Commandment about the Sabbath was for their Servants as well as themselves He adds this to the Law in one place That thy Man-servant and thy Maid-servant may rest as well as thou Deut. 5.14 This is now the Labourers rest and see you lose not a minute of so precious a time Dispatch your Business the sooner the Night before shake off your Worldly Thoughts and go seasonably to rest that you may not lie abed longer on the Lord's Day Morning than at other times Oh think not when you say you want time to keep a Sabbath in an outward slothful rest as your Horses and other Beasts do Meddle with no worldly Business on this Holy Day but what is of Necessity and count nothing of necessity that hinders the Work of the Day and may be put off till another time If you have Masters that know the Worth of a Sabbath they 'll take care of you especially on this day not only to keep you from all Business that is not suited to the Day but to put you upon all Holy Exercises therein and how sweet is it to see Masters come to the Publick Assemblies furnished with their Train not suffering a Servant that can be spar'd to stay at home or lagg behind And if you have careless Masters that would have you make your visits or go journies on this Day because they cannot spare you on another rather deny your selves the Liberty offer'd you than be depriv'd of the Dearer Liberty of the House of God Above all avoid the prophane Feasts that yet are kept up in some places on the Lord's Day Let no Business of your own hinder you where it may be from attending Forenoon and Afternoon on the Publick Worship and that with Seriousness and Reverence as those that know into whose Presence you are come and beg earnestly for the Power of the Spirit to accompany the Word to your Souls Do not think the Sabbath is ended when the Sermon is done Let no wicked Companions perswade That you may find your own pleasures on this Holy Day Isa 58.13 Remember what an Inlet Sabbath-breaking has been into all Wickedness how many wicked Servants from cheating their Masters have been drawn to other Crimes and on the Gallows confess'd That neglecting and prophaning the Sabbath was the sin that exposed them to those Temptations which brought them thither Be you a Companion of them that fear the Lord and if you have none such to confer with about what you have heard as you go home or when you come there be the more by your selves double all the Spiritual Duties now that you have less time for on other days Be ready to give an account of your profiting if you are so happy as to have Masters that will examine you and count not the Day or the Duties therein a Weariness but call the Sabbath a Delight Admire the Kindness of God to poor Servants in appointing a Day on purpose for that which else you could hardly have found time for Look upon it as the Great thanksgiving-Thanksgiving-Day Praise him for all his wondrous Works especially for your Redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ who when He had finished his Suffering-work did rise again from the Dead on the First Day of the Week and set his own Name on that Day That they that are tyred with their Labours all the Week may rest upon it That the meanest of his People may rejoice therein in hopes of an Everlasting Sabbath above where these Earthly Relations will cease and there will be no more Distinction of Master and Servant but all swallowed up in one Spiritual Relation to Him of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named and in one Holy Service of Praise and Thanksgiving to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever FINIS
by reason of Poverty or a meaner condition in the World have voluntarily submitted themselves by Contract for a certain time to the disposal of others according to the Word of God and Laws of the Realm And this Calling is founded upon the Will and Providence of God in these two things 1. In establishing Property and thereby a seemingly unequal distribution of the good things of this Life Without this the Relation of Master and Servant could not stand Prov. 12.7 The rich ruleth over the poor and the borrower is Servant to the Lender This inequality is not by chance but by the Soveraign Disposer of the Lord of all 1 Sam. 2.7 The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich Perhaps in Innocency if that state had continu'd all things might have been in common the Corn and Trees as free to all as the Light and Air are now But to suppose it so with us is to make a perpetual War many quarrelling about the same thing as when one Bone is cast amongst several Dogs And therefore that Community of Goods which we read of Acts 4.34 was extraordinary and lasted but a very little while so that now all have a right to the things that they do lawfully possess whether by Inheritance Donation or as gotten by honest labour and industry and as all Laws of Justice and Charity depend upon this so does this Relation of which we are speaking 2. His Will and Providence is further seen in rendering all persons in this inequality of their Conditiöns mutually helpful to each other yea necessary to one another in this lapsed state and the beauty and order of God's Government of the World is much to be observed that each shall stand in need of his Brother's help towards his own convenient subsistance in the World that as it is in the natural and as the Apostle saith in the mystical so it is in the political Body 1 Cor. 12.21 22. The eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of thee nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you nay much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary The Rich cannot say to the Poor We have no need of you For whence then will they have their Servants And how can they miss the help which they daily receive by