The Christian Man's Calling

George Swinnock, 1627-1673

"But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness." 1 Timothy 4:7

 

To the Reader,
He who does but exercise his reason in considering the infinite cost which the glorious God has bestowed in erecting the stately fabric of Heaven and earth, and the curious workmanship which he has discovered in the several creatures which are the inhabitants of the higher and lower house, (causing his almighty power, embroidered wisdom, and unsearchable goodness to glisten and sparkle far more gloriously in them than the stars in the clearest night, or the sun in his noonday brightness) will easily grant me this assertion, that this great landlord of the world must needs deserve and expect a considerable rent of honor and service, somewhat suitable to the vast charge he has been at. Who can be so brutish as to conceive that 'the only wise God' should take so much pains, as with infinite counsel to contrive the goodly frame and lovely structure of his visible creation from all eternity, and by his omnipotent arm to give it a being, and not intend that his boundless excellencies and vast perfections, written in such a fair print, and large characters, should be admired and adored? That man is the person designed to give him his due and deserved praise, is the next unquestionable concession, no other of God's visible works being capable of his worship. Indeed, man's sight is so bad that he can see little of that beauty which appears in the glass of the world; but beasts are stark blind—they can see nothing at all.

Why should God create man with a rational, spiritual soul, and thereby capacitate him for so noble a service as the pleasing and praising himself, if he had not intended him for this purpose? Brutish principles would have been sufficient to have fitted him for brutish practices. If God had made him to eat, and drink, and sleep, and wallow in the mire of carnal contentments, the soul of a beast might have served his turn. It is impossible that such an intelligent workman should infuse into our flesh angelical spirits in vain, and not appoint us to some honorable work, answerable to the excellency of our natures and beings. Some of the wiser heathen have gathered from the tendency of man's countenance towards Heaven, that he is more noble, and born to higher things, than, like a moving carcass, to be buried alive in the earth. Those who, to help the weak eyes of nature, have the spectacles of Scripture, cannot but see more into man's excellency and his end. It is written in such broad letters in the word, that God formed man for this purpose, namely, to show forth his praise, that he who runs may read it. But alas! alas! what is become of man? Well may God call to him, 'Adam, where are you?' Man, where are you? He who, in former times, like a star, keeping aloft in the firmament of Heaven, did glitter and shine most brightly, to the amazement of all his beholders, now declining from that pitch, and falling to the earth, as a comet, does vanish and disappear. He who was the world's lord, is now its slave and vassal; he who was the master of wisdom, is now sent to school to the very beasts, to learn of them understanding; he who was unspeakably blessed in his love to delight in, and communion with the fountain of his being, is now miserably cursed in his contrariety to, and deviation from, the ocean of his happiness. Ah, this image of Heaven is become the mask of Hell! though this princely creature was made to be company for his Maker, to stand as an angel always in his presence, and attend his noble pleasure, yet look how, like a pitiful lackey, he runs sneaking after the drossy world and dreggy flesh as his lords. Though religion were first in God's intention, yet it is last in man's execution. Things without reason honor God in their stations, they obey his will; creatures without sense do him service, they keep within the bounds which he has set them, and fulfill those ends for which he made them. 'Mine hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spanned the heavens; when I call to them, they stand up together,' Isaiah xlviii. 13. Nay, these inanimate creatures are so compliant with his pleasure, that they will thwart their own nature to serve his honor. Fire will descend, (as on Sodom) and water, though a fluid body, stand up like a solid wall, (as in the Red Sea) if he does but speak the word. But man, who is most indebted to his Creator, degenerates most of all; when his inferiors, (beasts) and his superiors, (angels) are loyal servants, he proves a rebellious subject.

They who ever had any real sense of the worth of immortal souls, and any serious consideration of the weight of their unchangeable estates in the other world, cannot but be affected with the madness of multitudes, who turn their backs upon the blessed God, their greatest and only friend, as if he were their greatest and only foe. They who have tasted God to be gracious, and know what fellowship with Jesus Christ means, who have rejoiced in their present gracious privileges, and hope of their future glorious possession, cannot but wonder and pity at that folly which many are guilty of, in disesteeming the noble concernments of their precious souls, and disliking that honorable preferment, and comfortable employment, of walking with the blessed God. How greedily do men grasp the smoke of earthly vanities, which will wring tears from their eyes, and then vanish into nothing!

Who can sufficiently bemoan it, that man, who is capable of and created for so high an honor, and so heavenly an exercise, as to serve his Maker here, and to enjoy him hereafter, should all his time, like a hog, be digging and rooting in the earth, and not once look up to Heaven in earnest, until the knife is put to his throat, that he comes to die and enter into the other world?

What a deal of pains does the spider take in weaving her web to catch flies! She runs much, and often up and down, hither and thither; she spends herself, wearing out and wasting her own affections to make a curious cabinet, which, when she has finished and hung aloft, in the twinkling of an eye, with the sweep of a broom, is thrown to the ground, and herself destroyed in it. Thus silly are many men; how do they cark and care, toil and moil for this world, which they must leave forever! They waste their time and strength to increase their heaps, when on a sudden all perishes, and themselves often with it.

Reader, if you are one of these moles, who live in the earth as their element, carking and caring chiefly how to exalt self and please the flesh, answer God these four questions, which from him I shall propound to you. I shall allow you to be your own judge; only I request you, for the sake of your precious soul, to ponder them with all seriousness; possibly through the blessing of God they may make you wise to salvation.

Question 1. Are you convinced that the true and living God made you a rational creature, and has served you in all your days with innumerable mercies, upon a nobler design, and for a higher end, than the gratifying your flesh and sensitive appetite, and following your particular calling, and minding sublunary vanities? Friend, what say you? Do not muzzle the mouth of conscience, but give it leave to speak its mind freely. Are not you satisfied fully in this weighty truth, that the mighty possessor of Heaven and earth created you, and preserves you, to worship, honor, and enjoy himself? If you are convinced, as it is impossible but you should, unless you are a beast in the shape of a man, why then does your life every day give your conscience the lie? Do you not live without God? Is not religion your burden and your bondage? Has not the world the top and cream of your heart, and time, and strength? How often do you put God off with the world's scraps and leavings? How little is God in all your thoughts! Is he not forbidden your heart? Nay, do you not daily proclaim open war against him by your profaneness and atheism, as if he had not the least right to you, nor you the least dependence on him, and all this against the convictions of your own conscience? Friend, do you know what you do? Why, you put your finger into the very eye of nature. The eye of the body is a tender part, but how tender is the eye of your soul! yet you are all this while endeavoring to put out the eye of your very soul. Believe it, sins against nature are of a crimson color; for your conversation to contradict continually your very conscience, will bring upon you dreadful vengeance.

Question 2. Answer me again, is not the blessed God worthy of all your service and honor? Does he not deserve all your love, and fear, and trust—all your time, and strength, and wealth, and infinitely more? From whom came they but from him; and to whom should they be given but to him? Are you not bound to him by millions of engagements? Are you not the work of his hands? Do you not lie at his mercy every moment? Can you live, or move, or breathe without him? Can he not as easily sink you with fury, as support you with mercy, turn you into Hell, as warn you of Hell? Oh think of that place, 'The God in whose hands is your breath, you have not glorified', Daniel verse 23. Alas! Alas! Man, though you make no reckoning of pleasing God, but banish him from your heart and house, as if his company were a burden, yet know that your breath is in his hands continually; if he do but shut his hand, your eyes will be no longer open, but your mouth quickly stopped with earth. Ah, how soon can he take away that airy difference between sleep and death! He can wink you into the other world, and look you into the unquenchable lake: 'By the breath of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils they are consumed', Job iv. 8. If you depended altogether upon another man for your livelihood, you would think he deserved your service, and that it concerned you to please him. Oh, how highly does it concern you to worship and honor the almighty God, in whose hand is your livelihood, life, and everlasting weal or woe! Ah, did you but know what perfections are in him, and how indispensably your dependence is every minute upon him, you would wonder at your folly and madness in slighting him, and make it your principal business to glorify and enjoy him.

Question 3. In the next place, tell me, is not your conscience convinced that God is in all respects the best master, his worship the best work, and his pay the best reward? Have you not knocked many time at the creature's door, entered in, sat down, and fed on such fare as it had to set before you, and, after all, gone away as empty and unsatisfied as you earnest? Have you not found by experience that the creature keeps a poor, pitiful house? that they who run to it with heads full of hopes, return back with hearts full of heaviness? Shall no learning teach you? Man, man, where is your reason? Have you no eyes to behold the rottenness of the world's ware[2], because it is glazed over with gaudy dye? Shall the sweet breath of this alluring panther still bewitch you, notwithstanding all his deformity and ugliness, vanity and emptiness, so as to get you within his power and destroy you? Do you not see hundreds before your eyes, of the world's chief favorites, whom she dandled on her knees, and was very fond of, hurried in haste into the other world, leaving all her gifts behind them, and not a button the better for all her fondness and fooleries? Did you never observe how she leaves her lovers in the lurch, and, like a false, deceitful friend, forsakes them wholly in the time of their greatest extremity? 'Man walks in a vain show; he disquiets himself in vain.' 'He returns to his earth, and in that day his thoughts perish,' Psalm 39. 8, and 146. As he who goes to a fair, with a purse full of money, is devising and debating with himself how to lay it out— possibly thinking that such and such commodities will be most profitable, and bring him in the greatest gain— when on a sudden a cut-purse comes and eases him both of his money and care how to dispose of it. Surely you might have taken notice how some of your neighbors or countrymen, when they have been busy in their contrivances, and big with many plots and projects how to raise their estate and names and families, were arrested by death in a moment, returned to their earth, and in that day all their mirthful, their great thoughts perished and came to nothing. The heathen historian could not but observe how Alexander the Great, when he had to carry on his great designs, summoned a parliament before him of the whole world, he was himself summoned by death to appear in the other world. The Dutch, therefore, very wittily to express the world's vanity, picture at Amsterdam a man with a full-blown bladder on his shoulders, and another standing by pricking the bladder with a pin, with this motto, How soon is all blown down!

Reader, it is impossible, if you use your rational faculty, but you should be convinced of the truth of these things: 'Why then do you spend your strength for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which will not satisfy?' Oh that I could invite and persuade you to the most gainful trade! 'Hearken unto me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.' If religion were your business, God would not serve you as the world does its servants: God is such a master, that ten thousand worlds to him are as nothing, yes, 'less than nothing and vanity.' He is a master without exceptions, because he is an ocean of all (and nothing but) infinite perfections. His worship must needs be the best work, because it is itself a reward. You can not deny but the work of saints and angels in Heaven is the best work by a thousand degrees that creatures are capable of, or can possibly be exercised in; truly their work and reward is the same, to worship and enjoy the blessed God. They who make religion their business, have a taste beforehand of their future blessedness. Religion also brings in the greatest profit. The world pays her servants in ciphers and counters, airy honors, a brutish pleasure, and fading riches, which are worth nothing; but religion here in figures and pearls, which are worth thousands, the precious blood of Christ, the inestimable covenant of grace, and eternal immediate communion with the infinite God. Reader, if profit be the bait at which you will bite, I will tell you in a few words how much religion will be worth to you: Truly, two worlds—not a farthing less. 'Exercise yourself unto godliness:' godliness 'has the promise of this life, and that which is to come,' 1 Timothy iv. 7, 8. Ah, who would not work for you, King of nations, when in doing of your commands there is such great reward! Friend, who would not cast his net into the waters of the sanctuary, when he may be confident of such an excellent draught?

Question 4. Once more: If none of these things move you, I shall ask you one question more, and then leave you to your choice—What will you do in a dying hour? I say again, reader, if religion be not your business now, what will you do when you come to die? Now possibly you bear yourself up with the streams of carnal comforts; but what will become of you when all these waters shall be dried up, and nothing of them seen but the mud of those sins which you have been guilty of in the use, or rather abuse, of them? Now you can do well enough, you think, without God and his worship; but ah! what will you do when you come to look into the other world? Alas! then your brightest sun of bodily delights will be clouded, your freshest flowers will be withered, and your greatest candles extinguished, and leave only a stink behind them. Believe it, death will search you to the quick, and try to purpose what metal you are made of. When you come to lie upon your sick-bed, and your wealth, and honors, and relations, and flesh, and heart shall fail you, what will become of you, if God be not the strength of your heart and your portion forever? What will he do to look death in the face, upon whom the jealous God shall frown? We read in Epiphanius of a bird called Charadrius, that being brought into the room where one lies sick, if he look on the sick person with a fixed eye he recovers; but if he turn away his eyes from him he dies. Friend, what a miserable condition will your poor soul be in when all your friends and riches shall leave you, and the blessed God himself shall not grant you a good look, but turn away his face from you? Surely your disease will be unto death eternal. Your friends may carry your body to its grave for a time, but frightful devils will carry your soul to Hell, to remain there forever and ever. Religion, indeed, is like the stone Chrysolapis, which will shine brightest in the dark of death. The truly religions may launch into the ocean of eternity, and sail to their everlasting harbor, as the Alexandrian ship came into the Roman haven, with top and top-gallant, with true comfort and undaunted courage: let death come when it will, he can bid it welcome. Death is never sudden to a saint; no guest comes unawares to him who keeps a constant table; but as when the day dawns to us in Europe the shadows of the evening are stretched on Asia, so the day of their redemption will be a long night of destruction to you. That jailer who knocks off their fetters, and sets them at that perfect liberty, will bind you in chains of darkness, and haul you to the dungeon of horror, whence you shall never come forth.

O reader, these are no jesting matters. I am confident, as lightly now as you think of a religious man—as if he were only some singular and affected person—it may be that you can hardly look on him but with a squint eye, or speak of him but with a jeer; yet when you come to die, you would give a thousand worlds, if you had them to give, for the least drop of his holiness or the least crumb of his happiness. Ponder these four aforementioned particulars, and you can not but think them weighty questions. Do not, oh do not dally or jest with them; for be confident you will find them one day to be edged tools.

Possibly, reader, you are one of them that have heard these sermons preached, and belong to that parish where providence has cast me; and then as I have a special relation to you, I must beg of you, as upon my bended knees, for the Lord's sake, and as you would not have them brought in against you at the dreadful day of judgment, that you put the will of the Lord, discovered therein, immediately into practice. 'My heart's desire and prayer to God for you is, that you might be saved.' Oh that I knew what to do for you which might be effectual for that end! If you will believe the blessed God, the way to the happiness in Heaven is to exercise yourself to godliness on earth; there is no going into life but through the strait gate. The devil puts old men's spectacles on young and old men's eyes, which cause them to think that the way to Heaven is broad and large; when God himself has told us that it is narrow, and few go in it. I have acquainted you in this treatise what is the price of salvation; there must be striving, laboring, fighting, using violence, a working it out with fear and trembling, and God is resolved he will not abate the least mite. Oh that I could therefore prevail with you to set upon it in good earnest! I do not plead with you for myself, but for your own profit, that you may be happy forever; and shall I lose my labor? Neighbor, surely you Believe that these things are not toys and trifles, but matters of infinite concernment; and will you slight them? Alas! to be frying in Hell, or living in Heaven forever, are of greater consequence than your understanding can possibly conceive. The weight of these things has so overburdened several persons' minds that it has made them distracted and mad; and can you trample them as dirt under your feet, without any regard at all?

Because I would willingly be both faithful and helpful to you, I shall earnestly, in the name of the blessed God, beseech you, as you would leave these dying comforts with a lively courage, to mind and practice these two particulars, without which you can never make religion your business.

Make sure that your heart be thoroughly changed. That building which reaches up to Heaven must have a strong and sure foundation. If the watch be not of the right make, it will never go true. He must 'live in the Spirit' who would 'walk in the Spirit.' Natural bodies follow the tendency of that body which is predominant in them. Stones move downward, fire upward; each would be at its center; that which stops either, offers violence to it. So it will be with you; your life will be according to the tendency of your heart. If that be carnal, and the flesh predominant, such will your life be; if that be changed, and the Spirit be predominant in it, your life will be spiritual also; if the law of God be written in your affections, then, and not until then, it will be legible in your conversation. Oh, do not rest in civility, morality, performances, privileges, or anything short of renewing grace. It is the heart by generation chiefly polluted, and it is the heart by regeneration which must be purified, or you perish eternally. When an error is in the foundation of a house, it will not be mended by daubing or rough-cast, but must be pulled down and built up anew: 'If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, and all things are become new,' 2 Corinthians verse 17.

