not turned out of the service of God: he calleth you to that, or to another. Quest. But may I not cast off the world; that I may only think of my salvation?' Answ. You may cast off all such excess of worldly cares or business as unnecessarily hinder you in spiritual things: but you may not cast off all bodily employment and mental labour in which you may serve the common good. Every one that is a member of the church or commonwealth, must employ their parts to the utmost for the good of the church and commonwealth : public service is God's greatest service. To neglect this, and say, I will pray and meditate, is as if your servant should refuse your greatest work, and tie himself to some lesser, easy part. And God hath commanded you some way or other to labour for your daily bread, and not to live as drones on the sweat of others only. Innocent Adam was put into the garden of Eden to dress it: and fallen man must eat his bread in the sweat of his brow: and he that "will not work must be forbidden to eat P." And indeed it is necessary to ourselves, for the health of our bodies, which grow diseased with idleness; and for the help of our souls, which will fail if the body fail: and man in flesh must have work for his body as well as for his soul. And he that will do nothing but pray and meditate, it is like will (by sickness or melancholy) be disabled ere long either to pray or meditate unless he have a body extraordinary strong. 66 : Direct. XXII. Be very watchful redeemers of your time, and make conscience of every hour and minute, that you lose it not, but spend it in the best and most serviceable manner that you can.' Of this I intend to speak more particularly anon; and therefore shall here add no more. C Direct. XXIII. Watchfully and resolutely avoid the en tanglements and diverting occasions, by which the tempter will be still endeavouring to waste your time, and hinder you from your work.'Know what is the principal service that you are called to, and avoid avocations: especially magistrates and ministers, and those that have great and public work must here take heed. For if you be not very wise and watchful, the tempter will draw you before you are aware, into such a multitude of diverting cares or businesses, that shall seem to be your duties, as shall make you almost • Gen. iii. 19. P 2 Thess. iii. 6. 10. 12. unprofitable in the world. You shall have this or that little thing that must be done, and this or that friend that must be visited or spoken to, and this or that civility that must be performed; so that trifles shall detain you from all considerable works. I confess friends must not be neglected, nor civilities be denied: but our greatest duties having the greatest necessity, all things must give place to them in their proper season. And therefore that you may avoid the offence of friends, avoid the place or occasions of such impediments: and where that cannot be done, whatever they judge of you, neglect not your most necessary work. Else it will be at the will of men and satan, whether you shall be serviceable to God or not. Direct. XXIV. Ask yourselves seriously, how you would wish at death and judgment that you had used all your wit, and time, and wealth; and resolve accordingly to use them now.'-This is an excellent direction and motive to you, for doing good and preventing the condemnation which will pass upon unprofitable servants. Ask yourselves, will it comfort mé more at death or judgment, to think or hear, that I spent this hour in plays or idleness, or in doing good to myself or others? How shall I wish then I had laid out my estate, and every part of it? Reason itself condemneth him that will not now choose the course which then he shall wish that he had chosen, when we foresee the consequence of that day. Direct. xxv. Understand how much you are beholden to God (and not he to you) in that he will employ you in. doing any good and how it is the way of your own receiving; and know the excellency of your work and end, that you may do it all with love and pleasure. Unacquaintedness with our master, and with the nature and tendency of our work, is it that maketh it seem tedious and unpleasant to us and we shall never do it well, when we do it with an ill will, as merely forced. God loveth a cheerful servant ; that loveth his master and his work. It is the main policy of the devil to make our duty seem grievous, unprofitable and wearisome to us for a little thing will stop him that goeth unwillingly and in continual pain. Direct. XXVI. Expect your reward from God alone, and look for unthankfulness and abuse from men, or wonder not if it befal you.'-If you are not the servants of men but of God, expect your recompence from him 'you serve. You serve not God indeed, if his reward alone will not content you, unless you have also man's reward. have also man's reward. "Verily you have your reward," if with the hypocrite you work for man's approbation. Expect, especially if you are ministers or others that labour directly for the good of souls, that many prove your enemies for your telling them the truth, and that if you were as good as Paul and as unwearied in seeking men's salvation, yet the more you love, the less you will (by many) be loved: and those that he could have wished himself accursed, from Christ to save, did hate him and persecute him, as if he had been the most accursed wretch: a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among the people, and one that turned the world upside down, were the names they gave him; and wherever he came, " bonds and imprisonment did attend him ;" and slandering, and reviling, and whipping, and stocks, and vowing his death, are the thanks and requital which he hath from those, for whose salvation he spared no pains, but did spend and was spent. If you cannot do good upon such terms as these, and for those that will thus requite you, and be contented to expect a reward in heaven, you are not fit to follow Christ, who was worse used than all this, by those to whom he shewed more love than any of his servants have to shew. Take up your cross, and do good to the unthankful, and bless them that curse you, and love them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, if you will be the children of God." 66 Direct, XXVII. Make not your own judgments or consciences your law, or the maker of your duty; which is but the discerner of the law of God, and of the duty which he maketh you, and of your own obedience or disobedience to him.'