Opinions so long as we keep them to our selves cannot possibly cause any disturbance in or do any injury to Society But a Power in the latter sense is absolutely necessary for if Men may be allowed to vent and publish whatever fancies come into their head and the Church have no Authority to impose silence upon them it cannot be avoided but she will be over-run with Heresies and embroiled in insinite Quarrels and Controversies to the destruction of her publick Peace The fourth Proposition is That we can have no just cause of withdrawing our Communion from the Church whereof we are Members but when we cannot communicate with it without the Commission of a Sin For if we are bound to Communicate with the Church when we can lawfully do so as hath been before proved it is plain we are bound so long to continue our Communion with the Church till it be unlawful to continue in it any longer But it cannot be unlawful to continue in her Communion till she require something as a Condition of her Communion that is a Sin So that there are but Two cases wherein it can be lawful to withdraw our Communion from a Church because there are but two cases wherein Communion with her can be sinful One is when the Church requires of us as a Condition of her Communion an Acknowledgment and Profession of that for a Truth which is an Errour The other is when the Church requires of us as a Condition of her Communion the joyning with her in some practices which are against the Laws of God In these two Cases to withdraw our Obedience to the Church is so far from being a Sin that it is a necessary Duty because we have an obligation to the Laws of God antecedent to that we have to those of the Church and we are bound to obey these no farther than they are consonant or agreeable to those But now from this discourse it will appear how insufficient those Causes how unwarrantable those Grounds are upon which many among us have proceeded to Separation from our Church For first If what I have laid down be true it cannot be true that Vnscriptural Impositions are a warrantable cause of Separation from a Church supposing that by Vnscriptural be meant no more than only what is neither Commanded nor Forbid in the Scriptures For the Actions required by these Vnscriptural Impositions are either in themselves lawful to be done or not lawful to be done If they be in themselves unlawful to be done then they do not fall under that notion of Vnscriptural we here speak of they are downright Sins and so either particularly or in the general forbid in the Scripture If they be in themselves lawful to be done then it cannot be imagined how their being commanded can make them unlawful So that in this case there is no Sin in yielding obedience to the Church and consequently no cause of withdrawing our Communion from it Neither secondly can it be true that Errours in a Church as to matter of Doctrines or Corruptions as to matter of Practice so long as those Errours and Corruptions are only suffered but not imposed can be a sufficient cause of Separation the reason is because these things are not Sins in us so long as we do not joyn with the Church in them So that so long as we can Communicate with a Church without either professing her Errours or partaking in her sinful Practices as in the present case it is supposed we may do so long we are bound upon the Principle before laid down not to separate from her Neither in the third and last place is the enjoying a more profitable Ministery or living under a more pure Discipline in a separate Congregation a just Cause of forsaking the Communion of the Church of which we are Members And the reason is because we are not to commit a Sin for the promoting a good end Now as we have said it is a Sin to forsake the Communion of the Church whereof we are Members so long as her Communion is not sinful But the enjoyment of a less profitable Ministery or a less pure Discipline doth not make her Communion sinful therefore the enjoyment of a more profitable Ministery or a more pure Discipline cannot make a Separation from her lawful Thus have I as briefly as I could represented to you the Particulars of that Duty we owe to our common Mother in the preservation of her Vnity and Communion And I hope I have not been so zealous for Peace as to have been at all injurious to Truth I am confident I have said nothing but what is very agreeable to Scripture and Reason and the Sense of the Best and Antientest Christians And I am certain I have not intrenched upon any of those Grounds upon which our Ancestors proceeded to the Reformation of Religion among us And for most of the things here delivered we have also the Suffrage of several and those the most learned and moderate of our dissenting Brethren And now if after this any one be offended as indeed these kind of Discourses are seldom very acceptable all I can say is this That the Truths here delivered are really of so great importance to Religion and the publick Peace that they ought not to be dissembled or suppressed for any bad Reception they may meet with from some Men But as for the manner of delivering them I have taken all the care I could not to give offence to any I now pass on to the second part of my Task upon this Head which is to consider the Duty recommended in the Text with relation to particular Christians our Brethren And here my Business is to direct you to the Pursuit of those things that make for Peace as Peace signifies mutual Love and Charity in opposition to Strife and Bitterness and Contentions The things that make for Peace in this sense are more especially these that follow which I shall deliver by way of Rules and Advices The first Rule is to distinguish carefully between matters of Faith and matters of Opinion and as to these latter to be willing that every one should enjoy the liberty of judging for himself This is one thing that would help very much to the extinguishing of those unnatural Heats and Animosities which have long been the Reproach of Christians If Men would set no greater value upon their Notions and Opinions than they do deserve if they would make a difference between necessary Points and those that are not so and in those things that are not necessary would not rigorously tie up others to their measures but would allow every Man to abound in his own sense so long as the Church's Peace is not hereby injured we should not have so many bitter Quarrels and Heart-burnings among us But alas whilst every one will frame a System of Divinity of his own head and every puny Notion of that System must be Christen'd by the name of an
be healed and that an End being put to our unaccountable Separations and the Unchristian Animosities they are the Occasion of we shall all join together in one Communion and with one mind and one mouth glorifie God as the Apostle expresses it God only knows But sure I am it is the Duty of every one of us heartily to Pray for it and not only so but in our Place and Station to contribute all we can towards it It was this Consideration that put me upon the Choice of these Words of St. Paul for my Argument at this time Let us therefore follow after the things that make for Peace In treating of which I shall endeavour Two things First To Explain the Duty here recommended by reducing it to its Particular Rules and Instances Secondly To set before you the great Obligations that lie upon us to the Practice of it As to the first of these things viz. what is contained or implied in this Duty of Following after the things that make for Peace you may be pleased to take notice That this Duty hath a twofold Object according to the two different Relations and Capacities in which we are to be considered namely the Church our Common Mother and Particular Christians our Brethren In the first Relation we are considered as Subjects in the other as Fellow Christians Now with respect to the former the Peace we are to pursue implies Obedience and the Preservation of Communion in opposition to Schism and Separation With respect to the latter it implies mutual Love and Charity in opposition to Quarrels and Contentions So that you see my Business upon this first Head must be to shew what are the Particulars of our Duty or what are the Things that make for Peace in both these Respects I begin with what is due from us to the Church in order to Peace as Peace stands in Contradistinction to Schism And this Point I shall beg leave to discuss very plainly and particularly because I fear many of us have wrong Notions about it And yet it is a matter of such Consequence that the right understanding of it would go a great way to the Cure of the sad Divisions that are among us What I have to say upon this Point I shall comprize in the four following Propositions taking my Rise from the first Principle of Church-Society The first Proposition I lay down is this That every Christian is by vertue of his Christianity a Member of the Church of Christ and is bound to join