a Ruler unto whom the people must submit v. 17. Besides every Minister is vested with this authority at his Ordination Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven whose sins thou dost retain c. 2. Every Minister is vested with this authority by the Laws of this Land The words of the Rubrick for the administration of the Lords Supper which do enable us thereto are these If any of those which intend to be partakers of the holy Communion be an open notorious evil liver so that the Congregation by him is offended or have done wrong to his neighbours by word or deed the curate having knowledge thereof shall call him and advertise him in any wise not to presume to the Lords Table until he have openly declared himself to have truly repented and amended his former naughty life that the Congregation may thereby be satisfied which afore were offended and that he have recompenced the parties whom he hath done wrong to or at least declare himself to be in full purpose so to do as soon as he conveniently may Besides this our Authority in this particular is confirmed by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons in Parliament c. So far Mr. Lyfords words The other is Mr. Tho. Ball of Northampton in his late Book for the Ministry where Part 3. Cap. 4. he bringeth many Arguments to prove it the Ministers duty to exercise Discipline as well as to preach and the seventh Argument is this What was given by the Bishops unto such Ministers as they ordained and laid their hands upon should not be grudged or denyed to them by any body for they were never accounted lavish or over liberal unto them especially in point of Jurisdiction that was alwaies a very tender point and had a guard and centry alwaies on it for conceiving themselves the sole possessors of it they were not willing to admit of partners Whatever they indulged in other points as Pharaoh to Ioseph Only in the throne I will be greater then thou Yet Bishops granted to all that they ordained Presbyters the use and exercise of Discipline as well as Doctrine as appears in the Book of ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons whereof the Interrogatories propounded to the party to be ordained is Will you then give your faithful diligence alwaies so to Minister the Doctrine and Sacraments and the Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded and as this Realm hath received the same according to the Commandments of God so that you may teach the people committed to your care and charge with all diligence to keep and observe the same Which a Reverend and Learned Brother not observing would confine all jurisdiction to Diocesan Bishops c. Argu. 8. What is granted and allowed to Ministers by the Laws and Customs of this Nation cannot reasonably be denyed for the Laws of England have never favoured usurpation in the Clergy c. But the Laws and customs of this Nation allows to the Ministers of England the use and exercise of Discipline as well as Doctrine for such of them as have Parsonages or Rectories are in all process and proceedings called Rectors c. 2. And as to the point of the Peoples interest the moderate seem to differ but in words Some say the People are to Govern by Vote I confess if this were understood as it is spoken according to the proper sense of the words and practised accordingly it were contrary to the express commands of Scripture which Command the Elders to Rule well and the people to obey them as their Rulers in the Lord And it seems to me to be destructive to the Being of a Political Church whose constitutive parts are the Ruling and the Ruled parts as every School consisteth of Master and Scholars and every common-wealth of the Pars imperans pars subdita And therefore those that rigidly stick to this do cast out themselves from all particular Political Churches Communion of Christs institution Which because I have formerly said or somewhat to that purpose a late nameless Writer makes me cruel to his party while I seem for them and so self-contradicting as if it were cruelty to tell a Brother of his sin and not to leave it on him Or as if I understood not my self because he understands me not But I perceive the moderate mean not any such things as these words in their proper sense import They only would have the Church Ruled as a free people as from unjust impositions and in a due subordination to Christ And we are all agreed that the Pastors have the Judicium Directionis the Teaching Directing Power by Office and that the People have Judicium Discretionis and must try his Directions and not obey them when they lead to sin and therefore we cannot expect that the people should execute any of our Directions except their Iudgement lead them to execute them Though if their Iudgement be wrong God requireth them to rectifie it And as for the Judicial Decisive power about which there is so great contending in the strictest sense it is the Prerogative of Christ and belongeth to neither of them For only Christ is proper Law-giver and Iudge of the Church whose Law and Iudgement is Absolute of it self Determinative and not subjected to our tryal of its equity or obligation So that we must as much conclude that there is no final Iudge of Controversies in a Particular Church as we do against the Papists that there is none in the Church in general And therefore the Churches Iudicial Decisive Power is but improperly such reducible to the former which seeing we are agreed in we are as far in sense agreed in this A Pastor is Iudge as a Physician in an Hospital or as Plato or Zeno was in his School or any Tutour