As that prepares your way in the hearts of the people, to
receive you as men of God, so it gives you credit with them to do them
good by your advice in other respects; the afflicted will be comforted by
you, the tempted strengthened, the sick refreshed, the unfaithful
convicted and restored, and such as are obstinate, softened and fitted
for reconciliation; which is clinching the nail, and applying and
fastening the general testimony, by this particular care of the several
branches of it, in reference to them more immediately concerned in it.
For though good and wise men, and elders too, may reside in such places,
who are of worth and importance in the general, and in other places; yet
it does not always follow, that they may have the room they deserve in
the hearts of the people they live among; or some particular occasion may
make it unfit for him or them to use that authority. But you that travel
as God's messengers, if they receive you in the greater, shall they
refuse you in the less? And if they own the general testimony, can they
withstand the particular application of it in their own cases? Thus ye
will show yourselves workmen indeed, and carry your business before you,
to the praise of his name that hath called you from darkness to light,
that you might turn others from satan's power unto God and his kingdom,
which is within.
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