parum

appetitum : amare et odisse (res omnium maximè liberas) jubentur:" "There are some persons whose life is so wholly in dependence from others, that they sleep when others please, they eat and drink according to their master's appetite or intemperance: they are commanded to love or hate, and are not left free in the very charter and privileges of nature." "Miserum est, servire sub dominis felicibus." For suppose the prince or the patron be vicious; suppose he calls his servants to bathe their souls in the goblets of intemperance; if he be also imperious, (for such persons love not to be contradicted in their vices,) it is the loss of that man's fortune not to lose his soul; and it is the servant's excuse, and he esteems it also his glory, that he can tell a merry tale, how his master and himself did swim in drink, till they both talked like fools, and then did lie down like beasts. "Facinus quos

inquinat, æquat:" There is then no difference, but that the one is the fairest bull, and the master of the herd. And how many tenants and relatives are known to have a servile conscience, and to know no affirmation or negation but such as shall serve their landlord's interest! Alas! the poor men live by it, and they must beg their bread, if ever they turn recreant, or shall offer to be honest. There are some trades whose very foundation is laid in the vice of others; and in many others, if a thread of deceit do not quite run through all their negotiations, they decay into the sorrows of beggary; and, therefore, they will support their neighbour's vice, that` he may support their trade. And what would you advise those men to do, to whom a false oath is offered to their lips and a dagger at their heart? Their reason is surprised, and their choice is seized upon, and all their consultation is arrested; and if they did not prepare beforehand, and stand armed with religion and perfect resolution, would not any man fall, and think that every good man will say his case is pitiable? Although no temptation is bigger than the grace of God, yet many temptations are greater than our strengths; and we do not live at the rate of a mighty and a victorious grace.

Those persons which cause these vicious necessities upon their brethren, will lie low in hell; but the others will have but small comfort in feeling a lesser damnation.

Of the same consideration it is, when ignorant people are catechized into false doctrine, and know nothing but

such principles which weaken the nerves and enfeeble the joints of holy living; they never heard of any other. Those that follow great and evil examples, the people that are engaged in the public sins of a kingdom, which they understand not, and either must venture to be undone upon the strength of their own little reasonings and weak discoursings, or else must go qua itur, non qua eundum est,' there where the popular misery hath made the way plain before their eyes, though it be uneven and dangerous to their consciences. In these cases I am forced to reckon a catalogue of mischiefs; but it will be hard to cure any of them. Aristippus, in his discourses, was a great flatterer of Dionysius of Sicily, and did own doctrines which might give an easiness to some vices, and knew not how to contradict the pleasures of his prince, but seemed like a person disposed to partake of them, that the example of a philosopher and the practiee of a king might do countenance to a shameful life. But when Dionysius sent him two women-slaves, fair and young, he sent them back, and shamed the easiness of his doctrine by the severity of his manners; he daring to be virtuous when he was alone, though, in the presence of him whom he thought it necessary to flatter, he had no boldness to own the virtue. So it is with too many: if they be left alone, and that they stand unshaken with the eye of their tempter, or the authority of their lord, they go whither their education or their custom carries them; but it is not in some natures to deny the face of a man and the boldness of a sinner, and, which is yet worse, it is not in most men's interest to do it. These men are in a pitiable, condition, and are to be helped by the following rules.

1. Let every man consider that he hath two relations to serve, and he stands between God and his master and his nearest relative; and in such cases it comes to be disputed whether interest be preferred, which of the persons is to be displeased, God or my master, God or my prince, God or my friend. If we be servants of the man, remember also that I am a servant of God: add to this, that if my present service to the man be a slavery in me, and a tyranny in him, yet God's service is a noble freedom. And Apollonius said well, 'It was for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak the truth.' "If be freed by the blood of the Son of God, then you

you

are free indeed:" and then consider how dishonourable it is to lie, to the displeasure of God, and only to please your fellow-servant. The difference here is so great, that it might be sufficient only to consider the antithesis. Did the man make you what you are? Did he Did he pay his blood for you, to save you from death? Does he keep you from sickness ? True: you eat at his table; but they are of God's provisions that he and you feed of. Can your master free you from a fever, when you have drunk yourself into it; and restore your innocence, when you have forsworn yourself for his interest? Is the charge reasonable? He gives you meat and drink, for which you do him service: but is not he a tyrant and an usurper, an oppressor and an extortioner, if he will force thee to give thy soul for him, to sell thy soul for old shoes and broken bread? But when thou art to make thy accounts of eternity, will it be taken for an answer, My patron or my governor, my prince or my master, forced me to it? or, if it will not, will he undertake a portion of thy flames? or, if that may not be, will it be, in the midst of all thy torments, any ease to thy sorrows to remember all the rewards and clothes, all the money and civilities, all the cheerful looks and familiarity and fellowship of vices, which, in your lifetime, made your spirit.so gay and easy? It will, in the eternal loads of sorrow, add a duplicate of groans and indignation, when it shall be remembered for how base and trifling an interest, and upon what weak principles, we fell sick and died eternally.