in a Colledge of voluntary Students For any more it belongeth to Christ and to the Magistrate Why then do we stand quarreling about the names One saith The people have a Power of Liberty and the Ministers only the Power of Authority And what 's this more then we yield them viz. That the guiding Authority being only in the Guides and the people commanded to obey them in a due subordination to Christ there is a Liberty belonging to all the Saints from any other kind of Ministerial Rule that is from a sic volo sic jubeo a Rule without Divine authority and therefore the people must first try and judge whether the Direction be according to God and so obey And this in Church censures as well as other cases So that 1. As the people ought not to dissent or disobey their Guides unless they lead them to sin and therefore must see a danger of sin before they suspend obedience So 2. the Guides cannot bring the people to execute their Censures or Directions but by procuring their consent And therefore though he must do his duty and may pass his Directive censure though they dissent and Ministerially require them in
people to go to the Priest whose lips must preserve knowledge and at whose mouth they must ask the Law because he is the Messenger of the Lord of hosts And because the people are grown unacquainted with the office of the Ministery and their own necessity and duty herein it belongeth to us to acquaint them herewith and to press them publikely to come to us for advice in such cases of great concernment to their souls We must not only be willing of the trouble but draw it upon our selves by inviting them hereto What abundance of good might we do could we but bring our people to this And doubtless much might be done in it if we did our duties How few have I ever heard that heartily prest their people to their duty in this A sad case that peoples souls should be so injured and hazarded by the total neglect of so great a duty and Ministers scarce ever tell them of it and awaken them to it were they but duly sensible of the need and weight of this you should have them more frequently knocking at your doors and open their cases to you and making their sad complaints and begging your advice I beseech you put them more on this for the future and perform it carefully when they seek your help To this end it s very necessary that we be acquainted with Practical Cases and specially that we be acquainted with the nature of true Grace and able to assist them in trying their states and resolve the main question that concerns their everlasting life or death One word of seasonable prudent advice given by a Minister to persons in necessity hath done that good that many Sermons would not have done 4. We must also have a special eye upon families to see that they be well ordered and the duties of each relation performed The life of Religion and the welfare and glory of Church and State dependeth much on family Government and duty If we suffer the neglect of this we undo all What are we like to do our selves to the Reforming of a Congregation if all the work be cast on us alone and Masters of families will let fall that necessary duty of their own by which they are bound to help us If any good be begun by the Ministery in any soul in a family a careless prayerless worldly family is like to stiffle it or very much hinder it Whereas if you could but get the Rulers of families to do their part and take up the work where you left it and help it on what abundance of good might be done by it as I have elsewhere shewed more at large I beseech you therefore do all that you can to promote this business as ever you desire the true Reformation and welfare of your Parishes To which end let these things following be performed 1. Get certain information how each family is ordered and how God is worshippped in them that you may know how to proceed in your carefulness for their further good 2. Go now and then among them when they are like to be most at leisure and ask the master of the family Whether he pray with them or read the Scripture or what he doth And labour to convince the neglecters of their sin And if you can have opportunity pray with them before you go and give them an example What you would have them do and how And get a promise of them that they will be more conscionable therein for the future 3. If you find any unable to pray in tolerable expressions through ignorance and disuse perswade them to study their own wants and get their hearts affected with them and so go oft to those neighbours who use to pray that they may learn and in the mean time perswade them to use a form of prayer rather then none Only tell them that it is their sin and shame that they have lived so negligently as to be now so unacquainted with their own necessities as not to know how to speak to God in prayer when every beggar can find words to ask an alms and therefore tell them that this form iâ— but for necessity as a crutch to a Cripple while they cannot do as well without it but they must not resolve to take up there but to learn to do better as soon as they can seeing prayer should come from the feeling of the heart and be varied both according to our necessities and observations Yet is it necessary to most unaccustomed ill-bred people that have not been brought up where prayer hath been used that they begin at first with the use of a form because they will else be able to do nothing at all and in sense of their disability will wholly neglect the duty though they desire to perform it For many disused persons can mutter out some honest