ministers when they are grown older, and slif•er, and settled in their ways, and think themselves too good to be catechised. You have a twig to bend, and we an oak: you have the young plants of sin to pluck up, and we the deep-rooted vices. The consciences of children are not so seared with a custom of sinning, and long resisting grace, as others. You have the soft and tender earth to plough in, and we have the hard and stony ways, that have been trodden on by many years practice of evil. We have a double task, first to unteach them, and then to teach them better; but you have but one. We must unteach them all that the world, and the flesh, and wicked company, and the devil have been diligently teaching them in many years. You have them before they are possessed with prejudice against the truth; but we have them ⟨p. 246⟩to teach, when they have many years lived among those that have taught them to think GOD'S ways to be foolish. Doth not the experience of all the world show you the power of education? What else makes all the children of the Jews to be Jews? And all the children of the Turks to be Mahometans? And of christians to be in profession christians? And of each sect or party in religion to follow their parents? Now what an advantage have you to use all this for the furtherance of their happiness!
1. They are under your hands while they are young, and tender, and flexible; but they come to ministers when they are grown older, and slif•er, and settled in their ways, and think themselves too good to be catechised. You have a twig to bend, and we an oak: you have the young plants of sin to pluck up, and we the deep-rooted vices. The consciences of children are not so seared with a custom of sinning, and long resisting grace, as others. You have the soft and tender earth to plough in, and we have the hard and stony ways, that have been trodden on by many years practice of evil. We have a double task, first to unteach them, and then to teach them better; but you have but one. We must unteach them all that the world, and the flesh, and wicked company, and the devil have been diligently teaching them in many years. You have them before they are possessed with prejudice against the truth; but we have them ⟨p. 246⟩