Oh friend, consider that by the irrevocable decree and sentence of the living God, none shall be saved but those that are converted and renewed; and for the sake of your precious soul, give yourself no rest until this change be wrought. I assure you it concerns you, for your everlasting life or death depends upon it, John iii. 3; Matthew 18. 3; Hebrews 12. 14.

Be much with God in religious duties. Secret praying, reading, and meditating, are great helps to piety. The bottom of a Christian's building is underground, and out of the world's sight. The greatest part of that trade which a saint drives with God is unseen, and his returns are unknown to the world. Christ gives his sweetest kisses and dearest embraces to his spouse when she is alone. Jacob met with the blessing when he had parted with his company, and wrestled singly with the angel of the covenant. Bread eaten in secret, how sweet is it! When God meets your soul in a morning or evening prayer, communion with his Majesty will be sweet to you indeed.

Take heed of omission of duties in the closet. The Amalekite had not eaten in three days, who was near death. It is observed that the places under the line are not so hot as some places at a further distance, because, though they have the beams of the sun falling perpendicularly to cause a more intense heat, yet the nights there being longer than in some other parts, the days are not so hot. When the nights are long, the days are very cold; when there are long omissions of duties, godliness will cool. Ah, did you but know what many a saint has gained by that hidden calling, I am confident you would mind it, whatever you did omit. Remember how often and earnestly I have urged you to this duty. It is your privilege, that though you can not every day have the showers of public ordinances, yet may you have the watering-pots of secret duties to make your soul fruitful. Let no day pass without your morning and evening sacrifices. Fasting is bad for some bodies; I am sure to fast from spiritual food is exceeding injurious to your soul.

He who runs into enormities (as a drunkard, or swearer, or adulterer, etc.) stabs his soul; he who omits daily duties starves his soul. Now, what great difference is there between the death of the soul by stabbing and by starving? If your soul dies eternally, it will be little comfort to you to plead that you did not drink, or swear, as others. Oh friend, let no day pass without secret duties; if you rise in a morning, and follow your calling all day, and lie down at night, and never desire God's company, or ask his blessing, I would know wherein you do God more service than the ox or donkey? For shame, friend, do not thus play the beast any longer.

I have in this treatise endeavored to assist you by discovering the nature and necessity of making religion your business. I cannot but think that the reasons which I have laid down for this duty will move any man who is not resolved to make himself eternally miserable. It is no mean mercy that you may adopt all your natural and civil actions into the family of religion; that though, like ciphers, they signify nothing of themselves, yet having the figure of godliness put before them, they may signify much, and stand for thousands.

I shall, reader, only acquaint you with some particulars which I treat of in the book, and then leave you and it to the blessing of God. I am very large in directing you about the immediate worship of the Lord, as knowing that is of greatest weight and worth. No preparation can be too great for, no devotion can be too gracious in, religious actions. Among many other rites and ceremonies of the Jews, it is related that before the doors of their synagogues they have an iron plate, against which they wipe and make clean their shoes before they enter, and that being entered, they sit solemnly for a season, not once opening their mouths, but considering with whom they have to do. Truly, friend, it concerns you to be full of reverence when you appear solemnly in God's presence. Think of it; he is a jealous God, and will not be mocked; they that dally with him undo themselves. Serious piety will abundantly profit you, but careless service will highly provoke God. Spiders' cobwebs may better be suffered in a cottage than in a king's palace.

In the next place, I proceed to natural actions, and then to recreations, about both which your care must be that they exceed not their bounds, and that they taste and savor of religion. Mandrakes, if duly taken, is good physic; but if immoderately, it casts into a deep sleep and congeals the spirits. It requires much piety and prudence, not to abuse those things while you are using them. Satan caches many a soul with these baits, and then throws them into the fire. But if religion be your business, that which is poison to others will be nourishing food to you.

After these I speak to particular callings, that they might be managed so as not to be hurtful, but helpful, to our general callings. I conclude the book with government of families, wherein you must learn that your house must be dedicated to God. Religion in your house must of necessity be minded, or the whole family is cursed. The naturalists observe of the eagle, that building her nest on high, she is much maligned by a venomous serpent, which, because it cannot reach to the nest, makes to the windward, and breathes out its poison, that so the air being infected, the eagle's young may be destroyed; but by way of prevention, the eagle, by a natural instinct, keeps a kind of agate stone in her nest, which, being placed against the wind, preserves her young. 1 Satan, the crooked serpent, is ever busy to poison the air in your house, and thereby to destroy yourself, servants, and whole household. The only stone for prevention is to set up religion. Neighbor, I have many a time pressed this duty upon you, and I do again in the name of the blessed God charge you, as you will answer it at the bar of Christ, that you immediately set up the worship of God in your family. You know how many sermons I preached from Joshua 24. 15 on this subject, all which before long you shall give an account of; how inexcusable will you be if, after all those warnings, your family be found in the number of them that call not on God! Good Lord, how dreadful will it be for you to sink into Hell, with your whole house on your back!

And now, reader, whoever you are, out of affection to your precious soul and eternal salvation, let me prevail with you not to use religion as men do perfumes, refresh themselves with them while they have them, but they can well enough be without them, but to make it your chief, and main, and principal business. What shall I say to you? Assure yourself religion will be your best friend at last. Oh, if you had but the same apprehensions of it now which you will have on a dying bed and day of judgment, you would make it your own business; then religion will be religion indeed, and of infinitely more worth to you than millions of worlds. All other things will then, like leaves in autumn, fall from you; but though all your most loving friends will part with you, religion will walk with you in the valley of the shadow of death; it will direct and refresh you in the pleasant waters of life, and it will protect and comfort you in those salt waters of sickness, and when you pass the sea of death; when the world in your extremity will serve you as the herd do a deer that is shot, push you out of their company. When your wife and children will, like Orphan to Naomi, kiss you, and take their leave of you, religion will, like Ruth, stick close to you; where you go, it will go; where you lodge, it will lodge; death itself shall not part you and it.

As the noble Grecian answered Philip, when he asked him whether he was not afraid to die? 'No', says he, 'for the Athenians will give me a life that is immortal.' You should not need to fear death, for religion will give you a life that is immortal. As the old grave counselors told Rehoboam, 'Be a servant to this people this day, and they will be your servant forever;' so say I to you, 'Be you but a faithful servant to religion in this short day of your life, and religion will be your servant to all eternity.'

If you are resolved to give yourself up to the service of this noble mistress, possibly this treatise may do you some little service, by acquainting you with her will, and directing you in her work.

If, in the perusal of it, you receive any profit, let God alone have the praise, and remember him in your prayers who is

Your in the Lord,
George Swinnock.

 

 

CHAPTER 1.

The preface and coherence of the text.

The unclean spring of ungodliness divides itself, like the third African gulf, 1 into two main cursed channels, atheism and superstition; in one of which all the children of men swim by nature, and very many, as the silly fish, down the streams of Jordan, until they descend into the lake of Sodom, the dead sea of Hell, and perish. Which of these two passages are most fatal and perilous, seems worth our inquiry. The waters in the former stream are deepest; atheism denies the very being of God, but to prevent sinking in these waters, nature herself has provided some skin-deep bladders; for though there be many atheists in practice, yet there be no atheists in principles. The being of a deity was so fairly written on the tables of man's heart at first, that though it be exceedingly blotted and blurred by the fall, yet it is still legible. Those heathen, as Caligula and others, who endeavored to extinguish that candle of the Lord, which showed them a first cause, or being of beings, could never accomplish it. It is a part of that law which is written in all men's hearts, Romans ii. 15. The orator could say, 'That no nation was so barbarous as to deny the being of God. Tullus Hostilius, third king of the romans, who derided his predecessor Numa's sacrifices, saying, that religion did but effeminate men's minds, did himself worship the God Fear. Idolatry is a clear proof that all men believe a deity, otherwise they would never worship, not only the sun, as the Masagetes; but dead men, as the Grecians; whom their governors would appoint, as the Romans; cats, dogs, and horses, as the Egyptians; and anything rather than nothing. Though there be, says a learned author, nations without kings, without laws, without clothes, yet there are none without a God. When man fell, this truth stood.

The waters in the latter stream are not so deep, but they seem more dangerous; for nature is in some respect a friend to superstition, though an enemy to atheism; it would give God some worship, but it must be in its own way. Atheism denies the being of a deity; superstition undermines the authority of God. The atheist would have no God, the superstitious would be his own God; his will, not God's word, is the rule of his worship. In this gulf has many a soul been swallowed up. The atheist turns to the left hand, the superstitious to the right hand, but he must turn to neither that will keep his feet from evil, Proverbs iv. 27.

The text presents us with a caution against the poison of superstition, and propounds to us the golden medium between the two extremes: 'Avoid or refuse old wives' fables, and exercise yourself unto godliness.'

The scope of the apostle in this epistle is to furnish Timothy with necessary directions for, and to fortify him against the opposition he should meet with in the work of the ministry.

In this chapter Paul does prophetically forewarn Timothy of, and practically forearm him against, the apostasy of the latter times.

In it, first, the malady is described; and, second, the remedy is prescribed.

First, the apostasy is described.

1. By the sure detection of it. 'The Spirit speaks expressly.' Had it been doubtful, it need not have been so dreadful; but it is certain, and therefore calls for the more caution.

2. By the season of it, 'In the latter times.' When the world grows old, it will doat and decline; when it comes to the bottom, it will run dregs. Its last days, which should be best, will be its worst days.

3. By the causes procuring it, 'Seducing spirits, and doctrine of devils;' Satan and his emissaries will, like Samson's foxes, carry firebrands abroad to set the world in a hellish flame.

Secondly, the remedy is prescribed, in reference to himself.

Something he must forbear, 'Refuse profane and old wives' fables.' If you would not swim down with the tide of those apostatizing times, take heed of steering your course by profane, though ancient customs. Refuse them with scorn, reject them with anger; let your spirit rise, and your stomach turn at the very sight of such sins. One way to prevent apostasy is to refuse ungrounded antiquity. The will of the Father of spirits, not the ways of the fathers of our flesh, is to be the rule of our walking. It is well observed that God in no command but the second, which forbids his worship in any way not appointed by his word, threatens to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, because superstitious worshipers are of all men most strengthened by the traditions of their fathers. They will tell us, 'Shall we be wiser than our fathers?' Now, because they are resolved to sin with their fathers, God is resolved they shall suffer for their fathers. They that will follow their forefathers in sin, for anything I know must follow their forefathers to Hell. If Timothy would not share in others' declensions, he must forbear others' traditions, 'Refuse profane and old wives' fables.'

Something he must also follow after; 'Exercise yourself unto godliness.' This is the special help which the skillful physician appoints his beloved patient in those infectious times to preserve his soul in health. As a pestiferous air is very dangerous to the body, yet for a man to get, and make it his work to keep a sound constitution will be an excellent means to prevent infection. So an apostatizing place or people is very dangerous to the soul; spiritual diseases are more catching and killing than corporal; but a spiritual habit of a real sanctity, with a constant care to continue and increase it, will be a sovereign means to preserve it in safety. Bodies without life quickly corrupt and become unsavory, not so living creatures; running waters are sweet and clean, when standing ponds putrefy and abound in vermin. He that is ever trading and thriving in godliness, need not fear that he shall prove a bankrupt. Carts overthrow not going uphill.

Timothy is considerable in his twofold capacity.

1. As a minister of Christ, or in his particular calling; in this respect he must exercise himself to godliness. A pastor must not only some days give precepts, but every day give a pattern to his people, he must not only divide the word rightly, but also order his conversation aright. He must, as Nazianzen said of Basil, thunder in his doctrine, and lighten in his life. Singular holiness is required of those that minister about holy things; as painters, they must teach by their hands, by their lives, as well as by their lips.

Ministers must exercise themselves to godliness—that is, do their duties with the greatest diligence. They are sometimes called 'the salt of the earth,' Matthew verse 13, 14, because they must waste themselves to prevent corruption in others. Sometimes 'the light of the world; 'they must consume themselves, to direct others in the way to Heaven. Gregory observes, that the Spirit of God appeared in two shapes—in the shape of a dove, signifying innocence; in the shape of fire, signifying activity. The zeal of God's house, not the rust of idleness, must eat the minister up; he must be a burning shining light, if ever he would thaw the frozen hearts of his hearers. Our churches must not be turned into chapels of ease. Christ neglected his food, spent his strength, wrought so hard that he was thought to be beside himself. We are called fishers, laborers, soldiers, watchmen, all which are laborious callings. We are compared to clouds; the clods of the earth lie still, but the clouds of Heaven are ever in motion, and dissolve themselves to refresh others.

But, alas! How many fleece their flocks, but never feed them! The green sickness is the maid's, and laziness many ministers' disease. Who is instant in season and out of season? It was a notable speech of Boniface the martyr, to one that asked him whether it was lawful to give the sacramental wine in a wooden cup: 'Time was when we had wooden cups and golden priests, but now we have golden cups and wooden priests.'

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

The opening of the text and the doctrine.

2. Timothy is to be considered as a member of Christ, or in his general calling; and so this exhortation belongs to every Christian. In it we may observe these three parts:

1. The act, exercise.

2. The subject of that act, yourself.

3. The object about which it was to be conversant, unto godliness; 'Exercise yourself unto godliness.'

I shall briefly open the terms in the text, and then lay down the doctrinal truth.

Exercise. The word signifies, strip yourself naked; it is a metaphor from runners or wrestlers, who being to contend for the prize, and resolved to put forth all their strength and power, lay aside their clothes which may hinder them, and then bestir themselves to purpose; as if Paul had said, Timothy, let godliness be the object of all your care and Cost. Follow your general calling with the greatest industry; pursue it diligently, do not loiter but labor about it; lay aside what may hinder, lay hold of what may further, and mind it as the main and principal work which you have to do in this world.

Yourself. A Christian's first care must be about his own spiritual welfare. Religion commands us to be mindful of and helpful to our neighbors and relations; the sun rays out his refreshing beams, and the spring bubbles up her purling streams for the good of others. Fire in the chimney warms the whole room, but it is burning hot on the hearth. Grace in a saint will make him useful to sinners, but chiefly, though not solely, to his own soul. Timothy, be not like a burning-glass, to put others into a flame, while you yourself remain unfired, but work hard to exalt holiness in your own heart; exercise yourself.

Unto godliness. Godliness is taken in Scripture either strictly or largely.

(1.) Strictly, and then it includes only the immediate worship of God, or obedience to the first table, and it is distinguished from righteousness, Titus ii. 11, 12; so ungodliness is distinct from unrighteousness, Romans I. 18.

(2.) Largely, and then it comprehend our duty to our neighbor, as well as to God, and obedience to the second as well as the first table; so righteousness is religion, and in our dealings with men we may do our duty to God; it is taken thus 1 Timothy vi. 6, and in the text. The good gardener makes no balks in the field of God's precepts. Timothy must make it his trade to pay God and men their clue. He must not, like the Pharisees, seem as tender of the first table as of the apple of his eye, and trample the second as dirt under his feet; they prayed in God's house all day, to prey upon the widow's house at night; nor as some (whom the world calls honest men) who will not wrong their neighbors of the least mite, and yet wickedly rob God of many millions; they steal from him both time and love, and trust and bestow them on earthly trifles. The bird that would fly well must use both wings; the waterman, if he would have his boat move rightly, must ply both oars; the Christian, if he would make anything of his heavenly trade, must mind both tables.

The truth that I shall draw from the text is this:

That godliness ought to be minded as every one's main and principal business. 'Exercise yourself unto godliness.'

Religion must be our chief occupation. The great trade that we follow in this world must be the trade of truth.

It is observable that the more noble and singular a being is, the more it is employed in a suitable working. God, who is the highest in perfections, is not only the holiest, but the most constant and diligent in his operations. 'Hitherto my Father works, and I work,' John verse 17. His work indeed is without weariness, his labor without the least lassitude; all God's working days are Sabbaths, days of rest; but he is a pure act, and he is every moment infinitely active from and for himself. Angels are next to God in being, and so are next to him in working. They do God the most service, and they do him the best service; they serve God without sin, and they serve him without ceasing; 'He makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire,' Hebrews I. 7. Spirits are the most active creatures with life, fire is the most active creature without life, a flame is the most operative part of the fire: thus active are angels in working for God. Some by fire understand lightnings, by spirits winds. As winds and lightnings presently pass through the earth, so angels presently fulfill God's holy will.

