The Fifth Commandment

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God gives you.

The whole sum of practical religion consists either in those duties which immediately concern the worship and service of God, or those which immediately concern our converse with, and demeanor towards men. Both are compendiously prescribed in the Decalogue: the former sort in the first, the latter in the second table of the law. I have already according to my designed method, finished the exposition of the four precepts of the first table, and have discoursed to you, both concerning the internal, and also the external worship of God. It remains now in pursuance of this work, to pass to the consideration of the duties and precepts of the second table, all which do concern man, as their primary and immediate object.

But here by the way, let us observe the distance that God puts between himself and us. We are, as it were, set at another table from him, as being infinitely inferior to his great and glorious majesty. First he prescribes what concerns himself, and then what concerns us, which teaches us,

First; that in all our actions, whether civil or sacred, God ought principally to be regarded, his glory ought to be our highest aim and end. This we are to seek in the first place; and for the sake and interest of this, to promote the good and benefit of men. This therefore condemns those who disturb and pervert the order of the law, and instead of serving men out of respect to God, serve God merely out of respect to men.

Secondly; this teaches us to observe our due distance from God: he challenges all possible reverence from us, insomuch that he will not permit so great a disparagement to his honor, as to have his concerns intermingled and blended with ours, no not in the same table. And this checks the insolence of those who dare to rush in upon God with that malapert sauciness which is too common among some brain-sick people in our days, who think that communion with God consists in a familiar rudeness; and that they never draw near enough to him, unless they run upon his very neck.

But this only by the way.

Now in this second table are contained six precepts, all of them enjoining our duty towards man; and he may be considered either as our superior, our equal, or our inferior. Our duty towards our superiors and inferiors (which are correlates) is prescribed in the first of these six which I have now read to you, and our duty towards our equals in the other five; all which do respect our neighbor, either, in his person: or, in the exterior gifts of wealth and credit.

His person is to be considered, either naturally, or mystically.

Naturally, as he is in himself and his own person: and so the Sixth Commandment provides for his security, you shall not kill.

Mystically, as he is in the state of marriage, which of two makes one flesh; and so care is taken for him in the Seventh Commandment: you shall not commit adultery.

If we consider him in respect of his external gifts of wealth and good name, so we shall find that the first is fenced about and secured by the Eighth Commandment; you shall not steal.

His credit and good name is secured by the Ninth; you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

And because the violation of these laws by outward and flagitious acts proceeds from the latent wickedness and concupiscence of the heart, therefore God, who is a Spirit, and whose law and authority can reach even to the soul and spirit, has not only prohibited the gross perpetration of these crimes, but has strictly forbidden the inward and secret intention of them, charging us not to harbor so much as a thought or desire towards them, in the Tenth Commandment, you shall not covet.

In the due performance of all these consists the observance of that second great command (Matthew 22:39), you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

I shall begin with the first of these, honor your father and your mother, which respects the mutual duties of superiors and inferiors.

And here we have a precept and a promise.

The precept is to honor them.

The promise, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God has given you.

Now here we may (as formerly we have done) observe a ray of the infinite wisdom of God in the orders and method of this commandment. For after he had prescribed laws for his own honor, his next care is for the honor of our parents, because they are next under God, the authors and original of our lives and beings. God indeed is properly and primarily our Father, and of him is the whole family in heaven and earth named, that is, of him they are and subsist; in him we all live, and move, and have our beings. Earthly parents do but convey to us that being which God had beforehand laid up in store for us. And therefore when our Savior bids us to call no man father upon earth; for one is our Father which is in heaven: this must not be understood, as though we ought not to give that name and title of father to those who are our earthly parents, the fathers of our flesh, as the Apostle styles them (Hebrews 12:2). But only that their paternity is not so original, nor so absolute as God's, who is the Father of our spirits; who not only forms the mass of our bodies by his secret and wonderful artifice, but creates our souls, and by his breath kindles in us such sparks of ethereal fire as shall never be quenched or extinguished to all eternity. And therefore though we owe to the fathers of our flesh honor and reverence, as they are the instruments of our beings, yet we owe much more to God, even unlimited and boundless respects and obedience, who is the prime cause and author of them. But indeed this word [Father] has also another sense in our Savior's speech. For the Jews were accustomed to call their doctors and instructors, by the name of fathers, and gave up themselves, without hesitation or contradiction, to believe and follow their dictates.

Now when our Savior bids us to call no man father on earth; his meaning is, that we must not so mancipate ourselves either to the commands or doctrine of any man, as to prejudice the authority which God, the great and universal parent of all things, challenges over us; but still our obedience to their injunctions, and our belief of their instructions, ought to be cautioned with a subordination to the commands and notices of the divine will: yet we may call and honor others as fathers, by yielding them a secondary respect, subservient to the honor and glory of God.

Now this command of honoring our parents is very large and comprehensive; and not to be limited only to the grammatical signification of the word, but extends itself to all that are our superiors. And that appears, because honor belongs principally only to God; but secondarily, and by way of derivation, it belongs also to those whom God the great King has dignified, and made as it were nobles in his kingdom. For as the king is the fountain of honor within his dominions; so God, who is the universal monarch of all the world, is the true fountain of honor among mankind, ennobling some above others by titles and pre-eminences which he bestows upon them; and all such superiors, whom he has been pleased thus to raise, are to be honored by us as our fathers. And therefore,

First; our governors and magistrates are our fathers, and so to be accounted and reverenced by us. Indeed they are Patres Patriae, the fathers of their country: for all government being at the first domestic and paternal, the father, or chief of the family, having power of life and death over his children, necessity at last taught them to devolve both the care and the authority of this charge upon some selected persons, to whom they committed the government both of themselves, and theirs. So that magistrates succeeding in the place and office of parents, are now the public fathers, having the same power devolved upon them which formerly resided in the fathers of families. Hence we read that common and successive name of the kings of the Philistines, Ahimelech, which signifies the King my Father.

Secondly; the master of a private family is likewise a father, and that not only with respect to his children, but to his very servants: and therefore, (2 Kings 5:13) we find that Naaman is called father by his servants, My Father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, etc.

Thirdly; a teacher in any art, science, or invention, is likewise called a father. Thus (Genesis 4:20-21) Jabal is said to be the father of such as dwell in tents, and Jubal to be the father of such as handle the harp and organ.

Fourthly; a superior in wisdom and counsel is likewise called a father. So in Joseph's speech, (Genesis 45:8) God has made me a father to Pharaoh.

Fifthly; the ministers of the gospel have likewise the honorable titles of fathers conferred upon them. And that both because indeed they are superior to the people in things appertaining to God, having the dispensation of the grace of the gospel committed to them; and because likewise through the concurrence of the Spirit's operation with their ministry, they beget souls to Jesus Christ. Thus St. Paul tells the church, (1 Corinthians 4:15) that he was their father, having begotten them through the gospel. And therefore we have great reason to magnify our office, in the execution and performance of which we ought to demean ourselves as fathers, with all gravity and authority; and to let these know whose petulant affronts and scorns tend to the vilifying both of our persons and functions, that they despise not us only, but Jesus Christ who has sent us, and the eternal Father who has sent him. So he himself has told us, (Luke 10:16) He that despises you, despises me; and he that despises me, despises him that sent me.