-There is a dangerous error grown too common in the world, that a man is bound to do every thing, which his conscience telleth him is the will of God; and that every man must obey his conscience, as if it were the lawgiver of the world; whereas, indeed, it is not ourselves, but God that is our lawgiver. And conscience is not appointed or authorised, to make us any duty, which God hath not made us; q Matt. v. but only to discern the law of God, and call upon us to observe it and an erring conscience is not to be obeyed, but to be better informed, and brought to a righter performance of its office. In prosecution of this Direction, I shall here answer several cases about doubting. Quest. 1. What if I doubt whether a thing be a duty and good work, or not? must I do it while I doubt? Nay, what if I am uncertain whether it be duty or sin?' : Answ. 1. In all these cases about an erring or a doubting conscience, forget not to distinguish between the being of a duty, and the knowledge of a duty: and remember, that the first question is, Whether this be my duty? and the next, How may I discern it to be my duty? And that God giveth it the being by his law, and conscience is but to know and use it and that God changeth not his law, and our duty, as often as our opinions change about it. The obligation of the law is still the same, though our consciences err in apprehending it otherwise. Therefore, if God command you a duty, and your opinion be that he doth not command it, or that he forbids it, and so, that it is no duty, or that it is a sin; it doth not follow, that indeed God commands it not, because you think so: else it were no error in you; nor could it be possible to err, if the thing become true, because you think it to be true. God commandeth you to love him, and to worship him, and to nourish your children, and to obey the higher powers, &c. And do you think you shall be discharged from all these duties, and allowed to be profane, or sensual, or to resist authority, or to famish your children, if you can but be blind enough to think that God would have it so? 2. Your error is a sin itself: and do think that one sin must warrant another? or that sin can discharge you from your duty, and disannul the law? 3. You are a subject to God, and not a king to yourself: and therefore, you must obey his laws, and not make new you ones. Quest. 11. But is it not every man's duty to obey his conscience?' Answ. No: it is no man's duty to obey his conscience in an error, when it contradicteth the command of God. Conscience is but a discerner of God's command, and not at all to be obeyed strictly as a commander, but it is to be obeyed in a larger sense, that is, to be followed, wherever it truly discerneth the command of God. It is our duty to lay by our error, and seek the cure of it, till we attain it, and not to obey it. Quest. III. his conscience?' But is it not a sin for a man to go against Answ. Yes: not because conscience hath any authority to make laws for you; but because interpretatively you go against God. For you are bound to obey God in all things; and when you think that God commandeth you a thing, and yet you will not do it, you disobey formally, though not materially. The matter of obedience is the thing commanded: the form of obedience is our doing the thing, because it is commanded; when the authority of the commander causeth us to do it. Now you reject the authority of God, when you reject that which you think he commandeth, though he did not. 6 Quest. IV. Seeing the form of obedience is the being of it, and denominateth, which the matter doth not without the form, and there can be no sin which is not against the authority of God, which is the formal cause of obedience, is it not then my duty to follow my conscience?' Answ. 1. There must be an integrity of causes, or concurrence of all necessaries to make up obedience, though the want of any one will make a sin. If you will be called obedient, you must have the matter and form, because the true form is found in no other matter: you must do the thing commanded, because of his authority that commandeth it. If it may be called really and formally obedience, when you err, yet it is not that obedience which is acceptable: for it is not any kind of obedience, but obedience in the thing commanded, that God requireth. 2. But, indeed, as long as you err sinfully, you are also wanting in the form, as well as the matter of your obedience; though you intend obedience in the particular act. It is not only a wilfully opposing and positive rejecting the authority of the commander, which is formal disobedience; but it is any privation of due subjection to it; when his authority is not so regarded as it ought to be; and doth not so powerfully and effectually move us to our duty as it ought. Now this formal disobe |