in External Communion with it where it can be had For the clearing of this let it be taken notice of That the Method which our Saviour set on foot for our Salvation doth not so much consider us as single Persons as joined together in one common Society It was his Design to gather to Himself a Church out of Mankind to erect and form a Body Politick of which Himself should be the Head and Particular Christians the Members and in this Method through Obedience to his Laws and Government to bring Men to Salvation This is variously set forth to us in the New Testament Joh. 15.1 Sometimes Christ and Christians are represented under the Notion of a Vine of which He is the Root and They are the Branches 1 Cor. 12. Sometimes under the Notion of a Natural Body of which Christ is the Head and all Believers the Members And accordingly what ever Christ is said to have done or suffered for Mankind he is said to have done or suffered for them not as Scattered Individuals but as Incorporated into a Church Eph. 5.25 Thus Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it Acts 20.28 Christ redeemed the Church with his own Blood Christ is the Saviour of his Body Eph. 5.23 that is to say the Church with many passages of the like Importance The plain Consequence from hence is that every Person so far as he is a Christian so far he is a Member of the Church And agreeably hereto it is very plain that Baptism which is by all acknowledged to be the Rite of Initiating us into Christianity is in Scripture declared to be the Rite whereby we are entred and admitted into the Church 1 Cor. 12.13 Thus St. Paul expresly tells us that by one Spirit we are all Baptized into one Body Now then it being thus evident that every Christian as a Christian is a Member of that Body of Christ which we call the Church there will be little need of taking pains to prove that every such person is obliged to joyn in External Communion with the Church where he can do so for the very nature of this Church-membership doth imply it Without this neither the Ends of Church-Society nor the Benefits accruing to us there from can be attained First not the Ends of it The Ends of Church-Society are the more Solemn Worship of God and the publick Profession of our Religion and the mutual Edification one of another Now how these can be in any measure attained without associating together in publick Assemblies and mutual Offices and other Acts of External Communion with one another cannot any ways be imagined And as little in the Second place can it be conceived how without this we can be made partakers of the Benefits and Privileges that Christ hath made over to the Members of his Church For we are to consider that God hath so ordered the matter and without doubt for this very reason to unite us the more firmly in Society that the Privileges of the Gospel such as Pardon of Sin and the Grace of the Holy Spirit are not ordinarily conveyed to us so immediately by God but that there must intervene the Ministery of Men. God's holy Word and Sacraments are the Channels in which they are derived to us and those to whom he hath committed the Ministery of Reconciliation and the Power of the Keys are the Hands that must dispense them We have no promise of Spiritual Graces but by these means so that in order to the partaking of them there is an absolute necessity laid upon us of joyning and communicating with the Church It is true indeed God doth not so tie himself up to these means but that he can and will in some cases confer the Benefits of them without them as in case of a General Apostasie of the Church or of Persecution for Religion or of an unjust Excommunication or any other case where Communion with a true visible Church is denied to us But though God doth act extraordinarily in extraordinary cases where these means cannot be had yet this doth not at all diminish much less take away the necessity of making use of them when they can be had From what hath been discoursed on this first Proposition we may by the way gather these two things I only name them 1. How untrue their Position is that maintain that all our Obligation to Church-Communion doth arise from a voluntary admission
Serviceableness to others The first of these challengeth Men's Esteem the other their Love Now both these Qualities Religion and Vertue do eminently possess us of For First The Religious Man is certainly the most Worthy and Excellent Person for he of all others lives most up to the great End for which he was designed which is the natural measure of the Goodness and Worth of Things Whatever External Advantages a Man may have yet if he be not endow'd with Vertuous Qualities he is far from having any true Worth or Excellence and consequently cannot be a fit Object of our Praise and Esteem because he wants that which should make him Perfect and Good in his Kind For it is not a comely Personage or a long Race of Famous Ancestors or a large Revenue or a multitude of Servants or many swelling Titles or any other thing without a Man that speaks him a Compleat Man or makes him to be what he should be But the right use of his Reason the employing his Liberty and Choice to the best purposes the exercising his Powers and Faculties about the fittest Objects and in the most due Measures these are the Things that make him Excellent Now none can be said to do this but only he that is Vertuous Secondly Religion also is that which makes a Man most Vseful and Profitable to others for it effectually secures his performance of all those Duties whereby both the Security and Welfare of the Publick and also the Good and Advantage of particular Persons is most attained It makes Men Lovers of their Country Loyal to their Prince Obedient to Laws It is the surest Bond and Preservative of Society in the World It obliges us to live peaceably and to submit our selves to our Rulers not only for Wrath but also for Conscience sake It renders us modest and governable in Prosperity and resolute and couragious to suffer bravely in a good Cause in the worst of Times It teacheth us to endeavour as much as in us lies to promote the Good of every particular Member of the Community to be inflexibly upright to do hurt to none but good Offices to all to be charitable to the Bodies and Souls of Men to do all manner of Kindnesses that lie within our power It takes off the Sowrness and Moroseness of our Spirits and makes us Affable and Courteous Gentle and Obliging and willing to embrace with open Arms and an hearty Love all Sorts and Conditions of Men. In every Relation wherein we can stand to one another it influenceth upon us in order to the making us more useful It makes Parents kind and indulgent and careful of the Education of their Children and Children loving and obedient to their Parents It makes Servants diligent to please their Masters and to do their Work in Singleness of Heart not with Eye-service as Men-pleasers but as unto God and it makes Masters gentle and forbearing and careful to make provision for their Family as those that know they have a Master in Heaven that is no Respecter of Persons In a word There is no Condition or Capacity in which Religion will not be signally an Instrument of making us more serviceable to others and of doing more good in the World And if such be the Spirit and Temper of it how is it possible but it must needs acquire a great deal of Respect and Love from all sorts of Men If Obligingness and doing good in one's Generation do not endear a Man to those that know him do not entitle him to their Love and Affections what thing in the World is there that is likely to do it But Secondly True and unaffected Goodness seldom misses of a good Reputation in the World How unjust to Vertue soever Men are in other respects yet in this they generally give it its due where-ever it appears it generally meets with Esteem and Approbation nay it has the good Word of many that otherwise are not over-fond of Religion Though they have not the Grace to be Good themselves yet they rarely have the Confidence not to commend Goodness in others Add to this that no Man ever raised to himself a Good Name in the World but it was upon the score of his Vertues either Real or Pretended Vice hath sometimes got Riches and advanced it self into Preferments but it never was accounted Honourable in any Nation It must be acknowledged indeed that it may and doth sometimes happen that Vicious Men may be had in Esteem but then it is to be considered that it is not for their Vices that they are esteemed but for some good Quality or other they are eminent in And there is no doubt if those Men were without those Vices their Reputation would be so far from being thereby diminished that it would become much more Considerable It must also be acknowledged on the other hand that even Vertuous and Good Men may sometimes fail of that Esteem and Respect that their Vertue seems to merit nay in that degree as to be slighted and despised and to have