Sixthly; superiors in any gift of divine providence, whether of riches, or of age, or of knowledge, and the like, are to be reverenced and honored by us as fathers; so (1 Timothy 5:1-2) the elders entreat as fathers, and the elder women as mothers.

So that you see how large and copious this word father is, taking in many other relations and states of men besides these to whom it is now commonly applied.

Here then, in opening to you the sum of this commandment, I shall endeavor to show you what are the mutual and reciprocal duties of these following relations;

First, of natural parents, and their children.

Secondly, of magistrates supreme and subordinate, and their subjects.

Thirdly, of husband and wife; for there likewise is a superiority resident in the one, and obedience due from the other.

Fourthly, of masters and servants.

Fifthly, of ministers, and the people committed to their charge.

Sixthly, the duties of those who have a superiority either in the gifts of God's grace, or of his bounty towards those that are inferior to them; and of theirs reciprocally towards those that excel.

For all these are fathers, and honor is required to be given them by virtue of this command.

I know I am now entering upon a work, which to many will be very harsh and unpleasing. For, as there is nothing wherein the truth and power of godliness, and the very life of religion is more concerned, than a conscientious performance of relative duties; so there is nothing that grates and jars more upon the spirits of men, than to be put in mind of, and reproved about these duties which are of such common and daily occurrence in the whole course of our lives. Yet I beseech you lay your prejudices and affections under the authority of God's word, and be persuaded to believe these things to be exceeding weighty and momentous, (however plain they may be) which not only the light and law of nature dictates to us, but the Spirit of God has been pleased frequently to recommend in the Holy Scriptures, indeed more frequently, and more expressly, than any other duties whatever.

I shall therefore begin first, with the mutual duties of parents, and children. And here I shall speak,

First, of the honor that is due to parents from their children.

Second, and then what parents are obliged to do for their children.

First, for the former of these, the command says, Honor your father and your mother. Now this honor which they are to defer to them, consists in these four things: reverence, obedience, retribution and imitation.

First, children are to reverence their parents. Now reverence is nothing but an awful love, a fearfulness to offend, out of the respect we bear them. It is not such a fear as terrifies, and drives us from the presence and company of those whom we dread, for that is slavish and tormenting; but a genuine, sweet, and obliging fear; a fearful esteem and veneration; a fear that will engage us to attend on them, to observe and imitate them, and to abstain from doing anything that might grieve or trouble them.

Now this reverence which we owe our parents, is wont to express itself outwardly by two things, speeches, and gestures.

First, our speeches must be full of respect and honor, giving to them the highest titles that their quality and condition will admit. They must likewise be very few, and very humble and submissive. Talkativeness is an argument of disrespect, and by the answers of the lips, the heart is tried and sounded; therefore we find how mildly and reverently Jonathan speaks to his father Saul, although he were then pleading for his David, and managing the concernment of his friend's life, which was far dearer to him than his own; yet see with what modesty he urges it (1 Samuel 19:4-5). Let not the king sin against his servant, against David; for he did put his life in his hand, and slew the Philistine, etc. And God blessed a speech so well tempered, and so full of soft and melting oratory, with success. Indeed we find an instance of a disobedient son in the parable of our Savior (Matthew 21), who though he obeyed not the commands of his father, yet thought it too shameful a crime not to give him good words, and reverent titles, verse 30: I go, Sir. And certainly it is but fit and meet that we should give them the best and the most obliging language, who have taught us to speak; and to please them with our words, who have instructed us how to form them. Indeed, that rude and boisterous language which many of the sons of Belial use towards their parents, is so odious and detestable to God, that he has in his law threatened to punish it with the same punishment, as blasphemy against himself (Exodus 21:17). He that curses his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death. And (Proverbs 20:20): He that curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.

Secondly, we must likewise show them reverence in our gestures, and comport ourselves with all lowliness and modesty before them, in bowing the body, and showing all other external signs of respect. So we find (Genesis 48:12) that Joseph, as highly exalted as he was in the court of Pharaoh, when he brought out his sons to receive the blessing of Jacob his father, he bowed himself with his face to the earth. And on the contrary, that an ill-conditioned look towards a parent is severely threatened (Proverbs 30:17): The eye that mocks at his father, and despises to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.

But, secondly, as we must honor them with reverence, so especially with obedience, without which all external reverence is but mere formality, if not mere mockery. See that large charter which God has given to parents (Colossians 3:20): Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well pleasing to the Lord.

Our obedience to them may be considered either as active, or passive; and we are obliged by God's command to yield them both: active obedience, in whatever is not contrary to the will and law of God; passive, in whatever they impose upon us that is so. And therefore we are to obey our parents in whatever honest calling and employment they will set us. David, though destined to a kingdom, is yet by his father Jesse appointed to keep the sheep (1 Samuel 16:11). We ought not, till at last we are emancipated and set free by their consent, to enter into wedlock without their knowledge, or against their consent. For we find the holy fathers have still taken the care of the disposal of their children in this affair. And the Apostle (1 Corinthians 7:36-37) declares, that it is in the parents' power either to marry their children, or to keep them in a single estate. But yet no question so, as that children have still a negative vote, and ought not to be forced against their own will and consent. Indeed, so far does the authority of a parent extend, that it reaches also to the very garb and apparel of their children, who ought to conform themselves therein, according to their allowance and direction (Genesis 37:3). But if parents shall abuse their authority, by commanding what is sinful, and what God has contravened by his law and command; yet children are not hereby disobliged from obedience, but only directed to choose the passive part of it, and to bear their wrath and anger, indeed and their punishments too, with all patience and submission. For, as the Apostle speaks (Hebrews 12:10), they oftentimes chasten as after their own pleasure; and yet we are to give them reverence; we ought to bear with their infirmities, whether they be natural, or vicious, and endeavor to hide and cover them from others. And therefore we read what a curse was laid upon Ham, for disclosing the nakedness of his father (Genesis 9:25). And indeed it is a cursed thing to expose the nakedness and weakness of our parents to the scorn and derision of others. But this is not all: for,

Thirdly; As we must honor them by reverence and obedience, so likewise by remuneration and retribution, requiting the benefits we have received from them, so far as we are able, and they need. This the Apostle expressly enjoins (1 Timothy 5:4): If any widows have children, or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents; that is, when they are fallen to poverty or decay, or otherwise require assistance from us, we are obliged liberally according to our proportion to afford it. And he affirms that this is good and acceptable before God. And therefore we find our Saviour sharply reprehending that unnatural doctrine among the Scribes and Pharisees, which dispensed with children from the relief of their parents (Matthew 15:5-6): You say, Whoever shall say to his father or mother, It is a gift by whatever you may be profited by me, and honor not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Which place, because it is obscure and intricate, admits of diverse expositions. Some say it was the doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees, that although a man did not honor nor support his parents, yet he should be guiltless, if he should tell them that he had offered in the Temple a gift for his and their good, and that therefore they could require no more relief from him. Others, that it was a solemn oath among the Jews to swear by the gift or offering, which was brought into the Temple, and presented there as a sacrifice before God; which oath was obligatory in the highest degree, whatever the matter of it might be (Matthew 23:18). And the Scribes did teach, that if a man had sworn thus to his parents, By the gift you shall have no profit by me, then he was forever disobliged from relieving them, were their necessities never so great and urgent. And according to this exposition, the words should be thus translated; But you say, Whoever says to his father or mother, by the gift if you have any profit by me, (where must be understood some curse or imprecation upon themselves, which they did usually express, as, Let me die, or the like) then he shall be free from the obligation of honoring, that is, of relieving and maintaining his father or mother. Whichever interpretation be most consonant to the corrupt doctrine of the Scribes, and the corrupt practice of the Jews, (as I suppose the latter is) our Saviour condemns it for a most vile hypocrisy, making the commandments of God of none effect through their traditions. Certainly it is one of the most unnatural sins in the world, for children who have ability and opportunity to relieve their necessitous parents, to suffer them to want a livelihood, and comfortable subsistence, who are the cause and authors of life and being to their children.