Now as he has given man a more excellent being than the rest of the visible world, so has he called him to follow after and abound in the most excellent work. God has appointed contemplation or vision to be man's reward in Heaven, to see God as he is, and to know him as he is known of him; but service and action to be his work on earth, to exercise himself to godliness.

Some read that, Job verse 7, thus, 'Man is born to work, as the sparks fly upward.' Indeed it is the decreed lot of all mankind to labor. Adam was called to industry in his state of innocence, Genesis ii. 15, and since man's fall his work, which was before his pleasure, is now his punishment; if he eat not his bread in the sweat of his brow or his brains, he steals it. He who, like a louse, lives upon others' sweat, is like Jeremiah's belt, good for nothing. But the main work which God commands and commends to the children of men, is to glorify him upon earth, by exercising themselves to godliness. This is God's precept, and this has been the saints' practice. This is God's precept, 'Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,' Philippians ii. 12. In which words we have the Christian's end—eternal life, salvation; and the means to attain it—diligent labor, work out your salvation; he had need to labor hard that would attain Heaven. Godliness must not be his by-business, but his main business. The Jews have a proverb, (alluding to manna, which was to be gathered the sixth day for the seventh, because on the seventh none fell from Heaven) 'He who gathers not food on the Sabbath eve, shall fast on the Sabbath day.' Intimating thereby, that none shall reign in Heaven but such as have wrought on earth.

This has been the saints' practice, 'Our conversation is in Heaven,' Philippians iii. 18. Though our habitations be on earth, yet our negotiation, is in Heaven. As a merchant that lives in London drives a great trade in Turkey, or the remotest part of the Indies; so Paul and the saints traded and trafficked afar off in the other world above, even when their abodes were here below. Godliness was their business, Christianity was minded and followed as their principal trade and calling. It is the calling of some to plough, and sow, and reap: the Christian makes and follows it as his calling, to 'plough up the fallow-ground of his heart; to sow in righteousness, that he may reap in mercy,' Hosea x. 12. The trade of others is to buy and sell; the godly man is the wise merchant, trading for goodly pearls, that sells all to buy the field where the pearl of great price is, Matthew 13. 43.

For the explication of this truth, that religion or godliness ought to be every one's principal business, I shall speak to these three things:

First, what religion or godliness is.

Secondly, what it is for a man to make religion his business, or to exercise himself to godliness.

Thirdly, why every Christian must mind godliness as his main business.

 

 

CHAPTER 3.

 

1. What godliness is.

For the first, what religion is. The derivation of the word will somewhat help to the explication of the thing; the Latin word religio, from which our English word comes, some derive a relegendo, because men, by serious reading, come to be religious; grace sometimes finds a passage through the sight into the soul. The eye (as in Augustine and Junius) has affected the heart. Zanchy derives it a religendo, or rather a re-eligendo, from choosing again, or a second time, because a religious person chooses God for his chief good and portion. His first choice was carnal, of the flesh and the creature; but his second choice is spiritual, of God and Christ, and this choice is religion. Augustine and Lactantius (to whom I rather incline) derive it a religando, from binding or knitting, because it is the great bond to join and tie God and man together. As the parts of the body are knit to the head by the nerves and sinews, so man is knit to God by religion. Sin and irreligion separate God and man asunder; 'Your iniquities have separated between you and your God.' Isaiah lix. 2. Godliness and religion unite God and man together; 'I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people,' 2 Corinthians vi. 16. Atheism is a departing or going away from God, Ephesians iv. 18; Hebrews iii. 12. Religion is a coming or returning unto God, Hebrews x. 22; Jeremiah iii. 1. The great misery of man by his fall is this, he is far from God; and the great felicity of man by favor is this, he draws near to God, Psalm 73. 2. ult.; James iv. 8. Irreligion is a turning the back upon God, but religion is a seeking the face of God, and a following hard after him, Psalm ii. 3, 27. 8, and lxiii. 8. By ungodliness, men wander and deviate from God; by godliness, men worship, and are devoted to God, Psalm 119. 150 and 38 verses.

The Grecians call it threskeia, Beza thinks, from Orpheus, a Thracian, who first taught the mysteries of religion among his countrymen. The word in the text is eusebeia, which in a word signifies right or straight worship, according to which I shall describe it thus:

Godliness is worshiping the true God in heart and life, according to his revealed will.

In this description of godliness, I shall observe four parts. First, the act: it is a worship. Secondly, the object of this act: the true God. Thirdly, The extent of this worship: in heart and life. Fourthly, the rule: according to his revealed will.

First, for the act: godliness is a worship. Worship comprehends all that respect which man owes and gives to his Maker. It is that service and honor, that fealty and homage, which the creature owes and tenders to the fountain of his being and happiness. It is the tribute which we pay to the King of kings, whereby we acknowledge his sovereignty over us, and our dependence on him. 'Give unto the Lord the honor due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,' Psalm 29. 2. To worship God is to give him the glory which is due to him. It is a setting the crown of glory on God's head. To render him due honor is true holiness; to deny this, is atheism and irreligion. All that inward reverence and respect, and all that outward obedience and service to God, which the word enjoineth, is included in this one word: worship.

This worshiping of God is either external or internal. God is to be worshiped with the body. Joshua fell on his face and worshiped, Joshua verse 14. Moses bowed his head and worshiped, Exodus. iv. 32. Jesus lifted up his eyes to Heaven and prayed, John 17. 1. David lifted up his hands to God, Psalm lxiii. 4. The bodies of saints shall be glorified with God hereafter, and the bodies of saints must glorify God here, Philippians iii. 21; Romans 12. 1.

Inward worship is sometimes set forth by loving God, James ii. 5; sometimes by trusting him, Psalm 16. 1; sometimes by delighting in him, Psalm 37. 3; sometimes by sorrow for offending him, Psalm Ii. 3, because this worship of God (as one piece of gold contains many pieces of silver) comprehend all of them. All the graces are but so many links of this golden chain. As all the members of the natural body are knit together, and walk always in company, so all the parts of the new man are joined together, and never go but as the Israelites out of Egypt, with their whole train. If there be one wheel missing in a watch, the end of the whole is spoiled. If once grace should be wanting in a saint, he would be unsainted. There is a concatenation of graces, as well as of moral virtues. Those that worship God give him their hottest love, their highest joy, their deepest sorrow, their strongest faith, and their greatest fear; as Abraham gave Isaac, he gives God all.

What Moses calls fearing God, Deuteronomy vi. 13, our Savior quoting, calls worshiping God (Matthew iv. 9, 10). He does this by a synecdoche, because the former is both a part and a sign of the latter. As when the guard are watching at the court-gate, or on the stairs, and examining those that go in, it is a sign the king is within; so when the fear of God stands at the door of the heart, to examine all that go in, lest the traitor sin should steal in slyly, it is a sign that God is within, that he sits upon the throne of the soul, and is worshiped there.

Secondly, the object: the true God. All religion without the knowledge of the true God is a mere notion, an airy, empty nothing. Divine worship is one of the chief jewels of God's crown, which he will by no means part with. God alone is the object of the godly man's worship, Exodus. 20. 2. His hope is in God, Psalm 39. 7; his dependence is on God, Psalm lxii. 8; his dread is of God, Psalm 119. 122; his love is to God, Psalm x. 1; God is the only object of his prayers, Psalm verse 3, and xliv. 20; and of God alone are all his praises, Psalm 103. 1; God alone is to be worshiped, because he alone is worthy of worship, 'You are worthy, Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power: for you have created all things,' Rev. iv. 11.

To hold anything in opinion, or to have anything in affection for God, which is not God, is idolatry. To worship either men, as the Samaritans did Antiochus Epiphanes, (styling him the mighty God ;) or the host of Heaven, as the Ammonites; or the devil as the Indians; or the belly, as the glutton; or riches, as the covetous; or the cross, as the papist; is unholiness.

There is a civil worship due to men, Genesis xlviii. 11, but sacred worship is due only to God; and he is a jealous God, who will not give his glory to strangers, nor his praise to images.

The heathen worshiped several gods— the Assyrians worshiped Belus; the Tyrians, Baal; the Athenians, Diana; the Samians, Juno; the Lemnians, Vulcan; the Moabites, Chemosh; the Syrians, Rimmon; the Ekronites, Beelzebub; the Babylonians, Bel; those infidels, as one observes well, had their Deos mortuos, idols; Mortals, men; mortiferos, lusts: therefore it is considerable that when the apostle speaks of the Gentiles, during the time of their unregeneracy, while they served false gods, he says they lived 'without God', Ephesians ii. 12. False gods are no gods; 'An idol is nothing,' 1 Corinthians iv. 8.

Thirdly, the extent: in heart and life. Godliness is the worshiping of God in the inward motions of the heart, and the outward actions of the life; where the spring of the affections is clear, and the stream of the conversation runs clear, there is true godliness. The Egyptians, of all fruits, would make choice of the peach to consecrate to their goddess, and they gave this reason for it, because the fruit thereof resembles a heart, and the leaf a tongue. As they gave heart and tongue to the false God, we must to the true God. Heart-godliness pleases God best, but life-godliness honors him most; the conjunction of both make a complete Christian. In a godly man's heart, though some sin be left, yet no sin is liked; in his life, though sin may remain, yet no sin reigns. His heart is suitable to God's nature, and his life is answerable to God's law, and thence he is fitly denominated a godly man.

In heart, hypocrisy is a practical blasphemy; 'I know the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews and are not.' God's eye takes most notice of the jewel of spiritual devotion; the eyes of men, of the cabinet of outward adoration. 'My son, give me your heart,' says God, Proverbs 33. 26. The heart is the king in the little world, man; which gives laws both to the inward powers and outward parts, and reigns and rules over them at pleasure

The life of godliness lies much more in the heart than in the life; and the saints' character is from their inward carriage towards God; 'They worship God in the spirit,' Philippians iii. 3. A great French pear is called le bon Chretien, the good Christian, because they say it is never rotten at the core; 'God is a spirit, and he will be worshiped in spirit and in truth,' John iv. 24. In truth, that is, scripturally; opposite to the inventions of men's heads: in spirit, that is, sincerely; opposite to the insincerity of men's hearts. The deeper the belly of the lute is, the pleasanter the sound; the deeper our worship comes from the heart, the more delightful it is in God's ears.

And life-godliness, as it sets God on the throne of the conscience, so it walks with God in the conversation. Though the spiritual (as the natural) life begins at the heart, yet it does not end there, but proceeds to the hands; the same water appears in the bucket which is in the well. As when the heart is like a dunghill, full of filth, it sends forth a noisome and unsavory stench in the life; so when the heart is like a box of musk, it perfumes and scents the tongue, and eyes, and ears, and hands, and whatever is near it, with holiness. Worship is called the name of God, Psalm 29., and worshiping, a praising him, 2 Chronicles vii. 3. Because as a man by his name, so God by his worship is known in the world; and those that worship him in their practices, do before the eyes of the world give him praise.

Fourthly, the rule: according to his revealed will. Every part of divine worship must have a divine precept. As the first command teaches us what God is to be worshiped, so the second command teaches in what way he will be worshiped. The tabernacle and all the instruments thereof, yes, the very snuffers and ash-pans, were to be made exactly according to the pattern in the mount, Exodus. 25. 40; Hebrews viii. 5. Typifying that all the exercise of worship used by the church, whether in doctrine or discipline, must be conformed to the written word, Galatians I. 8. Our religion must be not only rational but regular; our worship must be both universal and canonical, Galatians vi. 16; 'As many as walk according to this canon, or rule, peace be unto them.' The saints' service must be word-service, logike latreia, Romans 12. 1; so the word is rendered by our translators, 1 Peter ii. 2, logikon adolon gala, 'the sincere milk of the word.' The institutions of Christ, not the inventions of men, are the rule of worship. Our work is not to make laws for ourselves or others, but to keep the laws which the great prophet of his church has taught us; that coin of worship which is current among us must be stamped by God himself. We are to be governed as the point in the compass, not by the various winds, (the practices of former ages, or the fashions of the present generation, which are mutable and uncertain) but by the constant heavens. Our devotion must be regulated exactly according to the standard of the word. It is idolatry to worship a false God, or the true God in a false manner.

Men indeed are no sooner plucked out of the pit of atheism, but they presently climb the high places of superstition, delighting to go from one extreme to another. As a mirthful suit of apparel, so the service of God in a gaudy dress, is most taking with carnal eyes. I have read of a popish lady in Paris, that when she saw a glorious procession to one of their saints, cried out, 'Oh how fine is our religion beyond that of the Huguenots! They have a mean and beggarly religion, but ours is full of bravery and solemnity.' But as heralds say of a coat of arms, if it be full of gays and devices, it speaks a mean descent; so truly that manner of worship which is mingled with men's inventions speaks its descent to be mean—namely, from man. 'To the law and to the testimonies; if they speak not according to this, it is because there is no light in them,' Isaiah viii. 20.

Such may serve God with more pomp than others, but I am confident they serve him to less profit than others. 'In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,' Matthew 15. 9; their worship is in God's account no worship. They who made temples, altars, and ceremonies of their own heads, thought that they had remembered God, but he tells them plainly that they had forgotten him, Hosea viii. 11-14. Men manifest abundance of arrogancy in undertaking to prescribe newer and neater ways of worship than God himself, as if they excelled his Majesty in wisdom; but little do they think how exceedingly by such practices they provoke him to fury. Ezekiel viii. 3-5; Ezekiel xliii. 8, 'In their setting of their thresholds by my thresholds, and their posts by my posts, they have even defiled my holy name by the abominations which they have committed; wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger ;' so Ezekiel vi. 9; 2 Chronicles vii. 20.

 

 

CHAPTER 4.

2. What it is for a man to make religion his business, or to exercise himself to godliness.

I proceed to the second particular promised, that is, to show what it is for a man to exercise himself to godliness. It implies these three things:

First, to give it the precedence in all our actions. That which a man makes his business, he will be sure to mind, whatever he omits. A good husband will serve his shop before his sports, and will sometimes offer a handsome and warrantable kind of disrespect to his friends, that his calling may have his company; he will have some excuse or other to avoid diversions, and force his way to his trade through all opposition, and all because he makes it his business: he who makes religion his business, carries himself towards his general, as this man does towards his particular, calling. In his whole life he walks with God, and is so mannerly and dutiful, as to give God the upper hand all the way. He knows that his God must be worshiped, that his family must be served, and that his calling must be followed (for religion does not nullify, only rectify his carriage towards his earthly vocation); but each in their order,—that which is first in regard of excellency is first in regard of his industry. He is not so unnatural as to serve his cattle before his children, nor so atheistic as to serve his body and the world before his soul and his Savior. He is so sensible of his infinite engagements to the blessed God, that he allots some time every day for his religious duties; and he will be sure to pay God home to the utmost of his ability, whoever he compounds with, or pays short.

As he sails along through the tempestuous sea of this world towards his eternal haven of rest, he has many temporal affairs in his company, but he is especially careful that they keep their distance, and strike sail through the whole voyage. If his worldly businesses offer, like Hagar, to jostle or quarrel for pre-eminence with their superior, religion, he will, if possible, chide them into subjection, and cause them to submit; but rather cast them out than suffer them to usurp authority over their mistress.

He who minds religion by the by, will, if other things intervene, put it back, and be glad of an excuse to waive that company, to which he has no love; nay, he does in the whole course of his life prefer his swine, as the Gadarenes, before his soul; set the servant on horseback and suffer the master to go on foot. His voice to religion is like the Jews' to the poor man in vile clothing, 'Stand you there, or sit you here under my footstool;' and his words to the world are like theirs to the man in goodly apparel, 'Come up hither, or sit you here in a good place,' James ii. 2, 3. He does, like Jacob, lay the right hand of his care and diligence upon the youngest son, the body, and the left hand upon the first-born, the soul. That which was Esau's curse is esteemed by him as a blessing, that the elder serves the younger: he is so unwise as to esteem lying vanities before real mercies; often so unworthy as to forget God, whoever he remembers; and so uncivil at best as to give God the world's leavings, and to let the almighty Creator dance attendance until he pleases to be at leisure. If he be in the midst of his devotion, he makes an end upon the smallest occasion; and is like the patriarch, who ran from the altar, when he was about his office, to see a foal new fallen from his beloved mare.