many Odious Terms and Nick-names put upon them But when we consider the Cases in which this happens it will appear to be of no force at all for the disproving what has been now delivered For First It ought to be considered what kind of Persons those are that treat Vertue and Vertuous Men thus Contemptuously we shall always find them to be the Worst and the Vilest of Mankind such who have debauched the natural Principles of their Minds have lost all the Notions and Distinctions of Good and Evil are fallen below the Dignity of Humane Nature and have nothing to bear up themselves with but Boldness and Confidence Drollery and Scurrility and turning into Ridicule every thing that is grave and serious But it is with these as it is with the Monsters and Extravagances of Nature they are but very Few Few in comparison of the rest of Mankind who have wiser and truer Sentiments of Things But if they were more numerous no Man of Understanding would value what such Men said of him It looks like a Crime to be commended by such Persons and may justly occasion a Man to reflect upon his own Actions and to cry out to himself as He did of old What have I done that these Men speak well of me But Secondly It cannot be denied but that some Persons who are otherwise Vertuous and Religious may be guilty of such Indiscretions as thereby to give others occasion to slight and despise them But then it is to be considered that this is not to be charged upon Vertue and Religion but is the particular Fault of the Persons Every one that is Religious is not Prudent the Meanness of a Man's Vnderstanding or his rash and intemperate Zeal or the Moroseness of his Temper or his too great Scrupulosity about little things may sometimes make his Behaviour Vncouth and Fantastick and betray him to do many Actions which he may think his Religion obliges him
I never forsaken nor his seed begging their bread Lastly to conclude this point To do Good besides all these advantages that attend it is most to consult our own Peace and to make the best provision possible for our pleasure and delight Charity as Dr. Hammond used to say is really a piece of Sensuality And Epicurus himself the great Master of Voluptuousness would confess that it was not only more Brave but more Pleasant to do Kindnesses than to receive them And certainly every good man will find it so for as the exercise of Charity and Beneficence is as truly a gratification of our Natural Inclinations and Appetites as any other action or thing that causeth pleasure to us So is it also a gratification of those Appetites which are the highest and the noblest we have Now by how much the appetite that is gratifi'd is more noble and divine by so much must the delight that ariseth from that gratification be more exquisite So that it was no very great Hyperbole of our Divine Poet when he said that All joys go less Than that one joy of doing kindnesses And which is farther to be considered it is not with this pleasure as it is with most others that vanish with the enjoyment nay often leave bitterness and melancholy upon the Mind after they are gone off For to do Good is a permanent pleasure a pleasure that will last as long as our lives The memory of our good actions will always be accompanied with Delight and Satisfaction when all our other past Enjoyments prove matters of anguish and torment to us upon our reflexions on them these will be a refreshment and the nearer we approach to death still the more comfort we shall find in them Would we therefore treasure up to our selves a stock of lasting peace and joy to support us in all conditions of our life and and so make our passage easie at our death let us do all the good we can I think I have said enough to convince any one of the truth of Solomon's Proposition that there is nothing better for a man nothing that more concerns him either in point of duty or happiness than to do good in his life Much more might be said and what hath been said might have been said with more advantage and greater evidence if it had been fit to insist upon every particular but I will pursue this Argument no farther but proceed to the second general point I proposed which is to set before you the practicabieness of this great duty by shewing the several ways which every person though in the meanest Circumstances is capable of doing Good A great many there are that are as strongly convinced as may be that 't is both their Interest and duty to be doing Good in their lives but they complain that it is not in their power they have not any Means or Opportunities for it and they bemoan themselves sadly upon this account as thinking their lives useless because they have not those visible Capacities of being serviceable to the world that others have To such as these let me say this in the general There is no condition in the world so mean and despicable but yields us Opportunities of doing Good There is neither Old nor Young Man nor Woman Rich nor Poor High nor Low Learned nor Unlearned but in their Sphere by a good husbandry of those Talents that God has intrusted to their care and management they may be very useful to others and prove instruments of much good in their generations This truth St. Paul most elegantly sets forth in 1 Cor. 12. where he compares the Society of Christians to a Natural body There he shews that as in the Natural body there are many members and all those members have not the same dignity and honour nor the same use or office and yet every member even the meanest hath its particular use by which it doth real service to the body nay so useful it is that the body cannot be without it so it is with the Church of Christ and with every Body Politick There is a necessity both in the Church and in the State that there should be variety of functions and callings and degrees and conditions There must be some to govern and some to be governed there must be some more conspicuous some more obscure some whose gifts and endowments lie this way and some whose Talents lie in another way and yet there is not one of these but in his degree and station either is or may be as useful as any that belong to the Society So that the eye cannot say to the hand as our Apostle there expresseth it I have no need of thee Nor again the head to the feet I have no need of you nay more those members of the body as he continues that seem to be most feeble are yet very necessary To reduce the Apostle's notion to its particulars or to shew in how many respects every individual person that is a Member of a Society is necessary to the publick and either doth or may serve the Weal of it and so do Good in his life is a task too great for me to undertake at this time let it suffice at the present to propose to you these general heads First of all None can want opportunities of doing Good that is in a capacity of performing any acts of Mercy or Charity stristly so called whether that Charity be shew'd to the Bodies or Souls of men Now the instances and expressions of this way of doing good are infinite as infinite as are the wants and necessities of mankind To the Bodies of men we do good whenever we contribute to the relieving and easing them of the outward pressures and wants and necessities they lie under Such as Sickness Pain Poverty Hunger Nakedness Debts Imprisonment or any other outward affliction that falls upon them whether that ease and relief be effected by our purse or by our counsel and advice or by our labour and pains And sure some one of these three things there is none so mean or inconsiderable in the World but it is in his power to benefit his poor Neighbour with To the Souls of men we do good whenever by our discourses or other endeavours we make men better or wiser when we instruct the ignorant when we satisfie the doubtful when we reduce those that are misled by errour when we establish the weak when we reprove those that do amiss in a word all our attempts and endeavours in what way soever to reclaim men from vice and to bring them to wisdom and sobriety is a Charity to their Souls and whether our designs succeed or not we shall be rewarded as those that have done good in the world Secondly All the acts of Beneficence and kindness nay even of Civility and good Nature are to be accounted among the instances of doing good A man doth Good not only by acts of Charity properly so called