But, fourthly; We must honor our parents, by hearkening to their good instructions, and imitating their godly practices. So (Proverbs 6:20): My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not the law of your mother. For although good instruction be for the matter of it, always to be embraced from whoever it shall proceed, yet when it shall come from a parent, it obliges us not only because it is good, but because it is authoritative; neither are we only to hearken to their counsel, but also to imitate the holy examples of our parents: And therefore it is commended in Solomon, that he walked in the steps of his father David.

Suffer me only in a word, to set home this upon the consciences of stubborn and disobedient children. Consider what your demeanor has been towards your parents, to whom you owe yourselves, your lives, your education. Benefits that can never be repaid them, although you should undergo all the hardships imaginable to make an acknowledgment of them. Can you imagine the cares, the parching thoughts, the perplexing fears which your tender parents are continually distracted with, for your good? And will you so requite their love, as to despise their persons, of whom you yourselves are a part, and make their very bowels rebel against them? Certainly were there any ingenuity of nature, or the principles of reason and equity not quite spent and extinguished in you, the love and solicitude they have expressed for you, would again return to them, if not in equal measures, yet in the most ample and acceptable that is possible for you to render. And if there be any of you, who by your stubbornness and disobedience, have brought down the gray hairs of your parents with sorrow to the grave; consider seriously what an unnatural sin you have been guilty of: and because you cannot now beg pardon of them, beg pardon of God, the great and universal Father of all; beg that he would not revenge your disobedience to your parents, by the disobedience of your children towards you.

Thus you have seen what duties children owe to their parents. Let us now see what are the reciprocal duties of parents towards their children. For in all unequal relations, the superiority rests only in one part, yet the duty is divided between both.

The duty therefore of parents respects either the temporal or spiritual good of their children, for both are given them in charge.

As for their temporal good, two duties are incumbent upon them, protection and provision; and both of these the law of nature teaches them. Do we not see even in brute creatures themselves, that a strong parental affection makes them dare unequal dangers, and expose their own lives to the greatest hazard, only to defend their young? We see with what indefatigable industry they either lead them to, or bring them in their food and nourishment, till they have taught them the art and method of providing for themselves, and living at their own finding. And if the instinct and impulse of nature be so powerful in irrational creatures, how much more should it prevail in us, in whom reason should perfect nature? And we be the more careful, in as much as the charge committed to us is more noble? And that it is not a sparrow nor a chicken that we are to look after, but a man, a king of the universe, designed for great employments, and to great ends, an heir of the world; and if we fail not in educating him, may be an heir of eternal glory?

First; we owe them protection, and this their weakness and helplessness often calls for at our hands. How many diseases and dangers is their feeble infancy exposed to? And in their growing childhood, want of care and experience runs them daily into more. Now parents are to be their guards, and by their skill and strength fence off those wrongs and injuries that threaten them. And in so doing, they perform not only a parental, but an angelical work. Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones; for I say to you, that in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven (Matthew 18:10). And if God, the great Father of the whole family both in Heaven and Earth, has out of his infinite tenderness and compassion, appointed his holy angels to be their guardians, that they who attend the throne of his glorious majesty, should likewise attend the cradles and beds, and wandering steps of little ones; it is not only inhumane for parents to neglect the care of their children, but devilish to do them hurt, or destroy them themselves; the too common practice of many wretches, who, to hide and cover their shame, either abandon or murder the fruit of their bowels.

Secondly; as parents owe their children protection from incident evils, so likewise provision of necessaries and conveniencies according to the rank and degree in which the divine providence has set them. And this the Scripture often inculcates (Matthew 7:9-10): What man is there among you, whom if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will give him a scorpion? Intimating to us, that we are bound to give our children what is fit for the sustentation of that life which they have received from us. And indeed they are our flesh and our bone; they are ourselves multiplied. Now nature teaches us to cherish and nourish our own flesh, as the Apostle speaks (Ephesians 5:29). Indeed the Apostle has laid this charge exceeding high; If any man provide not for his own, and especially for those of his house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel (1 Timothy 5:8); and that because even the infidels and heathens are taught by the light and law of nature, to make provision for their own. And this provision is not only for the present, but our care is to extend farther; and according to our ability (bating the expenses of decency and charity) we are to take care for their future subsistence; and if we cannot leave them a patrimony, we are to leave them an art and calling, whereby, through the blessing of God, they may procure their own livelihood. So the Apostle (2 Corinthians 12:14): The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. And if we must place them out to a vocation, we must endeavor with all our prudence to fit it to their genius and inclination: for otherwise it will not be a vocation, but a vexation to them all their days. Still remembering, that if we piously design any to the work of the Lord, it should be those who are most pregnant, and whom God has endowed with the greatest gifts for so high a ministration. For it is a sin very like to that of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin, to consecrate priests to the Lord of the refuse and vilest of the people, and to think those fit enough for the temple, who through the deformity of their body, or the defects of their minds, are not fit for a shop, or for any other employment.

And so much for those duties of parents which concern the temporal good of their children.

But then they are obliged to others of a higher and nobler nature, which concern their spiritual good, and have an influence into their eternal happiness.

And here, their first duty is to incorporate them into the Church of Christ, by the presenting them to holy baptism, which is the laver of regeneration, and which Jesus Christ has instituted for the admission and initiation of new members into his body the Church, and new subjects into his kingdom. Indeed it is not an empty bare ceremony, but it is a seal of the promise of the covenant, a sign of the grace of the Spirit, and a means appointed to convey it to the soul. And therefore those parents are highly injurious to their children, who either through carelessness or contempt, debar them from so excellent and spiritual an ordinance and privilege, yes indeed the only spiritual privilege which their age makes them capable of. What do they else hereby, but put their children into a worse condition than the children of the Jews, who in their infancy were admitted to the sacrament of circumcision, which the Apostle calls a seal of the righteousness of faith (Romans 4:11)? And certainly, if this seal of circumcision were broken by the coming of Christ, and no other were instituted, of which the children of believers under the Gospel might be made partakers; our infants then must needs be in a worse condition than theirs; and Christ's coming into the world has in this respect rather diminished the privileges of the Church, than enlarged them. It ought therefore to be the first and chiefest care of every godly parent, to offer his children to this holy ordinance; especially considering that they are partakers of his sinful and corrupt nature, that he has been an instrument of conveying down along to them the guilt of the first transgression, and that defilement which has infected the whole soul; and therefore it is the least that his charity can do for them, to offer them to that remedy which our Saviour has provided both to remove the guilt, and cleanse away the filth of their natures. For be the parents themselves never so holy and sanctified, yet their children are born in their filth, and in their blood. And this Austin expresses by a very apt similitude; The chaff (says he) is carefully separated from the wheat that we sow; and yet the wheat which it produces grows up with husks and chaff about it. So those whom the Holy Ghost has sanctified and cleansed, yet they produce children naturally unclean, though federally holy. And therefore being born within the promises of the covenant, their parents ought to see that the seal of the covenant be applied to them; that is, they derive corruption from them, they may by them be brought to the means of cleansing and washing.