2. The next advice to persons thus tempted is, that they would learn to separate duty from mistaken interest, and let them be both served in their just proportions, when we have learned to make a difference. A wife is bound to her husband in all his just designs, and in all noble usages and Christian comportments: but a wife is no more bound to pursue her husband's vicious hatreds, than to serve and promote his unlawful and wandering loves. It is not always a part of duty to think the same propositions, or to curse the same persons, or to wish him success in unjust designs: and yet the sadness of it is, that a good woman is easily tempted to believe the cause to be just; and when her affection hath forced her judgment, her judgment for ever after shall carry the affection to all its erring and abused determinations. A

hence it is that iniquity does so much abound; and unless we state our questions right, and perceive the evil to be designed only from ourselves, and that no such pretence shall keep off the punishment or the shame from ourselves, we shall fall into a state which is only capable of compassion, because it is irrecoverable; and then we shall be infinitely miserable, when we can only receive a useless and ineffective pity. Whatsoever is necessary cannot be avoided; he, therefore, that shall say, he cannot avoid his sin, is out of the mercies of this text: they who are appointed guides and physicians of souls, cannot, to any purposes, do their offices of pity. It is necessary that we serve God, and do our duty, and secure the interest of our souls, and be as careful to preserve our relations to God as to our friend or prince. But if it can be necessary for any man, in any condition, to sin, it is also necessary for that man to perish.

SERMON XVII.

PART II.

4. THE last sort of them that sin, and yet are to be treated with compassion, is of them that interrupt the course of an honest life with single acts of sin, stepping aside and starting like a broken bow;' whose resolution stands fair, and their hearts are towards God, and they sojourn in religion, or rather dwell there; but that, like evil husbands, they go abroad, and enter into places of dishonour and unthriftiness. Such as these all stories remember with a sad character; and every narrative concerning David, which would end in honour and fair report, is sullied with the remembrances of Bathsheba; and the Holy Ghost hath called him "a man after God's own heart, save in the matter of Uriah :" there, indeed, he was a man after his own heart; even then, when his reason was stolen from him by passion, and his religion. was sullied by the beauties of a fair woman. I wish we lived in an age, in which the people were to be treated with concerning renouncing the single actions of sin, and the seldom interruptions of piety. Men are taught to say, that every

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but love can never have a limit; and it is indeed to be swallowed up, but nothing can fill it but God, who hath no bound. Christianity is a law for sons, not for servants; and God, that gives his grace without measure, and rewards without end, and acts of favour beyond our askings, and provides for us beyond our needs, and gives us counsels beyond commandments, intends not to be limited out by the just evennesses and stricken measures of the words of a commandment. Give to God "full measure, shaken together, pressed down, heaped up, and running over;" for God does so to us: and when we have done so to him, we are infinitely short of the least measure of what God does for us; we are still unpro fitable servants." And therefore, as the breaking any of the laws of Christianity provokes God to anger, so the prevaricating in the analogy of Christianity stirs him up to jealousy. He hath reason to suspect our hearts are not right with him, when we are so reserved in the matter and measures of our services; and if we will give God but just what he calls for by express mandate, it is just in him to require all of that at our hands without any abatement, and then we are sure to miscarry. And let us remember, that when God said he was a jealous God," he expressed the meaning of it to be, he did "punish to the third and fourth generation." "Jealousy is like the rage of a man:" but if it be also like the anger of God, it is insupportable, and will crush us into the ruins of our grave.

But because these things are not frequently considered, there are very many sins committed against religion, which, because the commandment hath not marked, men refuse to mark, and think God requires no more. I am entered into a sea of matter, which I must not now prosecute; but I shall only note this to you, that it is but reasonable we should take accounts of our lives by the proportions, as well as by the express rules, of our religion, because in human and civil actions all the nations of the world use to call their subjects to account. For that which in the accounts of men is called reputation and public honesty, is the same which in religion we call analogy and proportion; in both cases there being some things which are besides the notices of laws, and yet are the most certain consignations of an excellent virtue. He is a base person that does any thing against public