them As the Hands need the Head for Guidance and Direction so does the Head need the Hands for Work and Service And indeed by this means the seeming inequality in the distribution of worldly things is made up That as it is in matters of Charity as the Apostle doth establish it in an equality that your abundance may be a supply for their want that their abundance may also be a supply for your want that there may be equality As it is written he that gathered much had nothing over and he that gathered little had no lack 2 Cor. 8.14 15. Even just thus it is in matter of justice in an equality that your Money Wages and Provision may be a supply for their indigency and their Work and Service a supply for your inability to discharge your business without them and so all things are set right one has nothing over and the other has no lack And perhaps amongst the variety of places no Servants are more necessary than those in Country-Villages others wear finer Liveries feed higher and lie easier But the labour of the Country Servant is of most excellent and general use The profit of the Earth is for all the King himself is serv'd of the field saith Solomon Eccles 5.9 and tho' he must rub through many hardships yet he may comfort himself in this that the most drudging part of his Service is of necessity to the Common-wealth and when many other Callings are apparently unlawful and not a few exceeding doubtful The Servant 's Calling if not abus'd is unquestionably lawful It is true there is a Text that seems to oppose the Servants Calling and the lawfulness thereof it is 1 Cor. 7.23 You are bought with the price be ye not the Servants of Men. With which agree our Lord's Word Call no Man Master upon Earth and possible it is that in the Apostles Days some hearing of the liberty purchased by Christ might begin to cast off their Service especially to unbelieving Masters and therefore we find the Apostles Paul Peter and John so frequently calling Servants to their duty and instructing them better in it And though we are told that Believers are all one in Christ Jesus Gal. 3 28. Yet it must be understood of the soul or inner man and of the means of grace in order to the Salvation thereof for as to the outward Man they are still bond and free and abide Master and Servant still And so when he bids them to be no more Servants of Men he has respect to the inner Man or Conscience which none can Command but God And tho our Lord has purchased a liberty for our Bodies as well as for our Souls yet we attain but to the first-fruits of it now There remains a Rest to be enjoy'd after Death then the weary are at rest saith Job and the Servant is free from his Master But we are not now freed from all Molestations Troubles and Inconveniencies in any state and so not from that of Service when called thereunto I shall therefore endeavour to set down 1. The Duties of Servants and how they may be best perform'd And then 2. The Temptations and Inconveniences of their Calling and how they may best be prevented or remedy'd by them CHAP. II. The Duty of Servants 1 towards GOD. THERE is such a comprehensive fulness in Scripture in which the Commandments are exceeding broad that there is no Case Condition or Relation in which the People of God can be or stand but there is something in the word that is suited thereunto There are none so high but the Word is above them and none so low but the Word condescends to them and speaks to their state and case Servants may be overlook'd by the World but they are directed by the Word And from that Word I shall endeavour to speak to the Duty of Servants under these three Heads 1. Their Duty towards God 2. Their Duty towards their Masters 3. Their Duty towards their Fellow-Servants in the Family and Neighbourhood As to the former their Duty towards God must first be minded as the foundation of their Duty towards Men. I have no hopes to do you good unless I can prevail with you in these matters of the highest concern 1. That you would engage your selves in the Service of God and be his Servants in the first place You are already his Servants at large and by outward profession You have taken his Earnest and worn his Livery upon your being Baptized It hath been no strange thing in the Church of God to have Infants own'd by God to be his Servants viz. by an external Relation and
but in the temper of their Spirits till the heart be chang'd and cur'd But I shall mention such remedies as do particularly respect the persons to whom I am speaking It concerns All that lie under this temptation to consider the Soveraignty of God and his Wisdom in appointing their lot that Nature is contented with a little and Grace with less considering that the lowest condition out of Hell is mercy to poor lost Sinners how easily God can change their lot if he sees it good and how sweet the lowest state may be made to them by Quietness and Contentment But there are two special Considerations that I commend to Servants in order to the removing this hindrance of their Duty that from henceforth they may bear the Inconveniencies of their Callings with a more composed mind that they may not be weary of their condition or irksomely long for alterations of it but may wait God s leisure and be kindly affected towards others that are in a higher condition in the World than they 1. And the First Consideration is The happiness of the condition of Servants in comparison of that of many others For not to compare you with the Miserable Vagrants that eat the Bread out of the Mouths of the true Poor touching which disorderly Persons we have the Apostle's Command That if they will not work they must not eat I rather speak of the Condition of such as you never knew or considered in your Discontent How far then has God set you above Servants in other