requests in secret that be not able before others to speak tolerable sense And I will not be one of them that had rather the duty were wholly neglected or else prophaned and made contemptible then encourage them to the use of a sorm either recited by memory or read 4. See that they have some profitable moving book besides the Bible in each family If they have not perswade them to buy some of small price and great use such as Mr. Whateleys New Birth and Dod on the Commandments or some smaller moving Sermons If they be not able to buy them give them some if you can if you cannot get some Gentlemen or other rich persons that are willing to good works to do it And engage them to read on it at nights when they have leisure and especially on the Lords day 5. By all means perswade them to procure all their children to learn to read English 6 Direct them how to spend the Lords day how to dispatch their worldly businesses so as to prevent encombrances and distractions and when they have been at the Assemblie how to spend the time in their families The life of Religion lieth much on this because poor people have no other free considerable time and therefore if they lose this they lose all and will remain ignorant and brutish Specially perswade them to these two things 1. If they cannot repeate the Sermon or otherwise spend the time profitably at home that they take their family with them and go to some godly neighbour that spends iâ— better that by joyning with them they may have the better help 2. That the Master of the family will every Lords day at night cause all his family to repeat the Catechism to him and give him some account of what they have learn't in publike that day 7. If there be any in the family that are known to be unruly give the Ruler a special charge concerning them and make them understand what a sin it is to connive at them and tolerate them Neglect not therefore this necessary part of your work Get masters of families to their duties and they will spare you
most Certain and Necessary things and be more seldom and sparing upon the rest If we can but teach Christ to our people we teach them all Get them well to heaven and they will have knowledge enough The great and commonly acknowledged Truths are they that men must live upon and which are the great instruments of raising the heart to God and destroying mens sins And therefore we must still have our peoples necessities in our eyes It will take us off gawdes and needless Ornaments and unprofitable Controversies to remember that One thing is Necessary Other things are desirable to be known but these must be known or else our people are undone for ever I confess I think Necessity should be a great disposer of a Ministers course of study and labours If we were sufficient for every thing we might fall upon every thing and take in order the whole Encuclopaedia But life is short and we are dull and eternal things are necessary and the souls that depend on our teaching are precious I confess Necessity hath been the Conductor of my studies and life It chooseth what book I shall read and tells when and how long it chooseth my Text and makes my Sermon for matter and manner so far as I can keep out my own corruption Though I know the constant expectation of death hath been a great cause of this yet I know no reason why the most healthful man should not make sure of the Necessaries first considering the uncertainty and shortness of all mens lives Xenophon thought there was no better Teacher then Necessity which teacheth all things most diligently Curtius saith Efficacior est omni arte Necessitas Who can in study preaching or life aliud agere be doing other matters if he do but know that This must be done Who can trifle or delay that feeleth the spurs of hasty Necessity As the souldier saith Non diu disputandum sed celeriter fortiter dimicandum ubi urget Necessitas So much more must we as our business is more important And doubtless this is the best way to redeem time and see that we lose not an hour when we spend it only on Necessary things And I think it is the way to be most profitable to others though not alwaies to be most pleasing and applauded because through mens frailty its true that Seneca complains of that Nova potius miramur quam magna Hence it is that a Preacher must be oft upon the same things because the matters of Necessity are few We must not either feign Necessaries or fall much upon unnecessaries to satisfie them that look after Novelties Though we must cloth the same necessaries with a grateful variety in the manner of our delivery The great volumns and tedious controversies that so much trouble us and waste our time are usually made up more of Opinion then necessary verities For as Marsil Ficinus saith Necessitas brevibus clauditur terminis opinto nullis And as Greg. Nazianz. and Seneca often say Necessaries are common and obvious it is superfluities that we waste our time for and labour for and complain that we attain them not Ministers therefore must be observant of the case of their Flocks that they may know what is most necessary for them both for matter and for manner And usually matter is first to be regarded as being of more concernment then the manner If you are to chose what Authors to read your selves will you not rather take those that tell you what you know not and speak the needful truth most evidently though it were with barbarous or unhandsom language then those that will most learnedly and elegantly and in grateful language tell you that which is false or vain and magno conatu nihil dicere I purpose to