Secondly; When they are thus initiated and entered into the Church of Christ, another duty that parents owe them is, to instruct and admonish them, to educate them in the fear and knowledge of God, and this the apostle expressly enjoins (Ephesians 6:4): "You fathers, bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." And so (Deuteronomy 4:9): "Forget not the things which your eyes have seen, but teach them your sons, and your sons' sons." We find that God gives an honorable testimony concerning Abraham, and confides in him upon this account (Genesis 18:19): "I know Abraham, that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment." And Solomon extols his father David for his care in instructing him (Proverbs 4:3-4): "I was my father's son, and he taught me also, and said to me, Let your heart retain my words; keep my commandments, and live." Now this instruction must not be nice and critical, but familiar and obvious, teaching them such fundamental truths and principles of Christian doctrine as are of absolute necessity to be known, and in such a manner as may be most suitable to their capacity and discretion. And if parents would be but careful and conscientious in the performance of this duty, infusing into their minds, before they are filled with vanity, the knowledge of God, and of Christ, and of religion; and forming their wills, while they are flexible, to the love of piety and virtue; the next generation would not generally see so much debauchery in youth, nor so much obduracy in old age, as is now everywhere too visible and apparent. By this means the minister's work would be half done to his hands. It would be needful only to feed his flock with strong meat, and to press them only to a vigorous and cheerful performance of those duties of holiness, to which their pious education made them before inclinable.

Now this way of instruction is either,

First; By reading to them, or causing them to read the Holy Scriptures, and pointing out to them those observables which are most agreeable to their age and apprehensions. Thus it is said of Timothy, that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures. And doubtless he was trained up in that knowledge by the care of his mother, and grandmother, whom the apostle honorably commends (2 Timothy 1:5). And,

Secondly; By catechizing and instructing them in the grounds and principal doctrines of religion. Indeed a continued discourse is not so informing, nor does it fasten and rivet instruction into young minds, so well as where it is diversified by questions and answers. This makes them masters of their own notions, and able to wield and manage them afterwards to their better advantage. And truly this I take to be the very reason why so many sit grossly ignorant under many years' preaching of the Word to them, scarce able to give any tolerable account of the very first principles of the oracles of God, because they were never educated in this way of catechizing, they were never tried, nor searched, nor the strength of their memories and capacities exercised by questions.

For running and continued discourses, are like the falling of rain upon a smooth rock, where it trickles off as it descends: But questions and examinations are like digging of it, and making it fit to retain what is poured upon it. But whatever method you may judge most profitable, yet certainly instruction in their tender years, is absolutely necessary to season them betimes with the knowledge of the grounds of religion, and a love and veneration of piety, which will afterwards have a mighty influence to keep them from being led away either with the errors, or ungodly practices of lewd and ungodly men. Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. For when the reluctance of corrupted nature is thus early mastered, and virtue habituated in them, (as there must be strong convictions, and Almighty Grace, to break off the long accustomed habits of sin: so) there must be very powerful and prevalent temptations that shall induce such an one, whose knowledge of God, and love of virtue have grown up with him from his childhood, to turn a recreant to his former profession and practice, and to forget that, before which he can hardly remember anything; or if through the violence of temptation he should be hurried into any extravagance and excess, his conscience has a greater advantage to reduce him again, than it has upon others who are trained up ignorantly and barbarously. It will still pursue him, disturb him in his sins, and his early notions of piety and religion will embitter the sweets which he fancied, and others perhaps find in them; and his conscience will never leave crying, and clamoring, and threatening, till it bring him back with tears in his eyes, and sorrow in his heart, and shame in his face, to his former regular and unblameable conversation.

Thirdly; Another duty which parents are obliged to, is not only the giving their children good instructions, but good examples, to set before them the copies and pattern of those virtues which they teach. And this indeed is the most lively and the most effectual way to profit them. You who before your child blaspheme the name of God by swearing or cursing, you who abuse yourself and others by riot and intemperance, do you expect that he should ever reverence that holy and dreadful name which you profane; or love that sobriety and temperance, which you possibly may commend to him in words, but do much more forbid it him by your deeds? For it is the glory and boast of children to be, and to do, like their parents. And although there be few so forlornly wicked and utterly abandoned over to vice, but that they would have their children love and practice virtue, and may perhaps sometimes exhort them to it; yet alas, what effect can empty words have, when they are contradicted and overborne by deeds? When the corrupt nature you have given them, shall be improved by the ill examples you daily give them; what avail all your exhortations and admonitions, unless it be to upbraid and reproach yourself, and increase both your own condemnation, and theirs too? Even the heathen satirist could say, Maxima debetur puero reverentia; We ought to reverence and stand in awe of children, that they see nothing vicious or dishonest by us, not so much for the shame of it as the example: for there is no pest so contagious as vice; the least converse will serve to rub it upon others, especially your parents' vice upon their children, who if they think it not obedience, and a part of duty to imitate them, yet cannot but conclude themselves secure both from reproofs and corrections. The practice of superiors has certainly a mighty influence in forming the manners of those who are subject to them; for let them prescribe what rules, and enact what laws they please, let their authority be as great as can be, yet their example will be far greater than their authority, and inferiors will be encouraged by it boldly to transgress, when shame and consciousness shall tie up the hands of those who should punish them. But now when a godly parent shall not only with the most tender and affectionate words that love can dictate, instruct his children in the ways of holiness, but walk before them in those ways, not only by admonitions show it to be most rational, but by constant practice show it to be most pleasant and delightful; certainly that nature must needs be most deplorably vicious, which can in this case be refractory, and will not go where both wind and tide lead him; whereas others possibly who have only the breath of good instructions, are carried away headlong, and drowned in perdition by the stronger current of evil examples.

Fourthly; If neither instructions nor good examples will prevail, then correction and discipline is necessary, and becomes a duty, though perhaps it may be as grievous to the parent to inflict it, as it is to the child to suffer it. I know there may be, and often is excess in this kind, when choler and passion prescribe the measures of punishment. This is fierce and inhumane tyranny, and argues such parents to be devoid of natural affection. And this immoderate ungoverned correction, is so far from profiting children, that it oftentimes exasperates them, and makes them the more stubborn and untractable; or else it only dispirits and stupifies them. And therefore the Apostle has twice cautioned parents against this provoking way of discipline; (Ephesians 6:4) You fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: And again, (Colossians 3:21) Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Yet notwithstanding, where age and decency will allow it, and prudence does require it, it is sometimes necessary to use the severity of discipline; and let not a foolish fondness here interpose: For certainly God loves his children with a much more parental affection, than you can love yours; and yet he tells us, (Revelation 3:19) As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. And the Apostle tells us, (Hebrews 12:6) Whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives. If there be not a due exercise of discipline and correction, nothing else can be expected but that our children will wax wanton with us; and next, rebellious against us. Now this severity must be used early, before age and spirit have hardened them against the fear or smart of correction. The wise man has told us, (Proverbs 13:24) He that spares his rod, hates his son: but he that loves him, chastens him early.