Times and Places which have been and are compelled to Slavery and forced Subjection to the Lusts of Men. Of this sort were many of those Servants to whom the Apostles wrote and if they were to do their work heartily without grudging how much more should you And in our Age have you never heard of the Slaves in the Plantations and how they are us'd especially with respect to their Souls by some more Savages than the Negro's that they call so And what Servant in England dares repine at their state that has ever known the Condition of their own Countrey-men when Slaves in Algiers and other places For not only are they enslav'd in a strange Countrey whereas the Smoak of ones own Countrey is sweeter than the clearest Air in a strange Land but the Miseries they suffer under Barbarous Masters calls for your pity towards them and contentment with your merciful Lot For being bereft unjustly of all their Goods they are constantly compelled to the hardest Labour without any rest scarce to drink a little Water and eat their decay'd Barly and Broth of Camels worn out with Work like themselves and this with the only intermission of four Days in the Year upon the slightest Faults cruelly beaten that they often die of their pain Indeed their Lives are no further valu'd than for their Service or Slavery and their Souls in greater danger by continual Temptations to escape all these Hardships by a dreadful Apostasie And to leave these to consider some others that seem to have a Life as full of Pleasure as these that I have mention'd have of Misery I mean the Servants of State whose Life you so much envy for their Ease and Fine Cloths Did you but consider their Temptations to Idleness and thereby to almost all other sins you would see that God has delivered you from many snares to which they are daily expos'd By appointing you a moderate Labour which is for the Health of your Bodies and the good of the Publick your Souls are not in danger of flattering the Great or ministring to the Pride and Lusts of those that think their Riches priviledge them to live a Life of Sloth and Sensuality Not that it is thus in all great Houses God forbid but that it is very difficult for a Camel to get through the Eye of a Needle And how general is the Debauchery and Ruine of those Servants that at first you grudged at But to come nearer home how free is the Servants Life and void of those Troubles to which even your own Masters and others that live round you are frequently expos'd They have great Rents to pay and the Money hardly got to pay them with they have Meat and Drink to provide for you and Wages at the Years end one trespasses on their Fields and another defrauds them of their Debts They hardly bear their own wants and more hardly the wants of Wives and Children They have Losses to be made up abroad and Houses to be repair'd at home And you see all this but feel it not You have no care next to the pleasing God but to do your work in the Day and sleep quietly in the Night Are not these burdens on their Minds greater than any you bear on your Shoulders And to name but one thing more under this Head Is there not a worse service or slavery than that I speak of in Algiers Are there not Covenant-Slaves of Satan that have sold themselves to work wickedness and made a kind of League with Hell All that worse than Egyptian Service wherewith they are made to serve Is it not with rigour And though they are Lords and Ladies and have long Trains of Servants yet if they are Unconverted Are they not Servants Yea Bond-slaves to Sin Satan Mammon and the fear of Death Let not thy heart envy sinners But this last Comparison does respect the Godly Servants only and so brings me to the second Consideration to cure this Discontent viz. 2. The much more happiness of the Servants of God though in the lowest and meannest services amongst Men. As He that is called being free is the Lord's Servant so He that is called being a Servant is the Lord's Free-man 1 Corinth 7.22 Though he ty'd fast your Yoke by his Word in all due Obedience to your Masters yet having broke the Yoke of Sin He has made you freer than Princes that continue under it Whom the Son makes free they are free indeed John 8.36 His Service is perfect Freedom though your Service to Men should be heavy to a Bondage How precious a Liberty has Christ bought for you and bestow'd by his Spirit upon you if you belong to him though the meanest Servant here in the lowest Cottage He has given you the external Liberty of his House admitted you to feast at his Table given you free leave to partake of his Provision and appointed his Stewards to dispence it accordingly and whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas all are yours He has sweetned this with a Liberty of Conscience and of a Judgment rightly inform'd for though he has not delivered you from a subjection to Magistrates any more than to your Masters yet so free has he made you That nothing shall bind your Conscience but his own Word and all your Obedience to the Commands of Men shall be for Conscience sake towards God requiring that subjection But above all where the Spirit of the Lord is there is