but by every courtesie that he doth to another He doth good by shewing his respect and good-will to all about him by reconciling differences among neighbours and promoting peace friendship and society as much as he can by being Generous and Liberal and Hospitable according to his ability by forgiving injuries and if it be possible making friends of those that did them by being easie of access and sweet and obliging in his carriage by complying with the infirmities of those he converseth with and in a word by contributing any way to make the lives of others more easie and comfortable to them Thirdly A man also doth good when he makes use of that acquaintance or friendship or interest that he hath with others to stir them up to the doing of that good which he by the narrowness of his condition or for want of Opportunity cannot do himself This is a very considerable instance of doing good how slight soever it may seem the man that exercises himself this way is doubly a benefactor for he is not only an instrument of good to the person or persons for whom he beg'd the kindness or the charity but he does also a real kindness to the man himself whom he puts upon the benefaction for God will not less reward his Good-will for being excited by another Fourthly Another way to do good is to be careful and diligent and conscientious in the discharge of all those Publick Offices which we are called upon to excecute in the place where we live How burthensome soever these be and how much soever of our time they rob us of yet God by calling us to them hath put a prize into our hands as the Wise man speaks to do much good if we have hearts to make use thereof Fifthly We do good when being in a private Capacity we so carry our selves in all the Relations in which we stand as the nature of the Relation requireth As for instance when being Subjects we conscientiously obey the Laws of the Kingdom and submit to our Governours and promote what we can the publick Peace both of Church and State When being Masters of Families we take care of those under our Charge making sufficient provision both for their Souls and Bodies When being Husbands or Wives we discharge faithfully all the Conjugal duties When being Parents we love our Children and bring them up in the fear and nurture of the Lord. When being Children we obey our Parents in all things When being Servants we do our work in singleness of heart not as men-pleasers but as those that account they have a Master in Heaven When having contracted friendships we are secret and faithful and prudent in the maintaining and preserving of them and so proportionably in all the other relations that we stand in All these things though they appear little yet are they in their degree a real good and benefit to Mankind and so necessary that there is no living tolerably without them Sixthly We also do good by an honest and a diligent pursuit of our calling and employment There is no Art or Trade that we are bred to but if it be a lawful one it may be of great use to the publick and by well minding it and fairly managing it we may render our selves very profitable members of the Common-wealth Seventhly and Lastly We may do a great deal of good by our good Examples by being to others Patterns of Piety and Prudence of Diligence and Industry of Peaceableness and Loyalty of Humility and Meekness and Temperance In a word every man that will make himself Eminent in any Vertue will be a Light to the World his life will be a constant Sermon and he will often prove as effectual a Benefactor to those about him by his Example as others are by their Counsels and Exhortations And now all these things considered who is there among us in such deplorable Circumstances that he can reasonably pretend to want ability or opportunity to do good in his life Sure I am he must live in a desert and have no Communication with mankind that cannot some or other of these ways be useful and beneficial to them And thus much of our Second Head of Discourse I now come in the Third and Last place to make some Application of what hath been spoken And First Since every man is so highly concern'd as we have seen to do Good in his life let us all be persuaded seriously and heartily to apply our Minds hereunto Let us look upon it not as a by-work a thing to be done now and then as there is occasion after our own turns are served But let us lay out our selves upon it let us propose it to our selves as the great Business of our lives Let us take all opportunities for it let us contrive and manage all our affairs so that they may some way or other be subservient to the carrying on this great work Let this be the end of our gathering riches and the measure of our expending them To heap up riches that we may be rich or to throw them away upon our lusts are both equally intolerable it is the doing good with them that sanctifies both the getting and the spending them Let this be the compass to steer and direct us in our pursuit after knowledge in our learning Arts and Sciences in the managery of our Trades and employments in a word in the choice and in the prosecution of every design that is proposed to us In all these things the great enquiry is to be what Good will they tend to How shall we be rendred more useful to the world if our designs and endavours as to these matters do take effect Let this be the great rule by which we proceed in the Education of our Children and Relations and the provisions we make for them in the world Let it be our first care to possess them with a deep sense of the duty they owe to the Publick and to furnish them with such qualities as will render them profitable Members of it and to put them into such professions and employments as may afford them fair scope for the exercise of those qualities If we thus provide for them though we otherwise leave them never so small an Estate yet with the Blessing of God they have a good Portion Lastly let this design of doing good influence our very Offices of Religion When we make our applications to the Throne of Grace let us be sure to have the Publick always in mind and even when we pray for our selves let it be with this design and resolution that as God in mercy bestows upon us the Blessings and the Grace we pray for we will employ them for the good of others O that we would thus seriously concern our selves in doing good O that we would once lay aside all our little selfish designs and that narrowness and penuriousness of Spirit with which most of us are bound up and with
which is more accommodated to Cities and publick Societies than to Cloysters and Deserts And lastly Mat. 5.16 this is to walk in a conformity to his command who hath bid us make our light so to shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our Father which is in Heaven But Fourthly and lastly If it be a thing so necessary that every man should do Good in his life as hath been represented then how much to be reproved are they that do no Good till their death That live scrapingly and uncharitably and uselesly to the world all their lives long and then when they come to die think to Atone for their sins and neglects of this kind by shewing some extraordinary Bounty to the poor or devoting some part of their Estates to publick or pious uses I must confess this kind of proceeding doth to me seem just like the business of putting off a man's repentance to his death-bed It is absolutely necessary that a Man should repent though it be never so late and so it is that he should do good if he have done little Good in his life he is bound as he loves his soul to shew some extraordinary uncommon instances of Charity and a Publick Spirit when he comes to die But then it is here as it is with the long delaying of Repentance the deferring it so long has robbed the man of the greatest part of the praise and the comfort he might have expected from it His Rewards in Heaven will be much less though his good deeds should be accepted but he is infinitely uncertain whether they will or no. It must be a very great act of Generosity and Charity that can obtain a pardon for a whole life of uncharitableness Let us all therefore labour and study to do Good in our lives let us be daily giving evidences to the World of our kind and charitable disposition and let not that be the first which is discovered in our last Will and Testament If God hath blessed us with worldly goods let us distribute them as we see occasion in our life time when every one may see we do it voluntarily and not stay till we must be forced to part with them whether we will or no for that will blast the credit of our good deeds both with God and man I have said enough concerning the first point recommended in the Text viz. doing Good I now come briefly to Treat of the other that is Rejoycing which is equally a part of the business of this day There is no Good saith Solomon in any earthly thing or there is nothing better for any Man than to rejoyce and to do Good The Rejoycing her recommended is capable of two senses the first more general and more concerning us as Christians the other more particular and which more immediately concerns us as we are here met upon this occasion In the first place by Rejoycing we may take to be meant a constant habit of joy and chearfulness so that we are always contented and well pleased always free from those anxieties and disquiets and uncomfortable reflexions that make the lives of mankind miserable This now is the Perfection of Rejoycing and it is the utmost degree of Happiness that we are here capable of