follow Austins counsel li. de catech praeponendo verbis sententiam ut animus praeponitur corpori ex quo fit ut ita mallem Veriores quam Discretiores invenire sermones sicut mallem prudentiores quam formosiores habere amicos And surely as I do in my studies for my own edification I should do in my teaching for other mens It is commonly empty ignorant men that want the matter and substance of true learning that are over curious and sollicitous about words and ornaments when the antient experienced most learned men abound in substantial verities usually delivered in the plainest dress As Aristotle makes it the reason why women are more addicted to pride in apparel then men because being conscious of little inward worth and ornament they seek to make it up with borrowed ornaments without So is it with empty worthless Preachers who affect to be esteemed that which they are not and have no other way to procure that esteem 5. All our teaching must be as Plain and Evident as we can make it For this doth most suite to a Teachers ends He that would be understood must speak to the capacity of his hearers and make it his business to make himself understood Truth loves the Light and is most beautiful when most naked It s a sign of an envious enemy to hide the truth and a sign of an Hypocrite to do this under pretence of revealing it and therefore painted obscure Sermons like the painted glass in the windows that keeps out the light are too oft the markes of painted Hypocrites If you would not Teach men what do you in the Pulpit If you would why do you not speak so as to be understood I know the height of the matter may make a man not understood when he hath studied to make it as plain as he can but that a man should purposely cloud the matter in strange words and hide his mind from the people whom he pretendeth to instruct is the way to make fools admire his profound learning and wise men his folly pride and hypocrisie And usually its a suspicious sign of some deceitful project and false Doctrine that needeth such a cloak and must walk thus masked in the open day light Thus did the followers of Basilides and Valentinus and others among the old Hereticks and thus do the Behmenists and other Paracelsians now who when they have spoken that few may understand them lest they expose their errours to the open view they pretend a necessity of it because of mens prejudice and the unpreparedness of common understandings for the truth But truth overcomes prejudice by meer light of Evidence and there is no better way to make a good cause prevail then to make it as plain and commonly and throughly known as we can and it is this Light that will dispose an unprepared mind And at best it s a sign that he hath not well digested the matter himself that is not able to deliver it plainly to another I mean as plain as the nature of the matter will bear in regard of capacities prepared for it by prerequisite truths For I know that some men cannot at present under stand some truths if you speak
them That those Ordinances of God should be the Occasions of our delusion which are instituted to be the means of our conviction and salvation and that while we hold the Looking glass of the Gospel to others to shew them the true face of the state of their souls we should either look on the back side of it our selves where we can see nothing or turn it aside that it may mis-represent us to our selves If such a wretched man would take my counsel he should make a stand and call his heart and life to an account and fall a preaching a while to himself before he preach any more to others He should consider whether food in the mouth will nourish that goeth not into the stomack whether it be a Christ in the mouth or in the heart that will save men Whether he that nameth him should not depart from iniquity and whether God will hear their prayers if they regard iniquity in their hearts and whether it will serve the turn at the day of reckoning to say Lord we have prophesied in thy name when they shall hear Depart from me I know you not and what comfort it will be to Iudas when he is gone to his own place to remember that he preached with the rest of the Apostles or that he sate with Christ and was called by him Friend and whether a wicked Preacher shall stand in the Iudgement or sinners in the Assembly of the just When such thoughts as these have entred into their souls and kindly workt a while upon their consciences I would advise them next to go to the Congregation and there preach over Origens Sermon on Psal 50. 16 17. But to the wicked saith God What hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldst take my Covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and hast cast my words behind thee And when they have read this text to sit down and expound and apply it by their tears And then to make a free Confession of their sin and lament their case before the assembly and desire their earnest prayers to God for pardoning and renewing grace and so to close with Christ in heart who before admitted him no further then into the brain that hereafter they may preach a Christ whom they know and may feel what they speak and may commend the riches of the Gospel by experience Verily it is the common danger and calamity of the Church to have unregenerate and unexperienced Pastors and to have so many men become Preachers before they are Christians to be sanctified by dedication to the Altar as Gods Priests before they are sanctified by hearty dedication to Christ as his Disciples so to worship an unknown God and to preach an unknown Christ an