But every saint, like Solomon, first builds a house for God, and then for himself. Whoever be displeased, or whatever be neglected, he will take care that God be worshiped. Abraham's steward, when sent to provide a wife for Isaac, though meat were set before him, refused to eat until he had done his errand, Genesis 24. 33. Godliness is the errand about which man is sent into the world; now, as faithful servants, we must prefer our message before our meat, and serve our master before ourselves.

He who makes godliness his business gives it the first of the day, and the first place all the day. He gives it the first of the day: Jesus Christ was at prayer 'a great while before day,' Mark I. 35. Abraham 'rose up early in the morning to offer sacrifice,' Genesis 22. 1; so did Job, chapter I. 5. David cries out, 'God, my God, early will I seek you,' Psalm lxiii. 1. 'In the morning will I direct my prayer to you, and look up,' Psalm verse 3. The Philistines in the morning early offered to their God Dagon. The Persian magi worshiped the rising sun with their early hymns. The saint in the morning waits upon Heaven's Majesty. As soon as he awakes he is with God; one of his first works, when he rises, is to ask his heavenly Father's blessing. Like the lark, he is up early, singing sweetly the praise of his Maker; and often, with the nightingale, late up, at the same pleasant tune.

He finds the morning a greater friend to the Graces than it can be to the Muses. Naturalists tell us that the most orient pearls are generated of the morning dew. Sure I am, he has sweet communion with God in morning duties.

Reader, let me tell you, if religion be your occupation, your business, God will hear from you in the morning; one of the first things after you are up will be to fall down and worship him. Your mind will be most free in the morning, and your affections most lively, (as those strong waters are fullest of spirits which are first drawn ;) and surely you can not think but that God, who is the best and chief good, has most right to them, and is most worthy of them.

As a godly man gives religion the precedence of the day, so he gives it the precedence in the day. The Jews, some say, divide their day into prayer, labor, and repast, and they will not omit prayer either for their meat or labor. Grace (as well as nature) teaches a godly man not to neglect either his family or body; but it teaches him also to prefer his soul and his God before them both. Seneca, though a heathen, could say, I am greater, and born to greater things, than to be a drudge to, and the slave of, my body. A Christian's character is, that he is not carnal, or for his body, but spiritual, or for his soul, Romans viii. It was a great praise which Ambrose speaks of Valentinian, 'Never man was a better servant to his master, than Valentinian's body was to his soul.'

This is the godly man's duty, to make Heaven his throne, and the earth his footstool. It is the exposition which one gives upon those words, 'Subdue the earth,' Genesis I. 28, that is, your body, and all earthly things, to your soul. Our earthly callings must give way to our heavenly; we must say to them, as Christ to his disciples, 'Tarry you here, while I go and pray yonder.' And truly godliness must be first in our prayers—'Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,' before 'Give us this day our daily bread; 'and first in all our practices—'Seek first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof, and all other things shall be added to you,' Matthew vi. 33.

Secondly, making religion one's business is to pursue it with industry in our conversations. A man that makes his calling his business is not lazy, but laborious about it; what pains will he take! what strength will he spend! how will he toil and moil at it early and late! The tradesman, the gardener, eat not the bread of idleness, when they make their callings their business; if they be good husbands, they are both provident to observe their seasons, and diligent to improve them for their advantage; they do often even dip their food in their sweat, and make it thereby the more sweet. Their industry appears in working hard in their callings, and in improving all opportunities for the furtherance of their callings.

1. Thus he who makes religion his business is industrious and laborious in the work of the Lord. The heart of his ground, the strength of his inward man, is spent about the good corn of religion, not about the weeds of earthly occasions. He makes haste to keep God's commandments, knowing that the lingering, lazy snail is reckoned among unclean creatures, Leviticus 11. 30; and he is hot and lively in his devotion, knowing that a dull, drowsy donkey (though fit enough to carry the image of Isis, yet) was no fit sacrifice for the pure and active God, Exodus. 13. 13. He gives God the top, the chief, the cream of all his affections, as seeing him infinitely worthy of all acceptance; he is 'not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit/ when he is 'serving the Lord,' Romans 12. 11. He believes that to fear God with a secondary fear is atheism; that to trust God with a secondary trust is treason; that to honor God with a secondary honor is idolatry; and to love God with a secondary love is adultery; therefore he loves (and he fears and trusts and honors) 'the Lord his God, with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength,' Matthew 22. 36, 37. His love to God 'is a labor of love, as strong as death; the coals thereof are coals of juniper,' which do not only burn long, (some say twelve months together) but burn with the greatest heat. His measure of loving God is without measure.

The Samseans in Epiphanius were neither Jews, Gentiles, nor Christians, yet preserved a fair correspondence with all: a hypocrite is indifferent to any, never fervent in the true religion.

It is reported of Redwald, king of the east Saxons, the first prince of this nation that was baptized, that in the same church he had one altar for the Christian religion, another for the heathenish sacrifices. The true believer does otherwise; he who makes religion his work, gives God the whole of his heart, without halting and. without halving.

Set him about any duty, and he is diligent in it. In prayer, he labors in prayer, Colossians iv. 12; he cries to God, 1 Samuel vii. 9; he cries mightily, Jonah iii. 8; he pours forth his soul, Lamentations ii. 19; he strives in supplication with God, Romans 15:30; stirs up himself to lay hold on God, Isaiah 27. 5; and even wrestles with omnipotence, Genesis 32. 14. When the mill of his prayer is going, his fervent affections are the waters that drive it. There is fire taken from God's own altar, (not the ordinary hearth of nature.) and put to his incense, whereby it becomes fragrant and grateful to God himself. His fervent prayer is his key to God's treasury, and his endeavor is, that it rust not for want of use. When he goes to the sacrament, he is all in a flame of affection to the author of that feast; with desire he desires to eat of the Passover. He longs exceedingly for the time, he loves the table; but when he sees the bread and wine, the wagons which the Lord Jesus has sent for him, oh how his heart revives! When he sees the sacraments, the body and blood of Christ in the elements, who can tell how soon he scents! how fast this true eagle flies to the heavenly carcass.

At hearing he is heedful; he flies to the salt-stone of the word with swiftness and care, as doves to their columbaries, Isaiah lx. 8. As the new-born babe, he desires the sincere milk of the word; and when he is attending on it, he does not dally nor trifle, but as the bee the flower, and the child the breast, suck with all his might for some spiritual milk, Isaiah lxvi. 11; Deuteronomy 28. 1; he hearkens diligently to the voice of the Lord his God; let him be in company, taking notice of some abominable carriage, he will rebuke cuttingly, Titus I. 13. If he gives his bitter pill in sweet syrup, you may see his exceeding anger against sin, while you behold his love to the sinner; he is, though a meek lamb when himself, yet a lion when God, is dishonored; his anger waxes hot when men affront the Most High, Exodus. 32. 19. If he be counseling his child or friend to mind God and godliness, how hard does he woo to win the soul to Christ! how many baits does he lay to catch the poor creature! you may perceive his affections working by his very words: how fervent, how instant, how urgent, how earnest is he to persuade his relation or acquaintance to be happy! He 'provokes them to love, and to good Works.'

Set him about what religious exercise you will, and he is, according to the apostle's words, 'zealous (or fiery fervent) of good works;' like spring water, he has a living principle, and thence is warm in winter, or, like Debris in Cyrene, is seething hot. Whatever he goes about that concerns the glory of his Savior, and the good of his soul, he does it to purpose. As Paul says of himself, 'I follow after, if that I may apprehend,' Philippians iii. 10. The word in the original is emphatical; 'I prosecute it with all my strength and power, that I may attain if it be possible.' The word is either an allusion to persecutors, Matthew verses 10-12, for it is used of them frequently; so Piscator takes it. Or to hunters, according to Aretius; take either, and the sense is the same, and very full. As persecutors are industrious and incessant in searching up and down for poor Christians, and hauling them to prison; and as huntsmen are up early at their sport, follow it all day, and spare for no pains, even sweating and tiring themselves at this their pleasure; so eager and earnest, so indefatigable and industrious was Paul, and so ought every one of us to be (the command is delivered to us, in the same word, Hebrews 12. 14) about godliness.

A man that minds godliness only by the by, looks sometimes to the matter, seldom to the manner, of his performances. Opus operatum; the work done is a full discharge for him, how slightly or slovenly however it be done. If he stumbles sometimes upon a good word, yet it is not his walk; and when he is in that way, he cares not how many steps he treads awry. It may be said of him as of Jehu, 'He takes no heed to walk in the way of the Lord God of Israel with his heart,' 2 Kings x. 31. He makes an idol of the blessed God, (he prays to him, and hears from him, as if he had eyes and saw not, as if he had ears and heard not, as if he had hands and wrought not) and anything will serve an idol. How aptly and justly may God say to him after his duties, as Caesar to the citizen after dinner, (who, having invited the emperor to his table, made but slight preparation and slender provision for him), 'I had thought that you and I had not been so familiar.'

But he who exercises himself to godliness has a more awful and serious carriage towards God. The twelve tribes served God 'instantly day and night,' Acts 26. 7, fervently, vehemently, to the utmost of their power; the word implies both extension and intension; the very heathen could say that the gods must be worshiped, either to our utmost withal, or not at all.

2. The industry of a man about his calling, or whatever he makes his business, appears in his taking all advantages for the furtherance thereof. A tradesman that minds his employment, does not only in his shop, but also abroad, and when he is from home, drive forward his trade. Indeed, when he is in his shop, his eyes are most about him to see what is wanting, that it may be supplied, to take care that all his customers may be satisfied, and to order things so, that by his buying and selling his stock may be increased; but if he walk from home, he does not wholly leave his trade behind him. If he visits his friends or acquaintance, and there be any likelihood of doing any good, you may observe him questioning the price of such and such commodities, inquiring at what rates they are afforded in those parts; and if they be cheap, possibly furnishing himself from thence; if dear, it may be, put off a considerable quantity of his own. Because he makes it his business, his mind runs much upon it, that wherever he is, he will be speaking somewhat of it, if occasion be offered, whereby he comes now and then to meet with such bargains as tend much to his benefit; so the Christian that makes religion his business, is industrious to improve all opportunities for the furtherance of his general calling. As his time (for he is God's servant) so his trade goes forward every hour; he is, David-like, as a sparrow upon the house-top, looking on this side and that side, to see where he may pick up some spiritual food. He does not only in the church and in his closet, but also in all his converses with men, walk with his God. If God prosper him, as the ship mounts higher according to the increase of the tide, so his heart is lifted up the nearer to God, as God's hand is enlarged towards him. If God afflict him, as the nipping north wind purifies the air, so the broom of affliction does sweep the dust of sin out of his heart. As his pulse is ever beating, so his heavenly trade is ever going forward. His visits to his friends are out of conscience as well as out of courtesy; and his endeavor is, either by some savory Scripture expression, or some sober action, to advantage his company. He will watch for a fit season to do his own and others' souls service, and catch at it as greedily, and improve it as diligently, as Benhadad's servants did Ahab's words.

If he be eating or drinking, the salt of grace is ever one dish upon the table to season all his diet. He will raise his heart from the daily bread to the bread that came down from Heaven. He eats, is full, and blesses the Lord. Before he begins he asks God's leave, while he feeds he tastes God's love, and when he has done he gives God thanks.

If he be buying or selling, he is very willing that God should be a witness to all his bargains; for he prays to God as if men heard him, and he trades with men as if God saw him. His shop, as well as his chapel, is holy ground.

If he be among his relations, he is both desirous and diligent to further religion. His endeavor is that those that are near him in the flesh may be near God in the spirit. He is careful that both by his precepts and pattern he may do somewhat for their profit. His house, as well as his heart, is consecrated to God.

As Caesar's image was stamped on a penny, as well as on a greater piece, Matthew 22. 20, so godliness, which is the image of the King of kings, is imprinted not only on his greater and weightier, but also upon his lesser and meaner practices.

Godliness is not his medication, which he only now and then (as at spring and fall) makes use of, but his food, which he daily deals about; besides his set times for his set meals of morning and evening devotion, he has many a good bait by the by in the daytime. 'Evening, morning, and at noon will I pray, and cry aloud,' Psalm lv. 17. 'Oh, how love I your law; it is my meditation,' not some part, but 'all the day.' Whether the actions he be about be natural or civil, he makes them sacred; whether the company he be in be good or bad, he will mind his holy calling; whether he be riding or walking, whether it be at home or abroad; whether he be buying or selling, eating or drinking, whatever he be doing, or wherever he be going, still he has an eye to further godliness, because he makes that his business. What the philosopher said of the soul in relation to the body—'The soul is whole in the whole body, and whole in every part of it'—is true of godliness, in reference to the life of a Christian; godliness is whole in his whole conversation, and whole in every part of it. As the constitution of man's body is known by his pulse; if it beat not at all, he is dead; if it beat and keep a constant stroke, it is a sign the body is sound. Godliness is the pulse of the soul; if it beat not at all, the soul is void of spiritual life; if it beat equally and constantly, it speaks the soul to be in an excellent plight.

It was the practice of our Savior, who left us a blessed pattern therein, to be always furthering godliness. When bread was mentioned to him, upon it he dissuaded his disciples from the leaven of the Pharisees, Matthew 16. 5, 6. When water was denied him by the Samaritan woman, he forgets his thirst, and seeks to draw her to the well-spring of happiness, John iv. 10. When people came to him for bodily cures, how constantly does he mind the safety of their souls: 'You are made whole, go sin no more,' or, 'Your sins are forgiven you.' He went about doing good; in the day-time working miracles and preaching, in the night-time he often gave himself to meditation and prayer.

He who minds religion by the by does otherwise; he can, Proteus-like, turn himself into any shape which is in fashion. As the carbuncle, a beast among the blackamores, which is seen only by night, having a stone in his forehead, which shines incredibly and gives him light whereby to feed; but when he hears the least noise, he presently lets fall over it a skin, which he has as a natural covering, lest its splendor should betray him; so the half Christian shines with the light of holiness by fits and starts; every fright makes him hold in and hide it. The mark of Antichrist was in his followers' hands, which they can cover or discover at their pleasure; but the mark of Christ's disciples was in their foreheads, visible at all times.

Thirdly, to exercise ourselves to godliness, implies to persevere in it with constancy to our dissolution. Men follow their trades, and open their shops, until death shut their eyes, and gives them a writ of ease; men pursue their earthly works, until death sound a retreat, and command their appearance in the other world. Many a one has breathed out his last in the midst of his labor: his life and his labor have ended together. 'Let every man abide in the calling whereto he is called,' says the apostle, 1 Corinthians vii. 24.

They who make religion their business, are constant, immoveable, and do 'always abound in the work of the Lord.' Their day of life is their day of labor; 'the sun arises, and man goes to his labor until the evening,' Psalm civ. 23. Death only is their night of resting, when they die in the Lord; then, and not until then, they 'rest from their labors.' Saints are compared to palm-trees, because they nourish soon; to cedars, because they continue long; they often set out with the first, but always hold on to the last. The philosopher being asked in his old age why he did not give over his studies, answered, 'When a man is to run a race of forty furlongs, he will not sit down at the thirty-ninth, and lose the prize.' The pious soul is faithful unto death, and enjoys a crown of life. As Caesar, he is always marching forward, and thinks nothing done while anything remains undone. As they are fervent in their work, so they are constant at their work. The church of Ephesus had letters testimonial from Heaven; 'For my name's sake you have labored, and have not fainted,' Rev. ii. 3.

Water in the baths is always warm; as long as there is water, there is heat. Not so our ordinary water; though this may be warmed by the fire at present, yet if taken off it returns to its former coldness, nay, it is colder than before, because the spirits which kept it from the extremity of cold, are by the fire boiled out of it. The reason is plain; the heat of the baths is from an inward principle, and therefore is permanent; the heat of the latter is from an external cause, and therefore is inconstant.

That warmth of piety which proceeds from an inward principle of a purified conscience, is accompanied with perseverance; but that profession which flows from an outward motive, where men, as chameleons, take their color from that which stands next them, their religion from those they have their dependence upon, is of short duration.