It must be granted indeed that not many do arrive to this state but yet I doubt not but that it is a state that may be attained at least in a great measure in this world Otherwise the Holy Men in Scripture and particularly the Apostles of our Lord would never have recommended it to us so often as they have done Rejoyce evermore 1 Thess 9 16. Phil. 4.4 saith S. Paul to the Thessalonians And to the Philipians Rejoyce in the Lord always and again I say rejoyce The way to attain to this happy condition doth consist chiefly in these three things First a great innocence and vertue a behaving our selves so in the world that our Consciences shall not reproach us This St. Paul lays as the Foundation of Rejoycing This saith he is our rejoycing 2 Cor. 1.12 the Testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity I have had my conversation in this world It is in vain to think of any true solid Joy or Peace or Contentment without a hearty Practice of all the duties of our Religion so that we can satisfie our selves of our own sincerity before God And then secondly To make us capable of this constant Rejoycing besides the innocence of our lives there must go a firm and hearty persuasion of God's particular Providence a belief that he not only dispenseth all events that come to pass in the World even the most inconsiderable but that the measure of the Dispensations of his Providence is infinite Wisdom and Goodness and nothing else so that nothing doth or ever can happen to us in particular or to the world in general but what is for the best Now when we firmly believe this and frequently attend to it how can we be either solicitous for the future or discontented at the present events of things let them fall out never so cross to our desires and expectations This is the best Antidote in the world and an effectual one it is against all trouble and vexation and uneasiness that can happen to us upon any occasion whatsoever to wit the consideration that all things are managed by an infinitely wise and good God and will at last prove for the best how unaccountable soever they appear to us at present And this is that which the wise man insinuates in the verse before the Text when he saith that God hath made every thing beautiful in his season Thirdly Another requisite both for the procuring and preserving this continual chearfulness and rejoycing is a frequent and fixed attention to the great rewards of the other world which God hath promised to all that truly love him and endeavour to please him This consideration will extreamly add to our comfort and contribute to our Rejoycing under all the miseries and afflictions that we can possibly fall into namely that whatsoever condition we are in here we shall certainly in a little time be in a most happy and glorious one and the worse our circumstances are in this life the greater if we be good shall be our happiness in the next 2. Cor. 4.17 for these light afflictions as S. Pual tells us which indure but for a moment do work for us a far more exceeding weight of glory This then is the joy that we are to endeavour after in the first place to be constantly well pleas'd and contented with our present condition whatever it be and these are the ways to attain to it But Secondly There is another more particular Notion of Rejoycing and which I conceive Solomon doth chiefly intend in the words of the Text and that is the free and comfortable enjoyment of the good things of this life that God hath
gratification of such an appetite or in the enjoyment of such a pleasure or the like but if I proceed a step farther I become a Transgressor I say if this was the case of a Man in the use of his Liberty it would be no hard matter for any well-disposed Person to take all that Liberty that was moderate and lawful and to forbear all that which is excessive and unlawful But now this is not always an easy matter to be done For many Cases happen in which a Man cannot precisely determine where it is that his lawful Liberty ends and where it is that it begins to be extravagant and excessive So that while a Man is only designing to gratifie his desires in lawful instances he is often carried beyond his bounds and proceeds to excess This now I say is one great occasion of sin to Mankind and yet there is no avoiding of it because it is such a one as doth necessarily arise from the nature of things Thus for instance It is certainly very lawful for a Man to drink Wine and strong Drink not only for his Health's sake when his Constitution doth require it but also for Chearfulness and the Enjoyment of his Friends But on the other side Drunkenness and Intemperance are grievous Crimes and utterly forbid by our Religion Whilst now a Man on one hand hath a desire to take that Liberty that is allowed him and to gratifie his natural inclination to mirth and pleasantness or to shew Civility as he terms it to his Company And on the other hand he has no certain unalterable measures to proceed by for the stinting himself in this Case as surely it is a very hard matter to prescribe or define either to a Man's self or others the exact pitch or limits where Temperance ends and Intemperance begins by this means I say he is often betrayed into sin Thinking with himself that there is a great latitude and compass in the exercise of Temperance and Sobriety as indeed there is and that therefore he may go on some time longer with the Company the Wine by this means steals upon him and he is before he was aware fallen into the sin of Intemperance and Excess And thus it is not only as to the use of our Liberty in things allowed but as to the performance of our Duty in things commanded Every Man is sensible that it is a principal Law of our Religion to be Charitable and to give Alms out of our Substance But now it is not so easy a matter for any Man to define and set cut the quantum or the precise proportion of Alms which every one is bound to give so as to be able to pronounce that if a Man give so much he performs his Duty and is a Charitable Man for one in his Circumstances but if he gives less than that he is Covetous and Vncharitable Now I say because this Duty of Charity is thus indefinitely left and there is such an affinity and undistinguishableness between the least measures of Charity and the sin of being uncharitable Men do from hence often take occasion to fall short in the performance of it And as in the former instance I gave about drinking they are apt to take more Liberty than is allowed them so in this they are apt to do less than is commanded them For if they do but give something to the poor out of their yearly Income they think they give enough to satisfie the Command of Charity and so they make no Conscience of saving and hoarding without end or without measure There are a hundred more instances besides these two that I have named wherein there is such a latitude left to our practices and the difference between lawful and unlawful Duty and Sin lies in so small a compass that it is hard to separate and distinguish them unless a Man be both very wise and very honest We have not any Law of God which defines how often we are to pray Or when it is our Duty to fast Or to what degree we may be angry Or how we are to govern our selves as to the quantity or kinds of our meat and drink Or how far we may comply with the Customs of the World Or how splendid we may be in our Apparel and Equipage Or what Games and Recreations may be used and how often Or what Rules we are to go by in buying and selling and our other dealings with Men Or how far we may seek our own when our right cannot be obtained without prejudice to our Neighbour In these I say and abundance of other Cases we have no express particular Laws of God to steer and measure our Actions by nor indeed is it possible we should have Because what is fit and reasonable to be done in these Cases admits of so great a difference from the infinite variety of the circumstances of particular Men. What now must we do in these Cases How must we order our selves that we may perform our Duty and keep out of sin Why in answer to this I say We have only general Rules to direct us in these matters and those Rules we are to apply to our own particular cases In this latitude that things are left in we are to use our Liberty as carefully and as prudently as is possible taking our measures from the Principles of Reason and the general Rules of the Gospel Now what those general Rules and measures are it is my business at this time to treat of And three things I have here to propose for the use of our Liberty which will I think be a sufficient Direction to us in all cases of this nature and which if we do carefully observe we shall never use our Liberty for an occasion to the Flesh but we shall both come up to what is our Duty and shall likewise avoid all those sins which Mankind are so frequently betrayed into through the too great affinity that there is between Vertue and Vice and the indiscreet exercise of their Liberty upon occasion thereof And the first thing I would possess you all with and which indeed as it is the most general so it is the best advice that can be given in this matter is this That we would endeavour to be heartily honest and serious in the business of Religion That we would sincerely devote our selves to the service of God That we would purifie our Minds as much as may be from all sensual and selfish Principles and in all our Actions and Pursuits have more respect to the doing our Duty and the approving our selves to our great Lord and Master than to any other consideration This is that which St. Paul so often exhorts us to Whether saith he you eat or drink or whatever ye do do all to the glory of God And again Whatever ye do do it heartily as unto the Lord knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance If we could once get our selves possessed