unknown spirit an unknown state of holiness and Communion with God and a glory that is unknown and like to be unknown to them for ever He is like to be but a heartless Preacher that hath not the Christ and grace that he preacheth in his heart O that all our Students in the University would well consider this What a poor business is it to themselves to spend their time in knowing some little of the works of God and some of those names that the divided tongues of the Nations have imposed on them and not to know the Lord himself nor exalt him in their hearts nor to be acquainted with that one renewing work that should make them happy They do but walk in a vain shew and spend their lives like dreaming men while they busie their wits and tongues about abundance of names and notions and are strangers to God and the life of Saints If ever God waken them by saving grace they will have cogitations and imployments so much more serious then their unsanctified studies and disputations were that they will confess they did but dream before A world of business they make themselves about Nothing while they are wilful strangers to the Primitive independent necessary Being who is all in all Nothing can be rightly known if God be not known nor is any study well managed nor to any great purpose where God is not studyed We know little of the creature till we know it as it standeth in its Order and respects to God single letters and syllables uncomposed are non sence He that over-looketh the Alpha and Omega and seeth not the beginning and end and him in all who is the all of all doth see nothing at all All creatures are as such broken syllables they signifie nothing as separated from God Were they separated actually they would cease to be and the separation would be an annihilation And when we separate them in our fancies we make Nothing of them to our selves It s one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle and another thing to know them as a Christian None but a Christian can read one line of his Physicks so as to understand it rightly It is a high and excellent study and of greater use then many do well understand but it s the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us When man was made perfect and placed in a perfect world where all things were in perfect order and very good the whole Creation was then mans book in which he was to read the nature and will of his great Creator Every creature had the Name of God so legibly engraven on it that man might run and read it He could not open his eyes but he might see some image of God but no where so fully and lively as in himself And therefore it was his work to study the whole volume of Nature but first and most to study himself And if man had held on in this prescribed work he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and himself but when he would needs know and love the creature and himself in a way of separation from God he lost the knowledge of all both of the creature himself and God so far as it could beatifie and was worth the name of knowledge and instead of it he hath got the unhappy knowledge which he affected even the empty notions and phantastick knowledge of the creature and himself as thus separated And thus he that lived to the Creator and upon him doth now live to and as upon the other creatures and himself and thus Every man at his best estate the Learned as well as the illiterate is altogether vanity Surely every man walketh in a Vain Shew surely they are disquieted in vain Psal 39. 5 6. And it must be well observed that as God laid not by the Relation of a Creator by becoming our Redeemer nor the Right of his Propriety and Government of us in that Relation but the work of Redemption standeth in some subordination to that of Creation and the Law of the Redeemer to the Law of the Creator so also the duties that we owed God as Creator are not ceased but the duties
are set over and you might become a plague to them instead of a blessing and they might wish they had never seen your faces O therefore take heed of your own Judgements and Affections Error and vanity will slily insinuate and seldom come without fair pretences Great distempers and apostacies have usually small beginnings The Prince of darkness doth frequently personate the Angels of light to draw children of light again into his darkness How easily also will distempers creep in upon our affections and our first love and fear and care abate Watch therefore for the sake of your selves and others And more particularly me thinks a Minister should take some special pains with his heart before he is to go to the Congregation if it be then cold how is he like to warm the hearts of the hearers Go therefore then specially to God for life and read some rowsing waking book or meditate on the weight of the subject that you are to speak of and on the great necessity of your peoples souls that you may go in the zeal of the Lord into his house SECT VII 3. MY next particular Exhortation is this Star up your selves to the great work of God when you are upon it and see that you do it with all your might Though I move you not to a constant lowdness for that will make your fervency contemptible yet see that you have a constant seriousness and when the matter requireth it as it should do it the application at least of every Doctrine then lift up your voice and spare not your spirits and speak to them as to men that must be awakened either here or in Hell Look upon your Congregations believingly and with compassion and think in what a state of Joy or Torment they must all be