A man that minds religion by the by is like Nebuchadnezzar s image, he has a head of gold, but feet of clay. His beginning may be like Nero's first five years, full of hope and encouragement, but afterwards, as a carcass, he is more filthy and unsavory every day than other. His insincerity causes his inconstancy. Trees unsound at the root, will quickly cease their putting forth of fruit. Such men, if godliness enjoy a summer of prosperity, may like a serpent creep on the ground, and stretch themselves at length, to receive the warmth of the sun, but if winter come he will creep into some ditch or dunghill, lest he should take cold.

Travelers that go to sea merely to be sea-sick, or in sport, if there arise a black cloud or storm, their voyage is at an end, they hasten to the harbor; they came not to be weather-beaten, or to hazard themselves among the boisterous billows, but only for pleasure: but the merchant that is bound for a voyage, whose calling and business it is, is not daunted at every wave and wind, but drives through all with resolution. He who only pretends towards religion, if a storm meets him in the way to Heaven, he leaves it, and takes shelter in the earth; as a snail, he puts out his head to see what weather is abroad, (what countenance religion has at court, whether great men do smile or frown upon the ways of God) and if the heavens be lowering, he shrinks into his shell, esteeming that his only safety. But they that make godliness their business, do not steer their course by such cards— they follow their trade, though they meet with many trials; as resolved travelers, whether the ways be fair or foul, whether the weather be clear or cloudy, they will go on towards their heavenly Canaan; 'They go from strength to strength, until they appear before God in Zion.' Psalm 84:8.

When men follow godliness by the by and in jest, they take it to farm, and accept leases of it for a time; but if the times come to be such, that in their blind judgments it proves a hard pennyworth, they throw it up into their landlords' hands; but men that make religion their business, take it as their freehold, as their fee-simple, which they enjoy, and esteem it their privilege so to do, for the whole term of their lives; 'I have chosen your statutes as my heritage forever: I have inclined my heart to perform your statutes always unto the end,' Psalm 119:11, 12.

The godliness of an unsound professor is like the light of a candle, fed with gross and greasy matter, as profit and honor and pleasure, which continues burning until that tallowy substance be wasted, but then goes out and leaves a stench behind it; the holiness of a true Christian is like the light of the sun, which has its original in Heaven, and is fed from above, and thereby 'shines brighter and brighter to perfect day,' Proverbs iv. 18.

 

 

CHAPTER 5.

Religion is the great end of man's creation.

I come in the third place to the reasons, why godliness should be every man's main and principal business.

First, because it is God's chief end in sending man into, and continuing him in, this world. It is without question, that the work should be for that end to which it is appointed, and for which it is maintained by a sovereign and intelligent workman. Where the master has authority to command, there his end and errand must be chiefly in the servant's eye. Zeno well defines liberty to be a power to act and practice at a man's own pleasure; opposite to which, servitude must be a determination to act at, and according to, the will of another. A servant is, as the orator says well, a word that speaks one under command; he is not one that moves of himself, but the master's living instrument, according to the philosopher, to be used at his pleasure. According to the title or power which one has over another, such must the service be. Where the right is absolute, the obedience must not be conditional; God having therefore a perfect sovereignty over his creatures, and complete right to all their services, his end and aim, his will and word, must be principally minded by them. Paul gathers this fruit from that root: 'The God whose I am, and whom I serve,' Acts 27. 23. His subjection is founded on God's dominion over him.

Now the great end to which man is designed by God, is the exercising himself to godliness. God erected the stately fabric of the great world for man, but he wrought the curious piece of the little world [man] for himself. Of all his visible works, he did set man apart for his own worship. Man, says one, is the end of all in a semicircle, intimating that all things in the world were made for man, and man was made for God. It is but rational to suppose that if this world was made for us, we must be made for more than this world. It is an ingenious observation of Picus Mirandula, God created the earth for beasts to inhabit, the sea for fish, the air for birds, the heavens for angels and stars, man therefore has no place to dwell and abide in, but the Lord alone.

The great God, according to his infinite wisdom, has designed all his creatures to some particular ends, and has imprinted in their natures an appetite and propensity towards that end, as the point and scope of their being. Yes, the very inanimate and irrational creatures are serviceable to those ends and uses in their several places and stations. Birds build their nests exactly, bringing up their young tenderly. Beasts scramble and scuffle for their fodder, and at last become man's food. The sun, moon, and stars move regularly in their orbs, and by their light and influence advantage the whole world. The little commonwealth of bees works both industriously and wonderfully for the benefit of mankind. Flowers refresh us with their scents; trees with their shade and fruits; fire moves upward; earth falls downward, each by nature hastening to its center; thunder and winds, being exhalations drawn up from the earth by the heavenly bodies, are wholly at, though stubborn and violent creatures, the call and command of the mighty possessor of Heaven and earth; and with them, as with besoms, he sweeps and purifies the air; fish sport up and down in rivers; rivers run along, sometimes seen, sometimes secret, never ceasing or tiring until they empty themselves into the ocean; the mighty sea, like a pot of water, by its ebbing and flowing purges itself, boils and prepares sustenance for living creatures. Through this womb of moisture, this great pond of the world, as Bishop Hall calls it, men travel in moveable houses, from country to country, transporting and exchanging commodities. Thus the almighty Creator does, as Plato says, observe a curious lovely order in all his work, and appoints them to some use according to their nature. Surely much more is man, the point in which all those lines meet, designed to some noble end, suitable to the excellency of his being; and what can that be, but to worship the glorious and blessed God, and the exercising himself to godliness?

'The Lord made all things for himself,' Proverbs 16. 4. God made things without life and reason to serve him passively and subjectively, by administering occasion to man to admire and adore his Maker; but man was made to worship him actively and affectionately, as sensible of, and affected with, that divine wisdom, power, and goodness which appear in them. As all things are of him as the efficient cause, so all things must necessarily be for him as the final cause. But man in a special manner is predestined and created for this purpose: Isaiah xliii. 1, 7, 'You are mine; I have created him for my glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.' There is both the author and the end of our creation: the author, 'I have created him;' the end, 'for my glory.' As man is the most exact piece, on which he bestowed most pains, so from him he cannot but expect most praise. Lactantius accounts religion the most proper and essential difference between men and beasts. The praises which beasts give God are dumb, their sacrifices are dead; but the sacrifices of men are living, and their praises lively.

God did indeed set up the admirable house of the visible world (flooring it with the earth, watering it with the ocean, and ceiling it with the pearly heavens) for his own service and honor; but the payment of this rent is expected from the hands of man, the inhabitant. He was made and put into this house upon this very account, that he might, as God's steward, gather his rents from other creatures, and pay in to the great landlord his due and deserved praise. Man is made as a glass, to represent the perfections that are in God. A glass can receive the beams of the sun into it, and reflect them back again to the sun. The excellencies of God appear abundantly in his works; man is made to be the glass where these beams of divine glory should be united and received, and also from him reflected back to God again.

Oh, how absurd is it to conceive that God should work a body so 'curiously in the lowest parts of the earth,' embroider it with nerves, veins, variety and proportion of parts, (miracles enough, says one, between head and foot to fill a volume) and then enliven it with a spark of his own fire, a ray of his own light, an angelical and heaven-born soul, and send this picture of his own perfections, this lovely creature, into the world, merely to eat, and drink, and sleep, or to buy, and sell, and sow, and reap. Surely the only wise God had a higher end and nobler design in forming and fashioning man with so much care and cost.

The upright figure of man's body, as the poetical heathen could observe, may mind him of looking upward to those blessed mansions above; and that fifth muscle in his eye, whereby he differs also from other creatures, who have only four—one to turn downward, another to hold forwards, a third to turn the eye to the right hand, a fourth to turn the eye to the left; but no unreasonable creature can turn the eye upward as man can—may admonish him of viewing those superior glories, and exercising himself to godliness, it being given him for this purpose, says the anatomist, that by the help thereof he might behold the heavens. Thus the blessed God, even by sensible demonstrations, speaks his mind and end in making man; but the nature of man's soul being a spiritual substance, does more loudly proclaim God's pleasure, that he would have it conversant about spiritual things. He made it a heavenly spark, that it might mount and ascend to Heaven.

A philosopher may get riches, says Aristotle, 3 but that is not his main business; a Christian may, nay, must follow his particular calling, but that is not his main business, that is not the errand for which he was sent into the world. God made particular callings for men, but he made men for their general callings. It was a discreet answer of Anaxagoras Clazamenius to one that asked him why he came into the world; 'That I might contemplate Heaven.' Heaven is my country, and for that is my chief care. May not a Christian upon better reason confess that to be the end of his creation, that he might seek Heaven, and be serviceable to the Lord of Heaven, and say, as Jerome, I am a miserable sinner, and born only to repent. The Jewish Talmud propounds this question, 'Why God made man on the Sabbath eve?' and gives this answer: That he might presently enter upon the command of sanctifying the Sabbath, and begin his life with the worship of God, which was the chief reason and end why it was given him.

 

 

CHAPTER 6.

Religion is a work of the greatest weight. It is soul-work, it is God-work, it is eternity-work.

Secondly, Godliness ought to be every man's main business, because it is a work of the greatest concern and weight. Things that are of most stress call for our greatest strength. Our utmost pains ought to be laid out upon that which is of highest price: man's diligence about any work must be answerable to the consequence of the work. The folly of man seldom appears more than in being very busy about nothing, in making a great cry where there is little wool; like that empty fellow that showed himself to Alexander—having spent much time, and taken much pains at it beforehand—and boasted that he could throw a pea through a little hole, expecting a great reward; but the king gave him only a bushel of peas for a recompense suitable to his diligent negligence or his busy idleness. Things that are vain and empty are unworthy of our care and industry. The man that by hard labor and hazard of his life did climb up to the top of the steeple to set an egg on end, was deservedly the object of pity and laughter. We shall think him little better than mad that he should make as great a fire for the roasting of an egg as for the roasting of an ox.

On the other side, the wisdom of men never presents itself to our view in livelier colors than in giving those affairs which are of greatest concernment precedence of time and strength. Of brutes, man may learn this lesson: When the cart is empty, or has but little lading, the team goes easily along, they play upon the road; but when the burden is heavy, or the cart stuck, they pull, and draw, and put forth all their strength.

Now godliness is, among all man's works, of the greatest weight.

The truth is, he has no work of weight but this; this is the one thing necessary, and in this one thing are man's all things. Our unchangeable weal or woe in the other world is wrapped up in our diligence or negligence about this; our earthly businesses, be they about food or clothing, about honors or pleasures, or whatever, are but toys and trifles, but baubles and butterflies, to this. As candles before the sun, they must all disappear and give place to this.

Moses, a pious and tender father, when leaving them, in his swan-like song, gives savory advice to his children. We need not doubt but his spiritual motions were quickest when his natural motions were slowest; that the stream of grace ran with full strength when it was to empty itself into the ocean of glory. Mark what special counsel he gives them who were committed to his special care: Deuteronomy 32. 46, 'Set your hearts to all the words which I command you this day; for it is not a vain thing; because it is your life.' In which words we have, 1. A commandment; and, 2. An argument. The commandment is, 'Set your hearts to all the words which I command you this day; 'that is, 'Exercise yourselves to godliness.' He does not say, lend them your ears, to listen to them slightly; or let them have your tongues, to speak of them cursorily. No; it is not, set your heads, but set your hearts, to all the words, etc. He does not say, 'Let your works be according to these words,' or 'let your feet ever make them your walk'; no, it is not set your hands, but set your hearts to the words that I speak unto you. Make it your business, and then your ears and tongues, your feet, your heads, your hands, and all will be employed about them to the purpose. But what special argument does Moses urge for the enforcement of this great work? Surely that which I am speaking of, the weight of it: 'Set your hearts to all the words which I command you this day; for it is not a vain thing; because it is your life,' verse 47. Moses had experience that the hearts of the Israelites were exceeding knotty wood, and therefore he uses a heavy beetle to drive home the wedge: it is not a vain thing; it is life. As if he had said, 'Were it a matter of small moment, you might laze and loiter about it; but it behooves you to bestir yourselves lustily to follow it, laboriously to set your hearts to it; for it is as much worth as your lives; that pearl of matchless price is engaged and at stake in your pursuit of godliness.' Life, though but natural, is of so much value that men will sacrifice their honors and pleasures, their wealth and liberty, and all to it.

The Egyptians parted with their costly jewels willingly to redeem their lives, as Calvin observes. The widow in the Gospel spared none of her wealth to obtain health, which is much inferior to life: 'Skin for skin, and all that a man has, will he give for his life.' Throw but a brute into the water to drown it, how will it labor, and toil, and sweat, to preserve its life! View a man on his death-bed, when a distemper is, like a strong enemy, fighting to force life out of the field, how does nature then, with all the might and strength it has, strive and struggle to keep its ground! What panting and breathing, what sweating and working of all the parts do you behold! And no wonder—the man labors for life. If there be such labor for a natural life, that is but umbra vitae, a shadow to this the substance, which is but the union of the body and soul, and lies under a necessity of dissolution; what labor does a spiritual life deserve, that consists in the soul's union and communion with the blessed Savior, and which neither men nor devils, neither death nor Hell, shall ever deprive a believer of, but in spite of all it will grow and increase until it commence eternal life? Well might Moses expect that such a heavy weight as this should make great impression, and sink deep into their affections: 'For it is not a vain thing; because it is your life.'

We may say of this work of Christianity, compared with all other works, what David said of Goliath's sword, 'There is none like it: 'this is soul-work, this is God- work, this is eternity-work, and therefore of greatest weight, and requires us all to make it our business; such blows as these three are, one would think, might force fire out of a flint.

This is soul-work: as soul-woe is the heaviest woe, and soul-wants are the greatest wants, so soul-work is the weightiest work; the dangers of a soul are the deepest dangers, the loss of the soul is the most dreadful loss, the neglect of the soul is the most doleful neglect. The consequence of the action is frequently specified from the excellency of the person or subject concerned in it. The soul of man is a most excellent piece, both in regard of the spirituality and immortality of its substance, as also in regard of that divine image imprinted on it, those heavenly qualities with which it was at first endowed. Princes stamp not their image, except in cases of necessity, on brass, or tin, or leather, but on gold and silver, the chief and most excellent metals. Therefore, though those affairs which concern the body are but of ordinary respect, yet those that concern the soul are of inconceivable weight and regard. One soul is more worth than ten thousand bodies—than ten thousand worlds.

The greatest thing, says one, in this world is man, and the greatest thing in man is his soul. It is an abridgment of the invisible world, as the body is of the visible. The body, though no mean work considered absolutely, yet of ordinary worth considered comparatively to the soul. It is a mud- wall enclosing a rich treasure, as a common mask to a beautiful face, as a coarse cabinet having in it a precious chain of jewels.

The very heathen acknowledged that the soul was the man, the body but its servant; and therefore the Christian may well call it and care for it as his darling, as his only one, as the original is in that place, Psalm 22. 20. Chrysostom observes, God has given man two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet, that the failing of the one may be supplied by the help of the other; but one soul—if that miscarry, there is no remedy. Nebuchadnezzar lost his reason, and that was restored; David lost his wives, children, and goods, and yet they were recovered; nay, Lazarus lost his life, and was revived; but for the loss of the soul no power can recover it, no price can redeem, no pearls, no, not the whole world, can recompense its loss.

Well might Charles the Fifth, when solicited by a great counselor, Antonino de Leva, to cut off all the princes in Germany, that he might rule alone, forbear to put his advice into practice, and cry out, O anima, anima, my soul, my soul!—what then will become of my soul? It was a royal answer which Maximilian, king of Bohemia, gave the pope, who persuaded him to turn good Catholic, promising him much advantage: 'I thank your holiness; but my soul's health is clearer to me than all the things in the world.'