rewarded and wicked Men punished to deny the liberty of Humane Actions and to say that all things which we do we do by a fatal necessity and we cannot do otherwise And yet we may every day meet with Men of these Principles nay and that laugh at all those that maintain the contrary But then as for the business of Jesus Christ and that which we call the Christian Religion what a very little do a great many among us make of that To talk of Christ's being sent for the Saviour of the World and that he died to procure the Pardon of our Sins and that we must believe all the Scripture-Doctrines concerning him and worship him as a God why what stuff is this to a great many of the resined Spirits of our Age It is very well if they can so far prevail with themselves as to own the Being of God and to acknowledge their obligation to the Duties of moral Honesty and Justice which natural Religion teacheth But as for Jesus Christ and the Trinity and the Sacraments and all revealed Religion they beg your Pardon for these things they are too nice and subtil for them to meddle with Not but that they are good Christians all the while For they can come to our Churches and to our Sacraments too if there be occasion Because indeed they will always be of the Religion of the Country where they live But at the same time they do this they do no more really believe or expect any Spiritual Benefit in our Religion nor look for any more Salvation from Christ Jesus than they would expect from Mahomet if they should live in Turky But this is not all Even among those that do believe in Jesus Christ and own his Religion yet what little regard have they generally speaking to his Worship and Service It is very well if they now and then afford their presence on Sundays at the publick Religious Assemblies I will not examine with what designs and for what ends they come thither nor how devoutly and religiously their hearts are affected during the time they are there I say it is very well that they are there at all But even of those that do come thither and do once a Week seem to have a sense of publick Religion I say how few are there of them that take any care of worshipping God either in their Families or in their Closets Why if a Man was truly Religious he could not pass a day without solemn Addresses to his Maker and to his Redeemer He would pray in his Closet constantly and if he had a Family he would Pray with them constantly And if he had no Family he would constantly resort to those places where he might pay his Tribute of publick Prayer and Praises to God unless he had urgent business to hinder him But is there any thing of this to be seen among us except in some few Persons here and there Are there not twenty Families for one that live without so much as the shew of any Devotion Without any sort of Prayer or Worship of God in their Houses Nay and I am afraid I may say there are twenty for one even of Private Persons that live without Devotion in their Closets that never call upon God never renew their Vows to their Saviour never pay him any Homage except perhaps once a Week in a formal way when the Custom of the Country obliges them to resort to the Church The truth is so little sense have most of us of Religion and Devotion so little regard of our Duty to God and our depenance upon him and expressing that dependance either in Private or in our Families That were it not for that Happy Institution of the Lord's day on the which we are obliged by the Laws of God and Man to meet together for the Worship of God we should hardly see any Face of Religon among us and in a little time should scarce be distinguished from Heathens But yet this is not the worst of our Case Our gross Immoralities that Horrid Lewdness and Debauchery that is every where to be observed in our days doth still increase our Guilt and cry to Heaven for Judgment upon our Nation It would make a Man's heart ake that has any sense of God or Religion to think of the Riots the Drunkenness the continued course of spending our Time and our Parts and our Substance in Revelling and Gaming and all manner of such excesses that is daily practised among us And yet at the same time the Men that thus live think themselves very honest Men all the while It would really amaze a Man and put him upon admiring God's Patience that he doth not presently confound the World if he did seriously reflect on the many filthy lewd Speeches and Actions the numerous wicked intrigues of Lust the Infamous Whoredoms and Adulteries that are without any sense of shame daily carried on and acted among us and that by Persons too that have the Face to shew themselves at our Holy Assemblies Especially if to these be added the infinite Lyes and Cheats and Perjuries which our Land groans under The Blasphemous Oaths and Imprecations the Damn me 's and Sink me's the Horrid Profanations of the Name of God and all things Sacred that are in every place in every street where we pass belched out in contempt of the Almighty and his Laws by all sorts of Persons of all sorts of Qualities from the Beggar in the street to the Man of Honour and that for no other reason in the World but because it is their Humour or their Custom And lastly to fill up the measure of our iniquities to our other reigning Vices we have added that of Hypocrisie too which one would think should not often be found among so much Profaneness How many of us make a mighty noise with Religion and are zealous even to Bigottry in the defence of it and yet have not one grain of inward sense of what it obligeth them to Nay so far from that that if Religion be but in their Mouths If they do but appear Zealous enough for the Protestant Cause If they can but cry loue enough The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord as the Jews did in the Prophet They matter not how coutradictory their Actions are to the Precepts of that Religion they do Profess Their Zeal for so good a Cause will sanctifie all the other Actions be they never so wicked and unjust But if this be not Hypocrisie there is no such thing in the World Sure I am it was this sort of Carriage that God so often reproves the Jews for by his Prophets and upon account of which they are so often reproached as a Generation of Hypocrites and for which he threatens them with utter destruction O my Brethren what have we to say to these things If the Case be thus with us as I am afraid it is What plea have we to put in for our selves If
any of our Betters without saluting them or some way or other testifying our Respect to them tho' they had no way particularly obliged us But if we were beholding to them for our daily Bread to come into their Presence without taking notice of them or their Bounty to us would be intolerable How much more intolerable therefore must it be to pass by God Almighty day after day nay to be in his Presence continually as indeed we always are and yet neither to pay any Homage or Reverence to him as He is our Supreme Lord nor to make any Acknowledgments as He is our daily Preserver and Benefactor If we had any sense of Ingenuity we should blush to think of passing a Day without several times lifting up our Minds and doing our Respects to Almighty God tho' there was no other ill in the Neglect than only the horrible Rudeness and ill Manners that it discovers in us But Secondly The constant Exercise of Prayer is not only recommended to us under the notion of a very decent and reasonable thing but as an indispensable Duty God Almighty hath most strictly charged it upon us and we are Transgressors of his Laws if we do not practise it Nature it self speaks sufficiently plain in this matter And where-ever God hath to the Law of Nature super-added any Revelation of his Will this Duty we are speaking of fails not to make up a considerable part of it It would be endless to mention all that is said upon this Head by our Lord and his Apostles in the new Testament I have told you already that they oblige us to no less than Praying always Praying without ceasing They use likewise abundance