This is the way;

First, To deliver him from greater sufferings and mischiefs that else will follow: Better the rod than the tree. You may, for anything you know, redeem his life by it, and deliver him from the hand of justice, and eternal wrath of God, and save his soul from everlasting smart and torment. So (Proverbs 23:13-14) Withhold not correction from the child; for if you beat him with the rod, he shall not die: You shall beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from Hell. And,

Secondly, By this course you shall bring yourself much comfort, most likely in his reformation, or if not in that, yet at least in the conscience of having performed your duty, and done all that lay in your power for his good. But what support and comfort can that parent have, who when his children grow lewd and debauched, shall sadly reflect upon it, that it was only his fondness and foolish pity which ruined them? Take this for certain, that as many deserved stripes as you spare from the child, you do but lay upon your own backs; and those whom you have refused to chastise, God will make them severe scourges to afflict and chastise you.

And these are the duties which you owe to your children, immediately respecting their spiritual good: initiating them by baptism, giving them good instructions, good examples, and necessary correction.

There is one duty more, and it is a very principal one, which respects both their temporal and spiritual good; and that is, fervent and earnest prayer to God for them, without which all the rest will be ineffectual. Whenever therefore you come to the throne of grace, bring these your dear pledges upon your heart with you; earnestly implore of God, that he would own them, and provide for them, as his own children, that he would adopt them into the family of heaven, make them heirs of glory, and coheirs with Jesus Christ; that he would give them a convenient portion of good things for this life, that they may serve him with the more cheerfulness and alacrity, and a large portion of spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ Jesus, and at length bring them to the heavenly inheritance. And know assuredly, that the prayers of parents are very effectual, and have a kind of authority in them to impetrate and obtain what they sue for. This is the benediction or blessing which holy fathers in Scripture have bestowed upon their children; and we find that their blessing was their destiny. Thus Jacob blessed his sons the patriarchs, and, as it were, divided among them the treasures of God's blessings; and God the great Father would not have the blessing of a father pronounced in vain, but ratified and fulfilled them in the success.

And as parents' blessings have great influence upon their children, so likewise have their curses: and therefore they should beware what they wish or pray against them. A rash and passionate curse is oftentimes direfully fulfilled, not only to the ruin of the children, but the too late sorrow and repentance of the parents. We know how deep the curse of Noah stuck in Cham, and all his posterity. For the words of a father are weighty and authoritative even with God himself, and he will not lightly suffer them to fall to the ground, when they are spoken either for, or against those over whom he himself has given them power and authority.

I shall close up this with one word to those who are parents. Consider what a great charge God has entrusted you with. In your hands is deposited the hope and blessing, or else the curse and plague of the next age; your families are the nurseries both of church and state; and according to the cultivating of them now, such will their fruits be hereafter. Consider I beseech you, how you have managed this great trust: Are your children like olive-branches round about your table, each promising to bring forth good fruit in their due season? Have you taken care, by your good instructions, and good examples, to form the Lord Jesus in them? Have you taken care, by correction and discipline, to cut off all excrescencies and superfluities of naughtiness from them? Or, do they remain still sons of Belial, wild, rude, unnurtured, and disobedient? Certainly God will require an account of them at your hands; for they are his, and only left in your keeping, and to your education. But alas, the lewd practices, and the too ripe sins of young ones, do clearly convince parents rather to have infused wickedness into them, than curbed it. And the wit and forwardness of their wickedness beyond their years, make it evident that they have but borrowed it from your examples. Beware lest God punish you in them; and punish them for what they have learnt of you, and you in Hell for not better instructing and admonishing of them.

And if any of you have reason sadly to complain of the stubbornness and disobedience of your children, I beseech you seriously to reflect upon the cause of it, and consider whether it may not be justly imputed to your want of care in their education, or to your bad examples you have given them; or possibly by their rebellion and undutifulness towards you, God justly punishes your rebellion and undutifulness towards your Father. I remember a story of a graceless and desperate young wretch, who being thwarted by his aged father in some of his lewd pranks, invaded his gray hairs, and dragged him by them along the ground to the very threshold of his door: his poor old father suffered it silently till then, but then looking pitifully upon him, he said; Son, forbear now and let me go, for I remember I dragged my father to this very place, and there left him; and acknowledged the righteous judgment of God in so just a requital. But whatever your conscience shall suggest to you to have been a provocation to God thus to punish you, (and certainly it is one of the greatest punishments that can befall a man in this world) humbly crave pardon of him who is your Father, and beg him that he would be pleased to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, and the hearts of all to himself.

Thus we have considered the duties of natural parents towards their children, and the duties of children reciprocally towards their parents.

But there is also another rank of fathers, and they are political; Patres Patriae, the fathers of their country, to whom we owe honor and reverence by the obligation of this command. And these are the magistrates and governors that God has set over us: They are his deputies and vice-gerents upon earth, and the authority with which they stand invested, is originally in and derivatively from the supreme King of Kings, and Lord of all Lords; their kingdoms are but the several provinces of his universal empire; He has given them their patent to be his lieutenants and vice-roys, for by him kings reign, and princes decree justice (Proverbs 8:15). Not by his permission only, but by his ordinance and appointment. And whereas a great and conspicuous part of the image of God consists in his sovereignty and dominion, he has so expressly stamped this image of his upon them, that for their likeness to him in it, he gives them the same glorious name by which himself is known; (Psalm 82:6) I have said, you are Gods; and (Exodus 22:28) You shall not revile the Gods, nor curse the ruler of your people. And our Savior tells us (John 10:35) that they are called Gods, because the Word of God came to them: the Word of God, that is, the appointment and commission which they have received from God.

It is observable, that as other inferior creatures revere the very countenance of a man, and those few strictures of the defaced image of God which are still remaining there, and that although they far exceed in strength, yet dare not (unless enraged) make use of it against their natural, though weaker lords: so also, that God has spread such an awe upon the face of authority, that a look or a word from a lawful magistrate, shall more daunt and terrify, than the armed force of an enemy. There is some secret character that God has imprinted on them, which makes them venerable; and although their subjects do as far exceed them in strength, as they do in number, yet strength alone was never made to command, but rather to obey and execute, and power ought to be the servant of authority.

Nor has God ordained magistracy only out of respect to some few whom he has ennobled, that they might enjoy a privilege and prerogative above the common and vulgar sort of men, but he has ordained it for the general good of mankind; indeed, and I have often and seriously thought, that next to the invaluable gift of Jesus Christ, the best and the greatest good that God ever gave the world, was this appointment of magistracy. For were it not for this, the whole world would be turned into a wilderness, and men into savage beasts, preying one upon another: did not the fear of man restrain them, when they have cast off the fear of God; did they not dread the infliction of temporal punishments, when they slight the threats of eternal, we might be as safe among lions and tigers, as among men; and find better refuge, and better society in solitudes, than in cities: within would be fears, without violence, and every where tumults, uproars, and distractions; our dwellings, our persons, our possessions, all exposed to the fury of bloody and merciless invaders; and, as the prophet speaks (Hosea 4:2), by swearing and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they would break out, until blood touched blood; and there would be no more peace nor agreement on earth than there is in hell: but the all-wise God who has subdued the beasts of the earth to man, has likewise subdued man (who else would become more wild and brutish than they) to man. So that these who stand not in any awe of the God of Heaven, yet are awed by the gods of the earth; and whom the thoughts of hell and eternal wrath, cannot scare from wickedness, yet many times the thoughts of a prison, or of a gibbet, does.