The apostle calls the body a 'vile body,' Philippians iii. , in regard of its original production; it was made not of heavenly materials, as sun or stars, nor of precious materials, as pearls, or jewels, but of dust mingled with water; and in regard of its ultimate resolution, it becomes first an ugly, ghastly carcass, and then molders into earth; but the Holy Spirit calls the soul 'The breath of the Almighty,' Job 33. 4. It was not, as the body, framed of dust, but immediately breathed by God himself; it was not the fruit of some pre-existent matter, but the immediate effect of divine power. The soul is, in a spiritual as well as in a natural sense, the life of the body, especially if you take to live, for to be lusty, and to be in health; for what the sun is to the greater, that the soul is to the lesser world. When the sun shines comfortably, how cheerfully do all things look! how well do they thrive and prosper! the birds sing merrily, the beasts play wantonly, the trees and herbs put forth their buds and fruits; the whole creation enjoy a day of light and joy. But when the sun departs, what a night of horror follows; how are all things wrapped up in the sable mantle of darkness! Nay, let but the heat of its beams abate, how do all faces gather paleness! The creatures are buried, as it were, in the winding-sheet of winter's frost and snow: so when the soul shines pleasantly on the body, refreshing it with its beams of holiness, with its rays of grace, the body cannot but enjoy a summer of health and strength. Such a soul in such a body is like a pure wax-candle in a crystal lantern, refreshing with its scent, directing by its light, and comforting with its heat; but if the soul be weak, and full of spiritual wants, the body must needs wither. The soul is the ship in which the body sails; if that be safe, the body is safe, if that sinks, the body sinks forever.

From all this it appears that soul-work is a weighty work, not to be dallied or trifled with, but to be made the business of every man. Godliness must therefore be followed with care and conscience, because of soul consequence. It was our deprivation of godliness which was the soul's greatest loss, and therefore, for the regaining of it, ought to be our greatest labor. God sent his Son into the world for this very purpose, that he might by his bloody passion restore man to his primitive purity and perfection. Godliness is the soul's food, which nourishes it; who would feast his horse, and starve himself? The soul's clothing, both for its defense and warmth, nay, the life of its life. The life of the soul, as Jacob's in Benjamin, is bound up in godliness. Take godliness away, and the soul goes down into the grave of the other world with unspeakable sorrow.

Godliness, as it is soul-work, so it is God-work; as the excellency of the subject in which, so also the excellency of the object about which, it is conversant, speaks it to be weighty. The moralists tell us, that actions are specified not only from their ends and circumstances, but likewise from their objects. And the divines assure us, that the chief source of man's sin and sorrow is his causing the bent and stream of his inward man to run after wrong objects. If objects then can vary the species, they may much more add to the degree, to the weight of an action. Where the object is great, no slip can be small.

Evil words spoken, or blows given, to an ordinary man, bear but a common action at law; but in case they relate to the king, they are treason. The higher the person is with whom we converse, the holier and more exact should our carriage be. If we walk with our equals, we toy and trifle by the way, and possibly, if occasion be, wander from them; but if we wait upon a prince, especially about our own near concernments, we are serious and sedulous, watching his words, and working with the greatest diligence for the performance of his pleasure. A lawyer will mind the countryman's cause when he is at leisure, when greater affairs will give him leave, and then, it may be, do it but coldly and carelessly. But if he has business committed to him by his sovereign, which concerns the prerogative, he will make other causes stay, crowd out of the press to salute this, attend it with all his parts and power, and ability and industry, and never take his leave of it until it be finished. I need not explain my meaning in this; it is obvious to every eye that godliness is the worshiping the infinite and ever-blessed God. Surely his service is neither to be delayed nor dallied with, it is not to be slighted over. 'Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord negligently.'

When we deal with our equals, with them that stand upon the same level with us, we may deal as men; our affections may be like scales that are evenly poised, in regard of indifference, but when we have to do with a God so great, that in comparison of him the vast ocean, the broad earth, and the highest heavens are all less than nothing, and so glorious that the great lights of the world, though every star were a sun, yet in respect of him are perfect darkness, we must be like angels, our affections should be all in a flame in regard of fervency and activity. The very Turks, though they build their own houses low and homely, yet they take much pains about their mosques, their temples— they build them high and stately. David considered about a temple for God. 'The work is great, for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.' Now, says he, 'I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God.' Upon this foundation, that it was God-work, David raises this building, to make it his business, to prepare for it with all his might, as if he had said, 'Had it been for man, the work had been mean; it had wanted exceedingly of that weight which now it has; but the work is great, for the palace is not for man, but for God; and because it is a work of such infinite weight, therefore I have prepared for it with all my might.' I can think no pains great enough for so great a prince.

It was provided in the old law, that the weights and measures of the sanctuary should be double to the weights and measures of the commonwealth. The shekel of the sanctuary was half-a-crown of our money, and the shekel of the commonwealth but fifteen-pence; the cubit of the sanctuary a full yard, the common cubit but half a yard, compare 1 Kings vii. 15, with 2 Chronicles iii. 15. The common talent was one hundred and eighty-seven pounds ten shillings; the king's talent two hundred and eighty-one pounds five shillings; the talent of the sanctuary was three hundred and seventy-five pounds. And what was the gospel of this, but to teach us that in things that pertain to God, we must give double weight, double measure, double care, double diligence; though men be slothful and sluggish in the service of men, yet they must be fiery and 'fervent in spirit' when they are 'serving the Lord,' Romans 12. 11. To give brass money to any is lamentable, but to cast it into the treasury is most abominable. God is a great God, and looks to be served like himself, and according to his excellent greatness: 'Cursed be the deceiver which has in his flock a male, and sacrifices to the Lord a corrupt thing; for I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen,' Malachi 1. ult.

There are some of the heathen that worship the sun for a God, and would offer to the sun somewhat suitable; and therefore, because they wondered at the sun's swift motion, they would offer a horse with wings. Now a horse is a swift creature, and one of the strongest to continue in motion for a long time together; then, having wings added to him, they conceived him a sacrifice somewhat suitable to the sun. Surely much more cause have Christians to take care that their sacrifices to the glorious and boundless Majesty, be some way suitable to his inconceivable and infinite excellencies.

Further, godliness is eternity-work, and therefore must needs be of infinite weight, and is worthy of all our pains and diligence. We esteem lands which we hold in fee-simple to us and our heirs forever, at a far greater rate, and are more diligent to secure our titles to them, than those lands which we have only a lease of, or a life in. Men's estates are of more or less value, according to the term of years they have in them; ministers are often much more exact in their printing than in their preaching. Such in whose ordinary preaching words like a spring run full and fast, and sense, or at least judgment, like a pond stands still, will, if they print, screw their parts to the highest pitch, and spare for no pains that, if possible, sense and sentences, reason and expressions, may keep equal pace. Even those whose sermons, when delivered in their auditories, 'smell', as Chalcus said of Demosthenes' orations, 'of the lamp,' are the fruits of much prayer and study; yet when they are to publish them to the world, they will survey every sentence, weigh every word, bestow more care and labor on them—hence possibly our proverbial speech, when a thing is done exactly, this is done in print. But what is the ground of this? I suppose one of the chief, because men print, in a sense, for eternity. Sermons preached, or men's words, pass away with many like wind—how soon are they buried in the grave of oblivion! But sermons printed are men's works, live when they are dead, and become an image of eternity: 'This shall be written for the generation to come.'

Godliness is a work that relates not only to a few lives, as lands do, or to a few generations, as men's books do, but to the boundless, bottomless ocean of eternity indeed, and therefore calls for all our care and diligence. Drexelius observes well out of the father, Our works do not pass away as soon as they are done, as they may seem to do, but as seed sown in time, they rise up to all eternity. A little neglect now may prove an eternal loss; whatever we think, speak, or do, once thought, spoke, or done, it is eternal—it abides forever.

Eternal life is promised to the diligent, eternal death is the portion of the negligent. The former shall be bathed in 'the rivers of God's eternal pleasures,' the latter shall suffer the 'vengeance of eternal fire.' To be tormented day and night forever and ever, and to enjoy the 'exceeding and eternal weight of glory,' are certainly no jesting matters, but of more concernment than we can possibly conceive. Who would not labor hard to attain eternal life! Who would not work night and clay to avoid eternal death, eternal woe!

Zeuxis the famous limner made painting his business, and was exceeding careful and curious in drawing all his lines; he would let no piece of his go abroad into the world to be seen of men, until he had turned it over and over; viewed it on this side and that side again and again, and being asked the reason, answered, 'Because what I paint, I paint for eternity.' So it is with every man and woman in the exercise of godliness, it is of eternal concernment; we pray, we hear for eternity, we read, we sing, we watch, we fast, we live, we die for eternity; oh, how exactly, how diligently, should all be done!

The Holy Spirit urges it as a reason why men's eyes and hearts should not be set upon riches, because they are not eternal. In one place Solomon tells us, that riches 'are not/ Proverbs 23. 5. In another place, that they are 'not forever,' Proverbs 27. 4, because things that are not forever, are as if they were not at all. 'Eternal life is the true life,' says Augustine; this is but the shadow or semblance of life. The affairs of time are but trifles to the affairs of eternity; but our eyes and hearts must be set upon godliness, because it is forever, it will do a soul good forever; our Savior does from this argument command us to make godliness our chief employment: 'Labor not for the meat that perishes, but for that meat which endures to everlasting life,' John vi. 27, where labor for temporal food is not prohibited, but labor for eternal food is preferred.

It was the consideration of this that made the forty martyrs: suffer so venturously and valiantly under Licinius, A.D. 300. When Agricolaus, his deputy, and one of the devil's agents, set upon them several ways to draw them to deny Christ, and at last tempted them with an offer of wealth and preferment, they all cried out with one consent, 'Oh eternity, eternity, give us money that will last to eternity, and glory that will abide forever!' They slighted that pitiful wealth which was current only in this beggarly world, and made religion their business because it brought them in durable riches. Things that are transient and temporal may, like hasty storms, salute only the surface of our hearts, and away; but things that are permanent and eternal, must, like soft showers, sink deep into our affections, and command all our actions. Ah, did but man know what it is to be eternally in hell-fire, and what it is to live eternally in God's favor, he would do anything, were it never so hard, to arrive at Heaven.

The Romans built their temples round; and the rule of Pythagoras was, when men worshiped, they must turn themselves round. Those heathens had confused notions of eternity, and represented it by round things, because such had neither beginning nor end If they, by the light of nature, saw a little of it, and thence would have their temples and worship suitable to it, then much more we, who have clearer apprehensions by the light of Scripture, must have our conversations answerable.

 

 

CHAPTER 7.

The necessity of making religion our business, both in regard of the opposition a Christian meets with, and the multiplicity of business which lies upon him.

Thirdly, Godliness must be made our principal business, our main work, because otherwise we shall lose our reward. We say, As good never a whit, as never the better. Piety without much pains will redound to little or no profit. How foolish is that builder who, in setting up a house, has been at much cost, and yet loses all, because he will be at no further charge. Many 'lose what they have wrought,' 2 John 8. Their works, because not their business, are not perfect, and so to small purpose. 'The slothful roasts not what he took in hunting,' Proverbs 12. 27. He was at some labor to catch the beast, but was loath to be at any more in dressing it, and so all was lost; laboriousness to godliness is as the soul to the body, which, being separated from it, godliness dies and quickly becomes unsavory.

The reward of godliness is of infinite worth, the end of holiness (as of hope) is the salvation of the soul, the eternal and immediate enjoyment of God in Heaven. Now, who can think to attain the place of such ravishing pleasures without much pains?

Things that are most delicate cannot be had without the greatest difficulty; they that will enjoy large diadems must run through many deaths and dangers, and use much diligence. Nature herself will not bestow her precious treasure without much unwearied labor. Dust and dirt lie common in streets, but the gold and silver mines are buried in the affections of the earth, and they must work hard and dig deep that will come at them. Ordinary stones may be had in every quarry, but pearls are secret in the bottom of the sea, and they must dive low, and hazard their lives, that will fetch up the oysters in which they breed, and enjoy them.

When did we ever find nature so prodigal of her gifts, as to bestow skill and excellency in any are or science, without industry and diligence. Does she not force her students to beat their brains, to waste their bodies, to break their sleep, to burn up their strength, before she will permit them to pry into her secrets, to pick the lock of her curious cabinet, and gain any considerable knowledge of her wealth and richness? And can we think the God of nature will give men to know him, as they are known of him—will bestow on them the unspeakable gift, the pearl of price, the Holy of holies, such things as eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither man's heart conceived, while they lie lazy on the bed of idleness?

Heaven is not unfitly compared to a hill; among heathens to Olympus, among Christians to Mount Zion. They that will climb up to it must pant and blow and sweat for it. Elijah's translation to the place of bliss was much more speedy and facile than ordinary. We see no panting heart, no trembling hands, no quivering lips, no ghastly looks to be the forerunners of his passage into eternal life. Where the union is near and natural, there the separation is hard and painful, but behold here the marriage-knot between body and soul is not untied. Those loving relations, like husband and wife, ride triumphantly together in a stately chariot to the heavenly court; yet even in this rapture God would teach us that the virgin inheritance must be ravished: 'There appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into Heaven,' 2 Kings ii. 11. Why a chariot of fire, but to note that Heaven must be stormed and taken by force. Fire is the most active inanimate creature; hereby is figured that laborious action is the way to the beatifical vision. The chariot is made of fire, the wheels upon which it runs are a whirlwind. Activeness and violence are the only way to the blessed inheritance. Whoever entered into Heaven with ease? They that will be knighted must kneel for it; they that will wear the crown must win it. 'A man is not crowned except he strive lawfully,' that is, strenuously, 1 Timothy ii. 25. He who will be saved must 'work out his salvation, and that with fear and trembling,' Philippians ii.

Christ, who first bought the purchase, has already set the price upon which, and no other, the sons of men may come to the possession. There is, indeed, a twofold price of a thing, a natural price, when so much is laid down as is commensurate or proportionable to the thing bought; so the price of Heaven was the blood of Christ, Hebrews x. 19.

A agreed upon price, when so much is laid down, (though inferior to the commodity) upon which the seller is contented that you enjoy the thing desired; so labor, knocking, working, is the price of Heaven, Isaiah lv. 3. This price is made of man's future felicity, and Christ is resolved not to abate the least farthing. 'Strive,' says he, 'to enter in at the strait gate; for many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able,' Luke 13. 24. As if he had said, 'There will be many seekers, many that will both cheapen Heaven by a profession, and bid somewhat by performances, but they shall miss the place for want of more pains'; 'they shall not be able.' If you, therefore, have any love to your souls, be not only seekers but strivers; do not only cheapen and offer a little, but come up to the price. Put forth all your strength, as wrestlers do that strive for masteries, as ever you would enjoy those eternal pleasures. Men were as good bid nothing, as not come up to the seller's price.

'All run in a race, but one receives the prize; so run that you may obtain,' 1 Corinthians ix. 24. They that intend for the crown do beforehand diet themselves, breathe their bodies, and when they run for the conquest, strive and stretch themselves to the utmost; he who loiters, is as sure to lose as if he sat still.

The lazy world, because Christ sends men up and down with his wares, to offer them to every house, to every heart, think to have them at their own ordinary rates: but they shall find that grace, which is many degrees short of glory, is not to be had by sloth and idleness; there must be lifting up the heart, lending the ears, seeking, searching, begging, digging, attention of the outward, intention of the inward man, before men can 'understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God,' Proverbs ii. 3-5. Though it be easy to let the bucket into the well, yet it is hot work and hard labor to draw water out of the well of salvation. The laborious bee only is laden with honey.

'The desire of the slothful kills him, because his hands refuse to labor,' Proverbs 21. 5. He is full of wishing, but far from working. As the cat, he would gladly have the fish, but is unwilling to wet his feet; his desires are destitute of suitable endeavors, and therefore rather harm him than help him. Like Ishbosheth, he idles on his bed until he is deprived of his life. He thinks to be hurried in haste to Heaven, to be carried as passengers in a ship, asleep in their cabins to their haven, but is all the while in a deceitful dream. There is no going to those heavens where Christ is in his glory, as the sick man came to the house where Christ was in his estate of ignominy, let down in a bed.

He who will be but almost a Christian, must be content to go but almost to Heaven.

Idleness is the burial of our persons, and negligence is the burial of our actions. Writing on the sand is easy, but soon worn out, it is marred with a small breath of wind; but writing on marble, as it is more permanent, so it costs more pains. An idle servant is in God's esteem an evil servant; he does not distinguish between a slothful and an unfaithful man: his word tells us that he has bonds for those hands that are folded in the bosom, when they should be working for a blessing; that he has fetters for those feet that stand still, and stick fast in the mire and mud of sinful pleasures, when they should be running the way of his precepts; nay, that he has utter darkness for them that will not walk and work while they enjoy the light, Matthew 25. 26, 30. He who takes his ease in this world must travel in the next.