of other Expressions to the like purpose They bid us every where to lift up holy hands In every thing to make our Supplications known unto God To pray in the Spirit with all Prayer and Supplication and and to watch thereunto with all perseverance If it be said there is no such express command for Prayer in that Revelation which was made to the Jews I answer It is a great Mistake The Prophets do over and over again injoin it as the Principal Part of the Worship of God And those that live without Praying are by those Inspired Writers rank'd among the Atheists Psalm 53.1.4 And as for the Law of Moses it self it is obvious to observe that the greatest part of it is concerning Sacrifices Now Sacrifices if we will understand them right were nothing else but that Form or Method of putting up Prayers to God that was in those times used in the World So that in truth so far was Prayer from being left as a Matter of Indifferency to the Jews that most of their Religion consisted in it And accordingly all the Devout Men of that Church spent much of their Time in this Exercise David's manner was to pray seven times a Day And Daniel took himself to be so much obliged to the frequent Practice of this Duty that rather than break his Custom of performing his Solemn Devotions three times a day he would expose himself to the Den of Lyons Nay Thirdly So great is our obligation to frequent Prayer that he acts against his Nature whosoever doth not practise it For in truth Prayer is the proper and peculiar Duty of Man as he is a Man That which constitutes the nature of Man and doth formally difference and distinguish him from all other Animals is not so much the power of Reason as the capacity of being Religious There are some Foot-steps of an obscure Reason to be observed in many Creatures besides Man But in none except Him is there found any sense of a Deity or Disposition towards Religion or any thing that looks like it That seems to be the Prerogative of Mankind God endowed them and them only with Spirits capable of Reflecting upon the Author of their Beings and of making acknowledgments and performing Religious Worship to him So that to Worship God to converse with him in the exercise of Devotion to Pray and give Thanks for his Benefits may be truly said to be the proper Office of a Man as Man The natural exercise of those Faculties that distinguish him from brute Creatures And consequently those that live in a continual neglect of this what must be said of them but that they act unsuitably to their Natures and are degenerated into a sort of Brutishness It appears then that our Obligations to this Duty are many and great and such as there is no possibility of evading But here is our unhappiness that those Duties which we are most strictly obliged to are not those that we are always most inclined to practise There may be something in the most indispensable Duties so harsh and unpleasant so disagreeing with our other Appetites or Interests They may be so hard to be performed so Laborious or so Expensive or upon some other account so ungratefull that we shall naturally put our selves upon the finding out Excuses for the ridding our hands of them and easily satisfy our minds for so doing But now which I desire in the Fourth place to be considered There are none of these pretences to be made against this Duty of Prayer none of these Inconveniencies do attend it But it is so naturally so easily performed and so inoffensively to all our other Appetites and Interests That one would think nothing but mere laziness or stupidity could hinder a Man from the daily Exercise of it It requires no great Parts or Learning or Study for the discharging it The meanest Capacity the most un-improved Vnderstanding if there be but an honest Heart may perform it as well as the learnedest Man in the World It requires no Labour or Toil. The feeblest and most dis-spirited Body that can but lift up eyes to Heaven and direct wishes thither doth it as effectually as the most vigorous Constitution It doth not go against the grain of any natural Inclination nor put the body to any pain or hardship Nor doth it contradict any appetite or affection that Nature hath implanted in us No Humour but either the Sottish or the Malicious the Brutish or the Devilish is distasted by it It puts us to no Charge or Expence in the World save that of our Thoughts yet that is the noblest way of spending them And if they be not employed thus it is ten to one but they will be employed much worse It is not at all consumptive of our Time For we may attend this work when we are a doing other business and there is no man so full of business but he hath abundance of vacant spaces which he will not know how to fill up to any good purpose unless he hath learned this Art of saving Time In a word there is no Objection against it it is one of the Easiest Naturalest Inoffensivest Duties in the World Nay so easie it is that the most Selfish Man if he was to make his own Terms with
and Families Now to a Man that loves God and hath a tender sense of his Duty this is enough in all Conscience to deter him for ever from the practice of Gaming though it be not made to appear to him that it is expresly and explicitly forbid by any Law of Jesus Christ So that you see that in those points where there are disputes on both sides when the Consideration is concerning the Obligation or the lawfulness of an Action there is no difficulty no dispute at all when the Consideration is only concerning what is best and most fitting to be done concerning what is most agreeable to our Duty and most conducive to the Honour of God and Religion as to that Action That is evident enough in all Cases nor is any Man at a loss for finding it out And that is the Principle which I say every sincere lover of God governs himself by and which I would have us all to propose to our selves for the Rule of our Actions in order to the securing us from those snares and stumbling blocks to which the affinity between Vertue and Vice Lawful and Vnlawful will otherwise expose us Let us not stand upon points with God Almighty as if so much was his and so much was our own as if we were to share our selves between his Service and our own Pleasures and Profits and the like and were resolved not to pay him any more respect or love than what some express Letter of his Law doth exact at our Hands But let us so entirely devote our selves to his Service as to do not only all those things which we are strictly bound to do or else we are Transgressors but all those things that are acceptable to him all those things that are praise worthy and tend to the Perfection of our Nature and the Reputation of Christ's Religion Let us make it the end of our Actions not to seek our selves but his Glory every day to grow better and better and in every Occurrence to consider not what may lawfully be done but what is Most becoming a Disciple of Jesus Christ to do In a word what ever is best in any Action what ever most serves the end of piety what ever tends most to the credit of our Religion and the benefit of others let us consider that and act accordingly And thus I am sure to design and act is most suitable to the Nature and Genius of our Christian Religion nay indeed it is the Principal Law and Commandment of it The design of Christianity is not to adjust the precise bounds of Vertue and Vice Lawful and Vnlawful which is that that a great many among us so greedily hanker after For the best that could have come from such a design had been only this that Men by this means might have been fairly instructed how they might have avoided the being bad though they never became very good But the design of Christianity is to make Men as good as they can possibly be as devout as humble as charitable as temperate as contented as heavenly-minded as their Natures will allow of in this World And for the producing this effect the exact distinguishing the limits of the several Vertues and their opposite Vices signifies very little The Laws of our great Master are not like the Civil Municipal Laws of Kingdoms which are therefore wonderfully nice and critical and particular in setting bounds to the practices of Men because they only look at overt Actions so that if a Man do but keep his Actions within the compass of the Letter of the Law he may be accounted a good Subject and is no way obnoxious to the Penalties which the Law threatens If our Religion had been of this strain we should without doubt have had a World of particular Laws and Precepts and directions about our Actions in all emergent Cases more than we now have And we might as easily have known from the Bible what was forbidden unlawful Anger what was excessive drinking what was pride and luxury in Apparel and the like as we now know by the Statute-Book what is Burglary or Murther or Treason But there was no need of these particularities in the institution of Christ Jesus His Religion was to be a Spiritual thing