Liberty of Heart and Will in the work of your Master Not a Liberty to live in sin which is an Abuse of the word and a Liberty that is not in Heaven it self the Perfections of God are an Eternal Law to himself that he cannot lye or deny himself but an holy exemption from the Servility of Sin and a free propension to whatsoever is good that whereas before you could not pray you were bound up and fetter'd He has now brought you out of Prison that you may praise his Name That under any temptation to discontent in the Service of Men your Souls should be raised in Praise of your Great Master who has already entered you into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God and will at last set you at liberty from the burden of this flesh and the Body it self at the last day from the hand of the Grave and will make all his Servants Kings and Priests to God and our Father Oh blessed are thy Servants that shall dwell in thy house for they will be still praising thee And blessed be his glorious Name who took upon him the form of a Servant and was himself bound to a Pillar That he might set us free Who has proclaimed Liberty by his Gospel and the opening of the Prison doors to them that are bound who has given us of his free Spirit and made us willing in the day of his power and here we offer up our selves our Souls and Bodies as our most reasonable Service We thank thee and praise thy glorious Name But who am I or what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort For all things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee 1 Chron. 29.13 14. And let none repine at being Servants who through Grace have such a Liberty and Freedom as this CHAP. VII The Hinderances of the Servants Calling 3. Want of Time real or pretended TO every Work there is an appcinted Time and every Duty has the special Season for it but here lies the Servants difficulty their Time is their Master's and his Work fills it up that they have not the leisure for Duties and Exercises of Religion that others have Others can read and pray as long as they will but Servants are called up early about their Work and tyred with it all day and what time then have they for Prayer Meditation or Covenanting with God Truly by the way to whom much is given of them God requires the more And they that have Estates and less necessary Business in the World must find more Time for the immediate Service and Worship of God than the poor Servant can But still one thing is necessary and they that have most Business in the World have Souls to mind as well as others Some indeed have Masters that do purposely allow them time and see that they spend it in Reading and other Duties and some whose Hearts God has inclin'd by Grace can find time to have their Hearts with God when their Hands are in the World and what sweet and Heavenly Meditations does their Plowing Sowing Reaping and other parts of their Work afford them Though they cannot be long at Prayer they endeavour to be the more fervent in it they go the more unwillingly from it and come to it the more chearfully again When they go into the Fields to their Work or come back they have as free a time as if entered into a Closet and the door shut about them But it is not thus with all some have rough and careless Masters that hurry them to bed that they may rise the sooner about their Work and think all time lost when that is not in hand and the slothful Heart is glad of the Excuse to silence Conscience which else would check them for living without Prayer and other Duties that they have heard press'd upon them offer them a Catechism they have no time to learn it others go to an Opportunity for Instruction but they cannot be spar'd to go with them Like Faelix they put it off to a more convenient time which yet never comes To remedy this sore Inconvenience there are these Two plain Directions 1. That they carefully avoid all those things that unnecessarily and sinfully take up their time and then they will quickly sind That want of Time is more a pretended than real Hinderance of the Servant's Duty To speak plainly to you How did such and such whom you know and perhaps have laugh'd at as too precise get their knowledge of the things of God How do they get time for Prayer and Reading and Examination of their Hearts Have not they as hard Places as you and as much Work on their hands and better done Is it not that they redeem and improve the time that you trifie and squander away Is it not known of some of you That some merry Meetings as they call them and drunken Bouts have first stolen away your Hearts and then steal away your Time And because you did not it may be come reeling home you think it nothing that you have wasted the good Creatures of God and the Time which he lent you for higher Ends. Oh how will this bite like an Adder when time shall be gone indeed and the Angel shall lift up his hand and swear by him that lives for ever and ever that time shall be no more and thou mourn at last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed and say How have I hated Instruction and have not obeyed the voice of my Teachers nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me Prov. 5.11 12 13. Do you think That this Plea will hold at last when all the Tribes of the Earth shall be gathered before their Judge and you stand trembling amongst the rest Shall it suffice to say I heard indeed the Calls of Grace but Lord I was a Servant and had but little time Will He not say Out of thine own mouth I condemn thee thou wicked Servant Thou knewest that thou hadst but a little time why then didst thou squander it away amongst thy idle Companions Why then didst thou sit up to such unseasonable hours at thy Cards and other Sports If thou dost indeed want time leave off thy Chat thy idle Stories that fill up the long Winter Evenings and other vacant hours and thou wouldst have it Yea better that thou shouldst work the harder and sleep the less that thou mayst get time for thy Soul before Sickness and Death overtake thee and thou cry in vain Call time back again Oh call time back again when it is too late and thou art lanching into the Ocean of Eternity 2. That Servants that want time all the Week do the more dearly prize the Lord's Day and improve the Seasons of Grace therein When by God's Consent you contracted with your Masters for your Time this Day He reserv'd for his own special Service And that Masters might know That the