Two things show a necessity that godliness must be made our business, if ever we would make anything of it.

First, because of the opposition we meet with in the way of religion. When the wind and tide are both with the mariner, he may hoist up his sail and sit still, but when both are against him, he must row hard, or never think to come to his haven. The way to Heaven is like Jonathan's passage against the Philistines, between two rocks,—the one dirty; the other thorny; the men of the world will be ever diligent, either with dirt to bespatter their credits, or with thorns to wound and pierce their consciences, that walk in this path; he must therefore have a mind well resolved to take pains, and his feet well shod with patience, that will go this way to paradise. The way of this world is like the valley of Siddim, slimy and slippery, full of lime-pits and stumbling-blocks to maim or mischief us. Saints are princes in all lands; but as princes that pass through a country in disguise meet with many affronts, so do Christians.

The flesh is like bird-lime, which, when the spirit would at any time mount up to Heaven with the wings of faith and meditation, hampers and hinders it; it is the holy soul's prison, wherein it is fettered and fastened, that it cannot, as it would, walk at liberty, and seek God's precepts. The devil, both a serpent for craft and a lion for cruelty, does, out of his hatred to God, make it his constant business by his power and policy to hinder godliness. As the panther, because he cannot come at the person, he tears the picture wherever he finds it: 'We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers,' Ephesians vi. 12. While Satan reigns in a creature, all may be quiet and calm; but if he be once cast out, he will rage and roar to purpose. While Israel serves the Egyptians, carrying their crosses, bearing their burdens, doing their drudgery, all is well; but when once they shake off Pharaoh's yoke, turn their backs upon Egypt, and set out for Canaan, with what force and fury are they pursued to be brought back to their former bondage! Christ was no sooner baptized than buffeted; he went, as it were, out of the water of baptism into the fire of temptation. And if the prince were all his time persecuted, his subjects must not expect to be wholly privileged. The cross is tied as a tag to the profession of Christianity, Matthew x. 30. One article in the indenture which all apprentices must seal to, that will call Christ master, is to bear the cross daily, Matthew 16. The saints are as vessels floating on the waters of Meribah, where no wind blows but what is sharp and keen. The Hebrews were no sooner 'enlightened' to their conversion, but they 'endured a sharp fight of affliction;' their lightning was accompanied with a grievous storm, Hebrews x. 32. Holiness is usually followed with much hatred and hardship. The enemies of man's salvation are impudent and incessant, ever raging, never resting. What the Carthaginian commander said of Marcellus, may be truly spoken by us in regard of them, that we have to do with those who will never be quiet, either conquerors or conquered; but conquerors they will pursue their victory to the utmost, and conquered, labor to recover their loss. Satan especially is both wrathful and watchful to undermine souls. He is fitly called Beelzebub, the master-fly, because as a fly he quickly returns to the bait from which he was but now beaten. 'Though emperors may turn Christians,' says Augustine, 'yet the devils will not.'

Does not this fully speak the necessity of making godliness our business? Can such difficulties be conquered without much diligence? Who can eat his way, like Hannibal, through such Alps of opposition without hot water and hard work? If, like Samson, we would break all these cords of opposition in sunder, we must awake out of sleep, and put forth all our strength. Saints are all called to be soldiers; our whole life is a warfare, 'All the days of my appointed time,' Job 14. 14; an expositor reads it, 'All the days of my warfare I will wait until my change come.' The soldier's life is no lazy life; armies are wholly for action, especially when they deal with such subtle strong adversaries, that assault them day and night without ceasing. Who can conquer three such mighty monarchs as flesh, world, and devil are, or force his way through their temptations and suggestions, unless he fight in earnest, and make it his business? That fire, if ever any, had need to be hot, that must melt and overcome such hard metal; and that hand, if ever any, had need to work hard, that will remove and level such high mountains. If the silly have, pursued by such a pack of hounds, offer once to stand still or lie down, she is sure to be torn in pieces and devoured. 'There is a time,' says the holy bishop, 'when kings go not forth to warfare'; our spiritual war admits no intermission, it knows no night, no winter; abides no peace, no truce; this calls us not into garrison, where we may have ease and respite, but into pitched fields continually; we see our enemies in the face always, and are always seen and assaulted; ever resisting, ever defending, receiving, and returning blows; if either we be negligent or weary, we die. We can never have safety and peace but in victory; there must our resistance be courageous and constant, where both yielding is death, and all treaties of peace mortal.

Secondly, there is a necessity of making it our main work, because of the multiplicity of business that is incumbent on every Christian. That stream had need to run freely, and with full force, that must be divided into many channels. That estate had need to be large, that must be parted among many children. Who can count the variety of works that every Christian must be engaged in? How many dangers he must wade through? How many snares must he avoid? How many taunts and mocks must he abide? How many temptations must he conquer? How many graces must he exercise? How many lusts must he mortify? How many duties must he perform? Every relation, every condition calls for answerable duty and diligence; every ordinance must be improved by him, every providence must be sanctified to him. Mercies must, like a ladder, mount him nearer to Heaven; misery must, like the famine to the prodigal, force him to hasten to his father's house. His wife, his children, his servants, his neighbors, his friends, his enemies, his shop, his closets, his visits, his journeys, do all require suitable service; and who can perform it that is not diligent and constant?

Consider him in reference to God's immediate worship; he must pray, hear, read, meditate, watch, fast, sanctify sabbaths, sing psalms, receive the sacrament, and in all walk humbly, reverently, and uprightly with his God. Consider him in reference to poor men; he must love mercy, and supply their necessities according to his ability, and not, like a muck-heap, good for nothing until carried forth; whatever men he deals with, he must do justly, love his neighbor as himself, and as Cod gives him opportunity, provoke them to mind grace and sanctity; as musk, perfume, if possible, all that he comes near. Consider him in reference to himself; he must live soberly, vigilantly; his heart is like a subtle, sturdy thief, ever seeking to break the jail, and therefore must have a strong guard; his corrupt nature is like fire, and his whole man like thatch, and therefore he must keep a narrow watch; his senses are the outworks, which Satan is ever assaulting, by them to gain the royal fort of the soul, that he must defend them with care and courage day and night. What is said of the gardener, is true of every Christian. His work is never at an end; the end of one work is but the beginning of another; he must always be employed, either in dunging, dressing, ploughing, sowing, harrowing, weeding, or reaping his ground; he has no leisure to be idle and lazy, who has so much work lying upon his hand. Seneca thought philosophy cut him out so much work, that he was necessitated to spend every day, and part of the nights, in making it up. Christianity, a nobler mistress, as she gives better wages, so she commands greater work; that her servants may say well with the emperor, 'Let no day pass without a line'; and with Solomon's housewife, not let their candle go out by night, Proverbs 30.

The French Duke d'Alva could say, when he was asked by Henry the Fourth whether he had seen the eclipse of the sun, that he had so much business to do upon earth, that he had no time to look up to Heaven. 'Sure I am,' the Christian may say with more truth and conscience, that he has so much business to do for Heaven, that he has no time to mind vain or earthly things. That servant who does ponder the strictness of his master, consider the shortness of his time, conceive the largeness of his task, and believe the weightiness of his work, how it must be done, or he is undone forever, will be easily convinced that it very nearly concerns him, that it highly behooves him, to shake off sloth and sluggishness, to gird up the loins of his mind, to give it the precedence in all his actions, to pursue it with industry against all opposition, to persevere in it with constancy to his dissolution, and, in a word, to make it his main business, his principal work.

 

 

CHAPTER 8.

 

A complaint that this trade is so dead, and the world's trade so quick.

The use which I shall make of this doctrine, shall be either by way of complaint or counsel.

First, by way of lamentation. If godliness ought to be every one's principal business, how sadly should it be lamented that this calling is so exceedingly neglected! What one man is there of many that does follow this trade, and exercise himself to godliness? Men generally cry out, trading is dead, their particular callings are gone; they make no considerable returns, they stand in their shops all the day idle. But may not God rather complain, the holy heavenly trade is decayed and dead; general callings are left and lost; why stand you all the day idle, and refuse to work in my vineyard? While the devil has whole droves to do his drudgery, the flesh vast flocks to flatter its fancies, and the world many millions to admire and adore its vanities, 'The ways of Zion mourn, they are unoccupied, none come to the solemn feasts, all her gates are desolated.' While the lawyer's closet is filled with clients for counsel about their estates, the physician's chamber with patients about their bodily health, and the tradesman's shop crowded with customers, Jesus Christ is left alone; though he offers wares which are of infinite worth, and stretches out his hand all the day long, yet no man regards.

It is reported of some Spaniards that live near the place where is store of fish, that they will rather go without them than take the pains to catch them. Heaven and happiness, Savior and salvation, are near men, they are brought to their very doors; and yet men will rather lose than labor for them, rather go sleeping to Hell, than sweating to Heaven. 'All seek their own, and none the things of Jesus Christ.'

Offer a crust to a dog and he will catch at it, offer him a crown and he will despise it; offer these men the crusts of vanity, and how greedily are they embraced, while the crown of glory is most unworthily despised; like beastly swine, they trample this pearl under their feet, and love to wallow in the mire.

But possibly you may say that there are many that make religion their business, only they are so near me that (according to the rule of optics, which requires a due distance between the faculty and the object) I cannot behold them; they abound in every country, parish, family; all are Christians, and make the worship of God their main work.

I must answer as he did when he saw the vast army of Antiochus, there are many men, but few soldiers; many mouths, but few hands: there are many nominal, but few real Christians; many that flourish like fencers, beating only the air, but few that fight in earnest the good fight of faith. Godliness has many complimenting servants, that will give her the cap and the knee, a few good words and outward ceremonies; but godliness has few faithful friends, that make her the mistress of their affections, that give her the command of their hearts, and that wait upon her, and walk with her all the day long. Pretenders to her service are indeed like the sand of the sea, numerous; but practitioners or faithful servants are like the pearl of the sea, rare and precious; many court her, but few marry her; for indeed men generally deal with godliness as the Germans with the Italians, or the Dutch with the Spaniards, hold a fair outward correspondence, enough to serve for mutual trade and traffic, but enter not into a near familiarity; they have no great intimacy with godliness; it is rather a stranger to them, whom now and then they bestow a visit on for fashion sake, than an indweller or constant inhabitant.

Lepidus Major, a loose Roman, when his comrades were exercising themselves in the camp, would lay himself down to sleep in the shade, and cry out, 'Would this were all the duty I were to do.' Such soldiers are many who pretend to fight under Christ's banner; when they should be watching their souls, and warring with Satan and sin, they are sleeping and snoring, as if that were the way to work out their salvations. Reader, I must acquaint you with the physician's rule, that 'Weariness without some apparent cause is a sign of a diseased body'; so your laziness does speak a very unsound soul.

This complaint is urged with a threefold consideration.

First, how eager is the worldling for wealth and earthly things! Though they loiter about the meat which endures to eternal life, yet they can labor for the meat that perishes; though they are so negligent about the kingdom of Heaven, yet the kingdom of earth suffers violence. What pains do the mariners take for treasure! What perils does the soldier undergo for plunder! What labor and industry does the gardener use for profit! He rises early, sits up late, denies himself, loses his sleep, rides and runs to and fro, embraces all opportunities, is eaten up almost with cares and fears, all for the earthly mammon; while the heavenly mansions are like the unknown part of the world, which no man regards or looks after; they 'pant after the dust of the earth,' as greedily as hot creatures do after the air to cool their scorched entrails, Amos ii. 7. The serpent's curse is entailed on that poisonous brood; the dust is their diet, they feed on ashes, Genesis iii. 14; Amos vii. They laugh at dangers, and trample upon difficulties, they force their way through darkness and the shadow of death, through stifling damps and overflowing floods, through rocks and mountains, in the pursuit of earthly treasures, Job 28. 9-11. It is said of the Dutch, they are so industrious at navigation, that, if it were possible to sail in ships to Heaven, they would not come short of that haven. Ah, what pity is it that this jewel should hang in a swine's snout, which would so well become the Christian's finger; that this diligence, this violence, should be exercised about men's earthly and particular, which would so well suit their heavenly and general, calling. The ambitious person, like the panther, is so greedy of the poisonous aconite (hung up by the hunters purposely in vessels above their reach) of air and honor, that he never leaves leaping and straining thereat until he breaks and bursts himself in sunder.

The covetous man, says one, that has more than enough, yet perplexes himself with his own wants, look how like a fool he goes, leading his horse in his hand, and carrying his saddle on his back, until he be pickled in his own sweat, and killed with cares, when his horse would with ease carry him and his saddle. The voluptuous man, like the drone, is busy about the glass of water baited with honey; in it he labors and wearies himself, even until he be drowned.

How do men, like the Israelites in the Egyptian bondage, travel up and down, and even weary themselves to gather straw! What pains do they take to hew unto themselves broken cisterns! Their chief strife is, with the toads, who shall fall asleep with most earth in their paws, who shall leave this world with most wealth in their hands; their parts and gifts, their time and talents, are all improved to help forward their earthly trade; they are 'wiser in their generation than the children of light.'

Oh, how lamentable is it that the onions and garlic of Egypt are preferred before the milk and honey of Canaan! Luther tells us of a nobleman at Vienna, in the time of his abode there, which made a great supper, and in the midst of his mirth belched out this windy and blasphemous speech, 'If God will leave me this world to live and enjoy my pleasure therein but a thousand years, then let him take his Heaven to himself.' This man spoke what most men think; the bramble of their bodies reigns, and fire arises out of it to consume the cedar of their souls.

The heathen haves admired and bemoaned man's industry about earth; they have wondered what made man, who is of an erect countenance looking up to Heaven, thus to bow down and bury himself alive in the earth. Tertullian stood amazed at the folly of the Romans, who would undergo all manner of hazards and hardships to be consul, which he fitly calls one year's fleeting joy. The prophet tells such that they 'rejoice in a thing of nothing,' Amos vii. Nay, the aforementioned moralist tells us, that such worldlings take a great deal of pains to do nothing. That their whole life is but a laborious loitering, or at most a more painful kind of playing; their account will be nothing but ciphers; like children, they run up and down, and labor hard to catch a gaudy butterfly, which, when caught, will foul their fingers and fly from them. mortal men, 'how long will you love vanity, and follow after leasing?' Psalm iv.

Is it not sad, that so noble a being as man's soul should be wholly taken up with such mean, sordid things? That phrase in Psalm 24. 5, 'That has not lift up his soul unto vanity,' is read by Arius Montanus, 'He who has not received his soul in vain.' Oh how many receive their souls in vain, making no more use of them than the swine, of whom the philosopher observes, 'Their souls are only for salt to keep their bodies from stinking.' Who would not grieve to think that so choice a piece should be employed about so vain a use!

Reader, if one should be entrusted with the education of a great prince, (who was descended of the blood-royal, and heir to a large empire) and should set him only to rake in dunghills, or cleanse ditches, you would exceedingly condemn such a governor. Would you not think, 'It is pity, indeed, that so noble a person should be busied about such low, unworthy projects?' God has entrusted you with a precious soul, descended highly, even from God himself, claiming kindred with the glorious angels, and capable of inheriting that kingdom, to which the most glorious empires of the world are but muck-heaps. Are you not one of them that employ this princely soul altogether about unsuitable and earthly practices, and causing it (as the lapwing, though it have a coronet on its head) to feed on excrements? It was one cause of Jeremiah's sad lamentation, that 'the precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,' should be esteemed as 'earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter;' that they which were 'brought up in scarlet,' should 'embrace dunghills,' Lamentations iv. 2, 5. Have not we more cause of sorrow that men's souls, the precious sons of God, should be put to no better use than earthen pitchers; that they which should be brought up delicately in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, should be busy about dross, and embrace dunghills; that your precious soul should thus lackey after earth and vanity, when it should, like an angel, be always standing and waiting in the presence of God?