for ever and then me thinks it should make you earnest and melt your heart in the sense of their condition O speak not one cold or careless word about so great a business as heaven or hell What ever you do let the people see that you are in good sadness Truly Brethren they are great works that are to be done and you must not think that trifling will dispatch them You cannot break mens hearts by jesting with them or telling them a smooth tale or patching up a gawdy oration Men will not cast away their deerest pleasures upon a drowsie request of one that seemeth not to mean as he speaks or to care much whether his request be granted If you say That the work is Gods and he may do it by the weakest means I answer It s true he may do so But yet his ordinary way is to work by means and to make not only the matter that is preacht but also the manner of preaching to be instrumental to the work Or else it were a small matter whom he should imploy that would but speak the truth If grace made as little use of the Ministerial perswasions as some conceive we need not so much mind a Reformation nor cast out the Insufficient A great matter also with the most of our hearers doth lie in the very pronunciation and tone of speech The best matter will scarce move them if it be not movingly delivered Especially see that there be no affectation but that we speak as familiarly to our people as we would do if we were talking to any of them personally The want of a familiar tone and expression is as great a defect in most of our deliveries as any thing whatsoever and that which we should be very careful to amend When a man hath a Reading or Declaming tone like a School-boy saying his lesson or an Oration few are moved with any thing that he saith Let us therefore rowse up our selves to the work of the Lord and speak to our people as for their lives and save them as by violence pulling them out of the fire Satan will not be charmed out of his possession we must lay siege to the souls of sinners which are his garrisons and find out where his chief strength lyeth and lay the battery of Gods Ordinance against it and ply it close till a breach be made and then suffer them not by their shifts to make it up again but find out their common objections and give them a full and satisfactory answer We have reasonable creatures to deal with and as they abuse their reason against the truth so they will expect better reason for it before they will obey We must therefore see that our Sermons be all convincing and that we make the light of Scripture and Reason shine so bright in the faces of the ungodly that it may even force them to see unless they willfully shut their eyes A Sermon full of meer words how neatly soever it be composed while there is wanting the light of Evidence and the life of Zeal is but an image or a well-drest carkass In preaching there is intended a communion of souls and a communication of somewhat from ours unto theirs As we and they have understandings and wills and affections so must the bent of our endeavours be to communicate the fullest Light of Evidence from our understandings unto theirs and to warm their hearts by kindling in them holy affections as by a communication from ours The great things which we have to commend to our hearers have reason enough on their side and lie plain before them in the word of God we should therefore be so furnished with all store of Evidence as to come as with a torrent upon their understandings and bear down all before us and with our dilemma's and expostulations to bring them to a non-plus and pour out shame upon all their vain objections that they may be forced to yield to the power of truth and see that it is great and will prevail SECT VIII 4. MOreover if you would prosper in your work Be sure to keep up earnest desires and expectations of success If your hearts be not set on the end of your labours and you long not to see the conversion and edification of your hearers and do not study and preach in hope you are not likely to see much fruit of it It s an ill sign of a false self-seeking heart that can be content to be still doing and see no fruits of their labour so I have observed that God seldom blesseth any mans work so much as his whose heart is set upon the success Let it be the property of a Iudas to have more regard to the bag then to his business and not to care much for what they pretend to care and to think if they have their Tythes and the love and commendations of the people that they have enough to satisfie them but let all that preach for Christ and mens salvation be unsatisfied till they have the thing they preach for He had never the right end of a Preacher that is indifferent whether he do obtain them and is not grieved when he misseth