Magistracy then being an institution of such great eminence, and absolute necessity, let us see what are the duties.

First, of those who are invested with it towards their subjects: and then,

Secondly, the duties of their subjects reciprocally towards them.

Of the first, I shall speak but briefly, since we are chiefly concerned in the knowledge and practice of the second.

Magistrates therefore may be considered either as supreme or subordinate, according to the distinction the Apostle makes of them (1 Peter 2:13-14): the king as supreme, and governors sent by him as subordinate: each of these have their respective duties belonging to them.

As for supreme magistrates, their duty is,

First, to establish and maintain the true worship and service of God, and to purge out all corruptions and abuses that have any way adulterated it with superstitions or idolatrous mixtures. God has appointed a sovereign prince to be Custos utriusque Tabulae, a guardian of both tables of his law; and has put the sword into his hands, not only to be an avenger in cases of injury done by man to man, but to be an avenger in case of the violation of those laws which immediately respect his own worship, and to be a reformer of the corruptions of the church, as well as the disorders of the state. Indeed this power and supremacy which we thus ascribe to him, is not formally and intrinsically spiritual or ecclesiastical, but only objectively such: for they neither have the power of order, which gives authority to preach the Gospel, and administer the sacraments, which properly belongs to the ministerial office; and whoever he be that shall intrude himself thereinto without a lawful call and ordination, be his gifts or place never so eminent, he is guilty of the same presumption that Uzziah was, and may dreadfully expect the same, or a greater punishment (2 Chronicles 26:16, 19). His heart was lifted up to his destruction; for he transgressed, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense: and while the censor was in his hand, the leprosy rose up in his forehead. Neither have they the power of the keys committed to them, to bind and loose, to retain and remit sins by a due pronouncing of ecclesiastical censures: for those two powers of order and the keys, appertain only to the ministers of the Gospel, for to them only were they committed.

Yet princes have a power of jurisdiction over church affairs, and ought by their laws and authority to provide that God be worshipped in his own prescribed way, that heresies be rooted out, schisms and rents healed, stubborn contemners of God's laws, as well as theirs, severely punished, the mouth of blasphemy stopped, ministers commanded to, and encouraged in the conscientious performance of their duty; that nothing be tolerated in practice contrary to the rules of a good life; that nothing be broached in doctrine contrary to the form of sound words which has been delivered to us. Thus far reaches the magistrate's duty and authority in things pertaining to the Church. And therefore we find in the Scripture, that when the worship of the true God was so much corrupted and forgotten among the Israelites, that Micah, out of a blind and idolatrous devotion, made him a whole chapel of gods to worship: the Holy Ghost gives this as a cause of so great an abomination, that in those days there was no king in Israel (Judges 17:6). In Judges the 9th we read that tragical history of adultery, and uncleanness to death; and the very same reason is given for the licentiousness of those times, verse 1: In those days there was no king in Israel. And this plainly intimates to us, that not only adultery and murder, sins against the second table of the law, but also idolatry and false worship, against the first, ought, and might have been either prevented or punished, had there been a king and ruler in Israel; and that it had been his duty to have drawn his sword, and exercised his authority against the one, as well as against the other. We read likewise of some kings reproved, because they took not away the high places, but suffered the people still to burn incense on them, notwithstanding they proceeded far in other parts of reformation. Others are commended, that they did remove them. And among the most renowned acts of Hezekiah's piety, it is mentioned to his immortal honor, that he commanded the priests and Levites to sanctify themselves, and cleanse the Temple, and restore the true worship of God, after many years' interruption, when it was not only disused, but almost forgotten (2 Chronicles 29). The like also did King Josias with the like zeal, and received the like approbation and testimony from God.

This therefore is the first and chief duty of supreme magistrates, namely, to maintain the true worship and service of God, and to reform whatever corruptions and abuses they find to have crept into it.

Secondly; another duty is, to appoint men of approved ability and integrity to be in authority under them. For, because kings cannot be omnipresent, nor omniscient, it is therefore necessary that they should hear with other men's ears, and see with other men's eyes, and act with other men's hands; and therefore they ought to make choice of such as are men of known fidelity and wisdom, to commit so great a charge to. For be the fountain never so clear, yet the streams must needs be polluted, if they run through filthy channels: kings therefore should do according to the counsel of Jethro (Exodus 18:21): Provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such as these over them.

But where this course is not taken, but such are intrusted with command and authority, who either neglect the government of the people, or oppress them in it, what does the prince but give away the half or more of his kingdom? For what is not ruled, is lost. Neither should these substitute magistrates be too numerous; for the very multitude of them may possibly be more burdensome to the people, than helpful to the prince.

Thirdly; magistrates ought to distribute justice impartially, to maintain the cause of the poor oppressed, and to restrain the insolence of their proud oppressors; to crush them by his just authority, who would crush others by their unjust tyranny. This is a truly royal and princely virtue, which will prove not only an ornament to the crown, but a safety to the throne: for the throne is established by righteousness, says the wise man (Proverbs 16:12).

Fourthly; princes and magistrates ought to be most exemplary for virtue and piety. The eyes of all the people are upon them, and their actions have as great an influence upon their subjects as their laws. Facere recte cives suos Princeps optimus faciendo docet; cumque sit imperior maximus, exemplo major est, says Paterculus; a good prince teaches his subjects to live well, by living well himself; and although he be greatest in command, is yet still greater in example. And therefore he is doubly bound to virtuous actions, both by his conscience, and by his condition: the one as he respects his own personal good; the other as he tends the good of his people, who commonly take their measures from their superiors, and think imitation of their practices, to be a more acceptable service, than obedience to their laws.

But I cannot insist on every particular duty of princes and magistrates, neither perhaps would it be here very proper.

In a word therefore, they ought to fear God, above all, to seek his honor and glory, who has raised them to the highest pitch of human honor and glory; to be prudent in their designs, courageous in their performances, faithful in their promises, wise in their counsels, observant of their own laws, careful of their subjects' welfare, merciful to the oppressed, favorable to the good, terrible to the evil, and just towards all. Let them remember these two things, that they are gods, and therefore should rule and govern as they judge God himself would do, were he visible here upon earth; and that they are men, and therefore must give an account to the great God of all that trust he has reposed in them. And certainly if they be careful to perform every part of their duty, though we may look only at the splendor and glory of their state, yet the cares and troubles that attend it, will be found so great and weighty, that we shall find it all reason in the world to make the burden of their crowns lighter by our ready and cheerful obedience. It was well observed by the Lord Verulam, that princes are like the heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration, but no rest.