And the design of it was not to make us chast or temperate or humble or charitable in such a degree but to make us as chast and temperate as humble and charitable as pure and holy in all our Conversation as we possibly can be This I say was the design of Christ's Religion It was to be the Highest Philosophy that was ever taught to Mankind It was to make us the most excellent and perfect Creatures as to purity of Mind and Heart that Humane Nature is capable of And therefore it hath not been so accurate and particular in prescribing bounds to our outward Actions because it was abundantly enough for the securing them to oblige us to the highest degree of inward purity And this it hath done above all the Laws and Religions in the World It teacheth us to abhor every thing that is evil or impure in all the kinds of it in all the degrees of it and in all the tendencies towards it And to lay out our selves in the pursuit of every thing that is honest that is lovely that is praise-worthy and of good report among Men. If this now be the design of our Religion and these be the Laws of it I leave it to you to judge of these two things First Whether it doth not highly concern all of us that profess this holy Religion to endeavour in all our Conversation to be as holy and as vertuous as we can and to do as much good as we can and not to content our selves with such a degree of honesty and vertue as is just sufficient to the rendering us not vicious And then secondly Whether if we do thus endeavour we can easily be at a loss in distinguishing between Good and Evil Duty and Sin in any instance And consequently Whether we can be much in danger of ill using our Liberty and so transgressing upon that account I have been longer upon this first Head than I intended but I shall make amends for it by dispatching the two following in so much the fewer words And indeed after so large an account as I have given of the general Rule there is less need of dwelling upon particular ones II. In the second place In order to the right use of our Liberty and so securing our serves from falling into sin through mistaking the measures of Good and Evil This will be a good Rule to propose to our selves namely That in matters of Duty we should rather do too much than too little But in matters of Indifferency we should rather take too little of our Liberty than too much First As to matters of Duty my meaning is this That where the Laws of God have generally and indefinitely commanded a thing but
have not set down Rules about the particular measures and proportions of it in that case it is advisable rather to do more than we are perhaps precisely bound to do that so we may be sure we have performed our Duty than by being scanty in our obedience to run the hazard of falling short of our Duty Thus for instance Our Lord in the New Testament hath often and solemnly commanded us to pray But neither he nor his Apostles have any where told us how often we are to pray only they have bid us pray frequently In this Case now a Man that makes a Conscience of performing his Duty will take all occasions and opportunities of listing up holy hands and devout affections to his heavenly Father However he will not fail at least once every time he riseth and once every time he goes to rest to offer up a solemn Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise Less than this I say he must not do for fear he break the Commandment of praying frequently praying continually But more than this it will become him to do in order to the giving himself satisfaction that he hath fully performed it Thus again To give Alms to the poor is an indispensable Duty of our Religion But what proportion of our substance we are to give away in Alms and Charity is no where set down but is wholly left to our discretion Now in this case it is certainly much more advisable to give liberally and largely and plentifully even as much as our condition in this World and the necessities of our Families can allow though by so doing we shall prove to have given in greater abundance than we were strictly obliged to Than by giving stingily and pinchingly now and then a little pocket money or so to run the hazard of being Trangressors of the Commandment and having our Portion among the covetous and unmerciful There is no damage comes to a Man by doing the former but on the contrary a great deal of good For God never fails bounteously to reward the bountiful hand But there is both damage and infinite danger in the latter And thus we are to practise in all other Duties Only this caution we must take along with us That we are always so to proportion the measures of every single Duty as to render it consistent with the performance of the other Duties of our lives As for instance we must not spend so much time in Prayer as to hinder the pursuit of our Callings and necessary business We must so give Alms as yet to leave our selves enough to pay every one their own and to make a competent provision for our Families But let us but take care to secure this and then we cannot easily exceed in the measures of any Duty The more we pray and the more we give alms still the better And so in all other instances of Duty But now in the second place the quite contrary to this are we to practise in matters of Liberty There the rule is rather to take less than is allowed us than to take all Rather to abridge our selves of our lawful Liberties than by doing all that we may lawfully do indanger our falling into sin There is no harm at all in departing from our Rights and Privileges which God hath indulged us But there is a great harm in extending them beyond their bounds There is no evil in not gratifying our desires and appetites in all the things they crave which are allowable and which we are permitted to gratifie them in But there is an infinite evil in gratifying them in unlawful forbidden instances And therefore every wise and good Man will be sure to keep on the safe side and to prevent the danger of doing more than he should do he will not always do all that he may do The truth is that Man that makes no scruple of using his Liberty to the utmost stretch and extent of it upon all occasions and regards nothing more in his Actions than just that he do not fall into some direct sin That Man cannot always be innocent but will be drawn into a hundred irregularities and miscarriages Thus for Example he that useth himself to eat or to drink to the utmost pitch that can be said to be within the limits of Temperance it is impossible but such a one will now and then be unavoidably overtaken in the sin of Gluttony or Drunkenness He that will use all the liberties that the Law allows him for the making advantages to himself in his Trade or his Dealings with other Men Such a one will not be able to avoid the just imputation of being in many instances an Oppressor or a hard Conscienced Man The safest way therefore if we mean to preserve our Vertue amidst the multitude of Snares and Temptations that we meet with in the World is to set bounds even to our Lawful Liberties to keep our actions within such a compass as not to come even near the Confines of Vice and Sin Though it is but a point and that often an undiscernable one that distinguisheth between what is lawful and what is unlawful Yet there is a great latitude in what is lawful That is if I gratify my Appetites but a little I do that which is lawful and if I gratifie them more I may do that which is lawful likewise But he shews the most Honest and Vertuous Mind that in his actions takes but a little of this latitude and by that means keeps himself at a good distance from that which is vicious and criminal III. But thirdly and lastly To what degree soever we may think fit to make use of our liberty yet at all times As soon as we begin to doubt or fear we have gone as far as we lawfully can go it is then high time to break off and to proceed no farther This is the last Rule I have to offer upon this occasion And thus also wherever we have a just ground of suspition or doubt whether a thing be lawful or no this doubt or suspicion is of it self reason enough to make us forbear that thing Unless indeed there be a Necessity or a great Charity to be served by the doing of it which may in reason over-balance the suspicion of its lawfulness Thus in matters of Recreation If we have the least doubt whether this or the other Pleasure or Divertisement be innocent and lawful why that is Argument enough without more ado to make us forbear it though perhaps we see others use it without scruple Thus in matters of Temperance when we first begin to suspect that we have drunk as much as is convenient for us Let us by all means leave off and break from the Company Thus in matters of Sobriety when we have reason to doubt that we are come up to the full bounds of the Christian gravity and modesty and that any degree more of pomp or bravery in our garb or in our attendance or in our equipage will