them and rejoyced when he can see the desired issue When a man doth only study what to say and how with commendation to spend the hour and looks no more after it unless it be to know what people think of his own abilities and thus holds on from year to year I must needs think that this man doth preach for himself and drive on a private trade of his own and doth not preach for Christ even when he preacheth Christ how excellently soever he may seem to do it No wise or charitable Physitian is content to be still giving Physick and see no amendment among his Patients but have them all to die upon his hands nor will any wise and honest Schoolmaster be content to be still teaching though his Scholars profit not but either of them would rather be weary of the employment I know that a faithful Minister may have comfort when he wants success and though Israel be not gathered our reward is with the Lord and our acceptance is not according to the fruit but according to our labour and as Greg. M. saith Et Aethiops etsi balneum niger intrat niger egreditur tamen balneat or nummos accipit If God set us to wash Blackamores and cure those that will not be cured we shall not lose our labour though we perform not the cure But then 1. He that longeth not for the success of his labours can have none of this comfort because he was not a faithful labourer This is only for them that I speak of that are set upon the end and grieved if they miss it 2. And this is not the full comfort that we must desire but only such a part as may quiet us though we miss the rest What if God will accept a Physitian though the Patient dye He must work in compassion and long for a better issue and be sorry if he miss of it for all that For it is not only our own Reward that we labour for but other mens salvation I confess for my part I marvel at some antient Reverend men that have lived 20. or 40. or 50 years with an unprofitable people where they have seen so little fruit of their labours that it was scarce discernable how they can with so much patience there go on Were it my case though I durst not leave the Vineyard nor quit my calling yet I should suspect that it was Gods will I should go some whether else and another come thither that might be fitter for them and I should not be easily satisfied to spend my daies in such a sort SECT IX 5. Do well as well as say well be zealous of good works Spare not for any cost if it may promote your masters work 1. Maintain your innocency and walk without offence Let your lives condemn sin and perswade men to duty Would you have your people be more careful of their souls then you will be of yours If you would have them redeem their time do not you misspend yours If you would not have them vain in their conference see that you speak your selves the things which may edifie and tend to minister grace to the hearers Order your own families well if you would have them do so by theirs Be not Proud and Lordly if you would have them to be lowly There is no vertue wherein your example will do more at least to abate mens prejudice then humility and meekness and self-denyal Forgive injuries and be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good Do as our Lord who when he was reviled reviled not again If sinners be stubborn and stout and contemptous flesh and blood will perswade you to take up their weapons and to master them by their carnal means but that 's not the way further then necessary self-preservation or publike good requireth it but overcome them with kindness and patience and gentleness The former may shew that you have more worldly power then they wherein yet they are ordinarily too hard for the faithful but it s the later only that will tell them that you overtop them in spiritual excellency and in the true qualifications of a Saint If you believe that Christ was more imitable then Caesar or Alexander and that it s more glory to be a Christian then to be a Conqueror yea to be a man then a beast who oft exceed us in strength contend then with charity and not with violence and set Meekness and Love and Patience against force and not force against force Remember you are obliged to be the servants of all Condescend to men of low estate be not strange to the poor ones of your Flock They are apt to take your strangeness for contempt Familiarity improved to holy ends is exceeding necessary and may do abundance of good Speak not stoutly or disrespectively to any one but be courteous to the meanest as your equal in Christ A kind and winning carriage is a cheap way of advantage to do men good 2. Remember what I said before of works of Bounty and Charity Go to the poor and see what they want and shew at once your compassion to soul and body Buy them a Catechism and some small Books that are likest to do them good and bestow them on your neighbours and make them promise you to read them and specially to spend that part of the Lords day therein which they can spare from greater duties Stretch your purse to the utmost and do all the good you can Think not of being rich seek not great things for your selves or posterity What if you do impoverish your selves to do a greater good will it be loss or gain If you believe that God is your safest purse-bearer and that to expend in his service is the greatest usury and the most thriving trade shew them that you do believe it I know that flesh and blood will cavil before it will loose its prey and will never want somewhat to say against that duty that is against its interest But mark what I say and the Lord set it home upon your hearts That man that hath any thing in the world so dear to him that he cannot spare it for Christ if he call for it is no true Christian And because a carnal heart will not believe that Christ calls for it when he cannot spare it and therefore makes that his self deceiving shift I say furthermore that That man that will not be perswaded that duty is duty because he cannot spare that for Christ which is therein to be expended is no true Christian For a false heart corrupteth the understanding and that again increaseth the delusions of the heart Do not take it therefore as an undoing to make you friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness and to lay up a treasure in heaven though you leave your selves but little on earth Nemo tam pauper potest esse quam natus est Aves sine patrimonio vivunt in diem pecua pascuntur haec nobis