But then for subordinate magistrates, who receive their authority from the Supreme, and are between the people and the prince, as the prince is between the people and God; we have already heard how they ought to be qualified (Exodus 18:21). They must be men fearing God, men of truth, and hating covetousness. Their chief duty is to see that the laws be executed according to their full intent, without respect of persons, neither fearing to punish the rich, nor sparing to punish the poor, making no difference between one person and another, where the cause makes none. For whoever are thus partial, want that courage and firmness that ought to be in a magistrate, and should make him as inflexible as the rule of justice itself is; neither being frightened by the power or threats of those who are great, nor melted or softened with the cries of the mean, but moved only by the cause. And therefore the Scripture has expressly forbidden them (Exodus 23:3) to countenance a poor man in his cause: for pity may sometimes as much bribe and corrupt judgment, as rewards. They ought to divest themselves of all passions, private interests and affections, to be impartial in the execution of justice upon the mightiest offender as well as the meanest; upon their dearest friends and relations, as well as upon strangers or enemies. This will give strength and authority to the laws, which else are but cobwebs made to catch the smaller flies, while the great and strong ones break easily through. This is the way to conciliate reverence and veneration to the laws and government, which in our days are most contumeliously despised and vilified; and by this course judgment shall run down our streets as water, and righteousness as a mighty stream. In brief, because I would not too long insist upon this subject (though it be large and various) let magistrates of whatever rank they be, seriously consider that weighty charge given them by God himself (2 Samuel 23:3). The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

Let us, in the next place, consider the duties of subjects towards their magistrates and rulers. And these are in the general three; honor, obedience, and prayer to God for them.

First; We must honor and reverence them, it is the Apostle's command (1 Peter 2:17). Fear God. Honor the King. We must give to them a threefold honor; in our thoughts, in our speeches, and with our substance.

1. We must honor and reverence them in our thoughts, looking upon them as the lively and visible images of God upon earth. Indeed the divine perfections are the highest object of our reverence; and therefore as you would esteem and honor any for their wisdom, or for their holiness, because these are some lineaments and draughts of the image of God; so you ought to reverence those to whom the Almighty God has communicated his adorable power and authority; for this also is the image of God in them, indeed, and though it should so happen that they bear no other resemblance to God, neither in his wisdom, nor justice, nor holiness, but are wicked, cruel, tyrannical and unwise; yet that power and authority alone with which they stand invested, challenges our respect and reverence; for in this at least they are like God; and whoever slights and despises them, slights and despises one of God's glorious attributes shining forth in them. We ought not to harbor any undervaluing or ill thoughts of them. But where a people are so happy to be governed by those magistrates who have a whole constellation of divine attributes shining in them, magistrates that are just and merciful, wise and holy, they ought to give to them the greatest reverence that can belong to creatures, and to esteem and respect them next to God himself. But although all these should be wanting, yet that power and authority which God has delegated to them, is truly reverend and awful: and the wise man has commanded us (Ecclesiastes 10:20), not to curse the king, not in our thoughts.

2. We ought to honor and reverence them in our speeches; speaking what good of them we know, and prudently concealing their vices, or their infirmities. For to what else can it tend when we blaze abroad the faults of our governors, but only to loosen the affections of their subjects from them? And how much more horrid a wickedness is it than, falsely to calumniate them, and by reviling whispers to fly-blow the ears of their subjects, and by little arts and suspicious intimations, and half-sentences, to insinuate political jealousies into the minds of the people, and to possess them with nothing but fears and sad apprehensions of what miseries and sufferings are coming upon them, through the maladministration of affairs, and either the design or neglect of their governors? All which tends to nothing but to make the people either disdain or hate them. I beseech you beware that you do not by misinterpretations traduce the actions of your lawful rulers, nor hearken to those who do, whose words and whose breath serves only to blow up the coals of civil dissension, which, if mercy prevent not, will break forth again into a raging and devouring war. Beware that you suffer none of those leeches to fasten upon you, whose very mouths will draw blood. We have seen the sad experience of it already, and may justly fear, when we see them use the same methods, that they intend the same effects. The Apostle gives such a black brand (2 Peter 2:10). Presumptuous are they, self-willed; they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

3. We ought to honor them with our substance, when the necessity of their affairs and public concerns call for supply: and indeed this is but a debt we owe them, for we have somewhat of theirs in our hands, and it is no unjust demand for them to require their own. Tributes and public payments are theirs, when made so by law; for the rest is ours no otherwise than by the same law; and therefore to withhold what is thus legally bestowed on them, is no other than theft, and an unjust detaining of what is none of your own. Hence our Savior commands us to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's (Matthew 22:21). And the Apostle (Romans 13:7), render to all their due; tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor is due. And although possibly sometimes the burden may fall heavy, yet we ought freely and cheerfully to contribute; partly considering that such is the privilege of our kingdoms, that nothing is imposed upon us by violence, but given by ourselves, and is our own act; and partly, that whatever we possess, we owe the enjoyment of it to the blessing of government.

This therefore is the first duty we owe to magistrates, namely, honor and reverence.

Secondly; Another general duty we owe them, is obedience; and for this we have express and frequent commands, as for any duty that belongs to Christian conversation. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but of God; the powers that be, are ordained of God (Romans 13:1). Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the King, as supreme; or to governors, as sent by him; for so is the will of God (1 Peter 2:13). Neither is there any cause whatever can supersede our obedience: for if their commands be lawful, we are to obey them by performing what they require: if they be never so wicked and unlawful, we are to obey them, by suffering what they threaten. But because I have had other occasions largely to treat on this subject, I shall not now further prosecute it.

Thirdly; Another great duty of subjects, is fervent and earnest prayer for them; so the Apostle (1 Timothy 2:1), I exhort therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

But why for kings? It might seem more necessary, that prayers should be poured out for those that are afflicted and distressed, who have nothing else to relieve them besides God and prayer: but kings are in a high and prosperous condition; many seek their favor, and all fear their displeasure.

Yet it is very needful to pray for them; for indeed they stand in much more need of our prayers than private persons do. For,

First, the charge laid upon them is greater, and the burdens pressing them, are heavier than what lie upon other men; and therefore they should be eased and helped by our prayers. What St. Paul says (2 Corinthians 11:28), that he had the care of all the churches upon him; we may say of a king, that he has the care of the whole church, and of the whole state too incumbent upon him. A crown is a heavy, though a glittering ornament; and how can it be otherwise, when the welfare of so many thousands depends upon them and their counsels? It is their work to provide for the execution of laws, the exercise of religion, the restraining and punishing of all impiety and ungodliness: they must see that right and equity be administered, that no injustice nor violence be committed, but all affairs guided according to law and righteousness; these are the constant cares that attend government: and that which adds to all these burdens, and makes them out of measure sinking and intolerable, is, that all these burdens must sometimes be borne under the discontents and murmurs of an unsatisfied people. We had need therefore to pray earnestly to God, that so great a trust and so great a burden being committed to magistrates, they may be endowed by him, through whom kings reign, with abilities to discharge their trust to his glory, and the comfort of their subjects.

Secondly, the account they must render at the last day is greater, and therefore they more need our prayers than other men. What they do is usually of general concern, or else of general influence; and therefore they must answer not only for themselves, but for almost the whole nation, who either obey the commands, or follow the examples of their governors: we should therefore especially pray for them, that having a greater account to make than other men, they may at that day appear before the King of Kings with boldness, and pass from a corruptible crown, to a crown of glory and immortality.