Who can read the stories how Domitian the king spent his time in catching flies; Solyman the Magnificent in making arrow-heads; Achmat the last in making strings for bows; Harcatius, the king of Persia, in catching moles; Caligula, the emperor, in playing the poet; Nero, the emperor, in fiddling; and not admire at their folly, that such great princes should busy themselves in things so infinitely below their places. But your folly, reader, (if one of them I am writing of) is far greater, in that your practices are more below your spiritual and heavenly principle. May I not say to you, as Philip to Alexander, when he heard him singing, Are you not ashamed, being a king's son, to sing so well? Are you not ashamed, being an immortal angelical substance, the offspring of God, and capable of his likeness and love, to be glued as a toad-stool to the earth, to spend your time and strength, venture the perishing of your mortal body, and immortal soul too, for that meat which perishes? It is storied of Pope Sixtus that he sold his soul to the devil, for seven years' enjoyment of the popedom. What fool ever bought so dear? What madman ever sold so cheap? Yet every worldly person does implicitly the same with this pope. He sells what is more worth than all the world for a little wind. Ah, how costly is that treasure which makes him a beggar to all eternity!

O Lord, what a foolish, silly thing is man, to prize and take pains for husks before bread, vanity before solidity, a shadow before the substance, the world's scraps before the costly feast, the dirty kennels before the crystal water of life, an apple before paradise, a mess of pottage before the birthright, and the least fleeting and inconstant good before the greatest, truest, and eternal good. Their particular callings are but about earth—the lowest, meanest, and vilest of all the elements in these callings; they deal but with men and brutes; their gains here at best cannot be large, because their lives here cannot be long; and yet how eagerly are they pursued! how closely are they followed! how constantly are they busied about them! Their general callings are about their souls, their eternal salvations; in these they have to do with the blessed God, the lovely Savior, in communion with whom is Heaven upon earth; their gains here are above their thoughts, and beyond their most enlarged desires, no less than infinite and eternal! The profit of godliness is invaluable above price. 'It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof: It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold,' Job 28. 15-20; yet how lingeringly is this calling entered upon, how lazily is it followed, and how quickly cast off. foolish man, who has bewitched you, that you do thus dislike and disobey the truth?

I cannot more fitly resemble man than to a silly hen, which, though much good corn lie before her, takes little notice of it, but still scrapes in the earth. The favor of God, the promises of the gospel, the covenant of grace, the blood of Christ, the embroidery of the Spirit, the life of faith, the hope of Heaven, joy in the Holy Spirit, are laid before man; yet he overlooks them all, and lives like a mole, digging and delving in the earth.

Though men see before their eyes a period and end of all earthly perfections, that the beauty, bravery of all earthly things is but like a fair picture drawn on ice, quickly perishing; that their riches and estates are but like snow, which children take much pains to rake and scrape together to make a ball of, which upon the sun's shining on, it presently melts away; though they see daily men that hoarded up silver, and wrought hard for wealth, hurried away into the other world, leaving all their heaps behind them; yet they will take no warning, but, as the silly lark, still play with the feather in the glass until they are caught and destroyed by the fowler. Men wrong themselves, and misconstrue God, who, as if he had hidden those things because he would have them sought, and laid the other open for neglect, bend themselves only to the seeking of those earthly commodities, and do no more mind Heaven than if there were none. If we would imagine a beast to have reason, how could he be more absurd in his choice?

What a beast is he to love his silver above his soul, and lose his God for a little corruptible gold. While he lives, like the king of Armenia, by Marc. Anton., he is a close prisoner in golden fetters; and when he dies, this worldling may say to his darling, as Cornelius Agrippa to his familiar spirit near his end, 'Begone, you wicked wretch, you have undone me.'

It was good counsel which was given John, the third king of Portugal, to meditate a quarter of an hour every day on that divine sentence, (and oh that, reader, I could persuade you to it!) 'What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?' Matthew 16. I have read of a philosopher, who, living near a blacksmith, and hearing him up every morning at his hammer and anvil, before he could get out of his bed to his book, professed himself much ashamed that such an ignoble trade as a smith's should be more diligently attended than his more serious and excellent studies. What say you, reader; do you not blush to think that worldlings are more busy and laborious about the low things, the rattles and trifles of this life, than you are about the high affairs of God and your soul, the noble and serious concernments of eternity?

 

CHAPTER 9.

The complaint continued, that this calling is so much neglected, when superstition and sin are embraced and diligently followed.

Secondly, how do men make superstition and idolatry their business? Though they are careless about divine institutions, yet they are zealous for human traditions. How zealous were the pharisees for the inventions of their elders! they called them completions or perfections, esteeming them both helpful to the observation of the law of God, and also to the perfection of it. Superstitious persons do naturally think that their postures, gestures, ceremonies, and additions, do render the worship of God more lovely and more complete; but truly such embrace a cloud instead of Juno, worship the shadow of Christ, while the prince himself goes unsaluted. Men are exceeding prone to, and earnest for, such vain and false ways and worship, partly because it is pleasing to corrupt spirits, who naturally love a fair show in the flesh; a pompous holiness suits best with a proud heart; partly because these traditions were received from their ancestors; and as Augustine observed in his time, men were resolved, right or wrong, to be followers of their fathers. Suitable to which, Cicero said, I will never forsake that way of divine service which I have received from my forefathers, for any man s pleasure, or by any man's persuasion; no, not though Christ himself died to redeem them from their 'vain conversations, received by tradition from their fathers,' 1 Peter I. 18, 19. Hence, though they are so backward where God commands, yet they are forward when men command. What an outcry does Micah make for his idol! What a privy search does Laban make for his image! Gideon must die for throwing down the altar of Baal. How earnest many are for priests, tapers, altars, sacrifices, days, meats, consecrations, the holy of holies, crossings and cringings! In these their zeal is hot, boiling over to the scalding of themselves and others. Though this fervency is aptly compared to a ship without ballast, overtired with sails, which in a storm casts away all aboard her, they disesteem their estates and possessions in comparison of idolatry and superstition. Such persons are not only liberal, but lavish. Jeroboam will be at great cost for his idols; they must be not iron or brazen, no, not silver, but golden calves; not gilded over, but massy, molten gold. 'They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he makes it a God, and they fall down and worship it,' Isaiah xlvi. 6. The Israelites will spare their jewels for their idols, Exodus. 32. 3. Micah's mother, to make molten and graven images, will lay out eleven hundred shekels of silver, Judges 17. 2, 3. The papists are so prodigal,—though it is the less wonder in them, because they hold such actions meritorious of salvation, (and what would not a man give or do to be saved?)—that not only their churches, but even cloisters, are stuck and stuffed with costly, pearly presents to their supposed saints. The Indians in the isle of Ceylon, having a consecrated ape's tooth got from them, offered an incredible mass of treasure to recover it. How many zealots, that will hardly give a penny to the relief of a poor Christian, throw away pounds for the maintenance of superstition!

They slight their relations to further their idolatrous devotion. The superstitious Jews would sacrifice their children to Moloch, 2 Kings 17. 17. The Carthaginians at one time, 1 (after they had received an overthrow by Agathocles) sacrificed two hundred of their prime nobility to appease their incensed deity. Good God! Where is man fallen, to be more cruel than a beast to the children of his own body! What slavery is it to serve Satan, and what liberty to serve you!

Nay, they will sacrifice not only their estates and children, but their lives and all their outward comforts, to superstition. How did the worshipers of Baal cut and lance themselves! Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that smote him, 2 Chronicles 28. 23; so fervent he was that he chose rather in the service of false gods to be scourged, than in the service of the true God to be saved.

Among the Mohammedans are a sect called the dervishes, whose sharp and strict penances exceed those of the papists; they live on the tops of hills, solitary, for contemplation; fast, until nature be almost decayed; have no clothes but to cover their nakedness; wear such massy fetters of iron upon their legs that they can scarce stir, and yet go as fast as they can with them many miles, to visit the sepulchers of their deluded saints. The Turks willingly lay down their lives in their wars to propagate their religion, which their prophet has taught them must be done, not by disputing with, but by destroying others. The unhappy Jesuit, though his religion be a heap of formalities, as the Turks' a bundle of fooleries, is yet so zealous for it, that Campian could impudently, in a letter to Queen Elizabeth's council, affirm, that as long as there was one Jesuit left for Tyburn, they had vowed never to desist endeavors to set up their religion in this nation. Oh, devout ungodliness, or ungodly devotion! How few take such pains to go to Heaven, as many do to go to Hell!

Alas! What sorrow does this call for and command! that men should be so hot and fiery in will-worship, in false worship, wasting their wealth, cutting and carving their bodies as if they were made only to be their slaves, and themselves to be the tyrants over them, laying out so much cost, and exercising so much cruelty, for that which is worse than nothing, for that which will not only not profit them, but extremely and eternally prejudice them; and in the interim the easy yoke of Christ is scorned, the power of godliness slighted, which might be minded with much more mildness and mercy to their outward and inward man.

It was a good meditation of a fore-quoted author, 'Those that travel in long pilgrimages to the Holy Land, what a number of weary paces they measure! What a number of hard lodgings and known dangers they pass! And at last, when they are come within view of their journey's end, what a large tribute they pay at the Pisan Castle to the Turks! And when they are come thither, what see they but the bare sepulcher wherein their Savior lay, and the earth that he trod upon, to the increase of a carnal devotion!' What labor should I willingly undertake in my journey to the true land of promise, the celestial Jerusalem, where I shall see and enjoy my Savior himself! What tribute of pain or death should I refuse to pay for my entrance, not into his sepulcher, but his palace of glory, and that not to look upon, but to possess it?

Thirdly, as many make the world their main work, and others superstition their principal occupation, so most make wickedness their chief, their constant trade and business. While sanctity is but coldly entertained, but complimented with, sin is laid in the bosom and heartily embraced; the turnings and windings that are in the sinner's way are not easily to be observed; the pains which he takes to bring forth and breed up those birds which will peck out his own eyes, can neither be fully described nor sufficiently lamented. In what haste and hurry is Absalom for a halter! what work does lust make in Amnon to waste his body, and send his soul to endless woe! how fast does Gehazi run after a leprosy, as if he might come too late! how sick and violent is Ahab for Naboth's vineyard! how fiercely does Balaam ride, even without reins, after the wages of unrighteousness! how eager and earnest were Pharaoh and his Egyptians to fight against God! what a stir, what ado they make to overtake destruction, and to 'sink like lead in the midst of the mighty waters! 'Joshua could stop the sun in his course, but not Achan in his covetous career. Paul, before his conversion, as one observes, followed the saints with such close persecution, and was so mad upon it, that like a tired wolf, wearied in worrying the flock, he lay panting for breath, and yet still breathed out persecution; in one journey he traveled one hundred and sixty miles—namely, from Jerusalem to Damascus—as an inquisitor for private heresy. At Musselburgh-field many of the Scots ran away so fast that they fell down dead; truly so do men by sin run away apace from God, even to the tiring of themselves here, and tormenting themselves hereafter. They run as fast as if they feared that Hell would be full before they came thither.

'The wicked man travails with pain all his days,' Job 15. 20. A wicked man's whole course is spent in carking care, as the LXX read it. He has many sharp throes, bitter pangs, before he can bring forth that hideous, horrible monster, sin. Some women are very long in labor, several days in pain; but a willful, wicked man travails with pain all his days; he works himself weary in digging descents into Hell, and labors harder at it than many do for Heaven. I remember Buntingus, when he comes to the travels of Antiochus Epiphanius, that fierce enemy of God's people, first relates the tedious journeys, (in all eight thousand one hundred and fifty-three miles) various hazards, desperate dangers and difficulties which this wicked wretch underwent to satisfy his malice, and gratify his revengeful spirit, and then concludes thus: We see that the wicked, with more sorrows, troubles, and vexations, gain eternal damnation, than the just, though they suffer grievous affliction, obtain everlasting salvation. For among all the patriarchs, good princes, and prophets, there is not found any that had so many long and tedious journeys as this Antiochus, who continually oppressed his mind and conscience with unprofitable vanities and wicked thoughts, and at length had a miserable and terrible end.

Though God has few diligent servants, yet the devil has many drudging slaves, that work hard at grinding in his mill all their days. Their calling is a trade of corruption, which they follow with diligence and constancy. 'They plough iniquity, sow wickedness, and reap the same,' Job iv. 8. Alas! what pains do they take to pollute themselves spiritually, and perish eternally! They plough iniquity. Ploughing is no easy, lazy work. We say of such works as require much pains, a man is as good go to plough all day; these sons of Belial, that will not stoop to the easy yoke of the Savior, can submit their proud necks to the hard yoke of Satan, and follow his plough willingly. Sin is their diet, their meat and drink: 'They eat the bread of violence, and drink the wine of deceit,' Proverbs iv. 17. Nay, it is their dainties, their delicacies; 'Let me not eat of their dainties,' Psalm 141. 4. These apish monkeys, who now and then act the part of Christians without a principle of Christianity, feed on spiders, on poison. Further, it is not only their nourishment in the day, but their refreshment in the night: 'They cannot sleep unless they cause some to fall,' Proverbs iv. 16. Until their stomachs are gorged and glutted with the sweetmeats of sin, and thereby their heads filled with filthy fumes and vapors arising thence, they can take no rest. They love sin above sleep; and let them but riot, they will lose their rest. The murderer rises with the light to cut asunder the silver thread of his neighbor's life. The drunkard, that hellish good husband, can be all night drinking health to others, while he leaves none to himself; how often does his brains crow before break of day! The thief and adulterer love and long for darkness to cover and countenance their cursed deeds, Job 24. 14-16; Proverbs vii. 9. Once more, as sin is their nourishment, their food and sleep, so it is their garment, their ornament. 'Pride compasses them about as a chain, violence covers them as a garment,' Psalm 73. 6. A chain of pearl does not better become their necks, nor the richest robes adorn their backs, than sin does, in their judgments, become and suit their souls; they glory in their shame. Plato says of Protagoras, that he boasted, whereas he had lived sixty years, he had spent forty years in corrupting youth. They brag of that which they ought to bewail.

They plot sin with their heads; 'they conceive mischief,' Psalm vii. 14. They affect sin with their hearts; 'their hearts are after their covetousness/ Ezekiel 33. They act with their hands what their heads forge and their hearts favor; they 'do evil with both hands earnestly,' Micah vii. 3. They work so hard until they are weary; 'You have wearied yourself in the multitude of your counsels,' Isaiah xlvii. 13. Pliny says of the scorpion, that there is not one minute wherein he does not put forth his sting; these cannot cease from sin, 2 Peter ii.; they do even contend which of them shall exceed in sin, as unhappy boys strive who shall go farthest in the dirt.

All the rubs which are laid in their way do rather increase their rage than hinder their riot. When God would stop the stream of their lusts by his prohibitions, laws, judgments, like waters dammed up, they swell the more, and like the possessed person, break all those cords in pieces. When Paul chides the Ephesians for their idolatry, they cry out for it with the greater vehemency. When Stephen had reproved the Jews for their cruelty, 'they were cut to the heart, and gnash upon him with their teeth,' Acts vii. 54, 57. When Ahaz was hampered in affliction, like a mad dog he bites at his chain, and 'sins yet more in his distress against the Lord.' When the sinner's tide of nature is thwarted and crossed by the winds of reproof, or some judgment, what a storm is presently raised! how does he, like the sea, presently discover and 'foam out his own shame.' Though God command, entreat, persuade, threaten, promise, yet all this physic does often but move and stir, not remove nor purge away their ill-humours. Oh how deadly is that disease which no physic can cure! and how tough is that wood which no wedge can cleave! The bird will beware of the pitfall in which she has been caught, and the beast of the snare in which he has been taken; but brutish man, more foolish than beasts, will not be parted from sin, though he has been sharply punished for it.

'The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stops her ears; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely,' Psalm 58:3-5. The serpent, when she begins to feel the charmer, claps one ear presently to the ground, and stops the other ear with her tail, although by hearkening to the charmer, as some observe, she would be provoked to spit out her poison, and renew her age. So hot is man upon his harlot sin, that he is deaf to all that would counsel him to the contrary; he stops his ear, hardens his heart, stiffens his neck against the thunders of the law, the still voice of the gospel, the motions of the Spirit, and the convictions of his own conscience. When sin calls, they run through thick and thin for haste; when the world commands, how readily do they hearken, how quickly do they hear, how faithfully do they obey! but when the blessed God cries to them, charges them by his unquestionable authority, beseeches them for their own unchangeable felicity, they, like statues of men rather than living creatures, stand still and stir not at all. Other things move swiftly to their centers; stones fall tumbling downward, sparks fly apace upward!