Thirdly, their temptations are more, and therefore they more need our prayers than other men. For having all at command; the pleasures, the splendor, and gaiety of the world, are more likely to be snares to them than others, who converse not so much with them. And besides, the Devil is more assiduous and subtle in his temptations toward them than others: because if they can be perverted by him, they will prove great and most effectual instruments to promote his kingdom. And therefore in Micaiah's parable (1 Kings 22), no sooner had God asked the question, Who shall persuade Ahab? but there steps forth an evil spirit, and undertakes the employment. Satan loves to be busy about princes and rulers, because there he thinks he can make the greatest earnings. To tempt private persons, is but to tempt by retail; but to tempt princes, and to seduce the rulers of a land, this is to destroy by wholesale: and therefore as they are exposed to more temptations, so should they be supported and strengthened by more prayers.

Let us therefore heartily perform this duty to them, and for them, a duty not more beneficial to them, than to ourselves and the whole nation: for if we can prevail for a blessing upon them, we ourselves shall certainly share in it, if by our fervent prayers we can obtain of God to bestow on them wisdom and zeal, holiness and piety, peace and prosperity. Certainly our own share in these mercies is worth the venture we send for them; and we shall then sit safely under the shadow of our king, and he himself under the shadow of the Almighty.

I have heretofore told you, that this fifth commandment comprehends in it not only the mutual offices between parents and children, but generally all the duties to which both superiors and inferiors stand reciprocally bound: and therefore having already spoken of the mutual duties of parents and children, of magistrates and subjects; I shall now proceed to consider the duties of husband and wife: for in this relation also, though it come nearer to an equality than the former, there is a superiority on the man's part, and subjection due to him from the woman.

And here, while I am treating of this subject, I beseech you give not way to any levity of mind, or vanity of thoughts; think it not a light jocular thing, as too often the marriage-relation, and the offices that appertain to it, are accounted; for it is matter of duty that I am now propounding to you; and matter of duty is no less than matter of life and death eternal. And therefore I charge you that you attend to it, not to get advantages of sport and merriment one with another, and to object them each to other in a ludicrous and jesting way, as it is everywhere too common a custom; but attend to it as a matter of as great seriousness and weight, as any that belongs to the right ordering of your Christian conversation; a matter that presses the consciences to the due observance and practice of it; and, if despised or neglected, will press your souls under guilt, and sink them under wrath. And certainly they who are so vain as to think the duties of this relation to be of no great concernment, must needs likewise be so impious as to impute trifling to the Holy Spirit of God, who has so frequently and with so much earnestness and instance, recommended them to us. There is scarce any one epistle wherein the Apostles do not particularly insist on these things; and certainly what was worthy their care to write and teach, is worthy our care to learn and practice.

The duties therefore of married persons are either special or common: special, are those which are the duties only of one party to the other; and that either of the husband to the wife, or the wife to the husband. Common, are those which belong to both, and are by both to be mutually performed.

I shall first begin with those duties which belong to a husband towards his wife. And they are these;

First, conjugal love. Indeed love is a beautiful ornament to all relations, but it is the foundation and first principle of this: it is love which ought at first to tie the marriage-knot; and it is love alone that can afterwards make it easy. No other respect whatever, can keep it from wringing and galling us. And although want of love cannot dissolve the bond, yet it does the joy and comfort of a married state. Now of all the objects that are allowed us to love here on earth, a wife is the chiefest; yes, to be loved above parents, children and friends, and the dearest of all other relations; (Genesis 2:24) Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife. And if you would know the full measure of this love, the Apostle has prescribed it, (Ephesians 5:28) So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies: and (verse 33) let every one of you in particular love his wife as himself; you must be as careful and tender of their good, as of your own; and resent any injury done to them, as much as if it were done to yourselves. And indeed there is great reason for it; for marriage makes of two, one mystical person; it does but compensate our damage, and restore the rib to our side again. And therefore, by marriage two are said to be made one flesh; (Mark 10:8) They two shall be one flesh: so then they are no more two, but one flesh. And therefore all violence and outrage against a wife, (into which the rude and boisterous fury of some brutish men does too often break) is as unnatural, as if you should see a man beat and wound and gash himself: and certainly they are mad and distracted passions which take revenge upon themselves. (Ephesians 5:29) No man yet ever hated his own flesh; that is, no man acting rationally and as becomes a man, but loves and cherishes it. So that we are to love our wives with the same tenderness and naturalness of affection, as our own beings, and they should be as dear to us as ourselves: and if you would have this high affection mounted a degree higher; see (verse 25) husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it. If a natural affection will not suffice, behold here a supernatural one, and the greatest instance of love that ever was expressed or conceived, brought to be the rule and pattern of ours. Christ loved the Church, his spouse; although there were many spots, blemishes, and imperfections in her; he loved her so as to leave his Father, and cleave to his wife: he loved her better than himself and his own life, and shed his most precious blood for her; and rather than the wrath of God should fall upon his beloved spouse, he thrusts himself between, and receives these heavy blows on his own person: so ought men also to love their wives, so infinitely if it were possible, but because it is not so, sincerely. And therefore;

1st. They must love them, though they often bewray many weaknesses and imperfections, which they ought meekly to bear with, though they must not countenance nor encourage them. Love will cover a multitude of faults, and as long as they are but faults and not crimes, we ought no more to divorce our affections than our persons from them. There is indeed a touchy love, which will cause great wrath for very small offences; but usually such kind of love turns into bitterness and exasperation: therefore offences of this nature should prudently be passed by, only with a glancing reproof, or with a silence that shall be more instructive than noise and clamor: here the Apostle exhorts husbands; (Colossians 3:19) Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.

Second, we should so love them, as not to upbraid them with the necessities or encumbrances of a married life, but be content to abridge ourselves of our former freedom, and to forgo our former privileges, either of plenty or pleasure, which we enjoyed in a single condition, without reproaching them with it. Many fools there are who fancy nothing but joys and delights in a married life; but when they enter into it, and find many unexpected troubles, and that they cannot live either at so much ease, or with so much splendor as before, think to right themselves by perpetual brawls with their wives, imputing the cause to them, and charging on them all the burdens and inconveniences under which they both labor, and of which commonly the woman has the greater share. Now this is not to love as Christ loved the Church, who for her sake stripped himself of his glory, and voluntarily humbled himself, first to the dust, and then to the death, the cruel and cursed death of the cross.

Thirdly, we ought so to love them, as to interpose and step in between them and danger, and rather suffer it to fall upon ourselves than them; for so Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, redeeming it from the wrath of God, by his own undergoing it, and delivering it from death, by suffering death for it.

Fourthly, we ought so to love them, as to endeavor to promote the spiritual good of their souls, and by good counsels and instructions insinuate into them the love of piety and holiness, that so as Christ sanctifies the Church his spouse, we may also sanctify ours, and present them to God without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

In these four things we are to love our wives even as Christ loved his Church, by bearing with and pardoning their weaknesses, by being willing to submit to many inconveniences for their sakes, by interposing ourselves between them and danger: And lastly, by endeavoring to promote their spiritual good and benefit. And thus much of the first duty which is love, on which I have insisted the longer, because it comprehends all other duties in it. For where there is this sincere and conjugal affection, although it may have different methods of expressing it self, according to the different tempers of men; yet it will certainly in this, as in all other cases, command the whole train and retinue of other affections to wait upon it, and see that nothing be wanting to the good of the object on which it is fixed. I shall therefore be the briefer in the rest.

Secondly, another duty of the husband is provident care for his wife: He ought (says the Apostle) to nourish and cherish her, as Christ does the Church; he must therefore impart to her according to his rank and ability, whatever may be for her necessity or comfort, and not waste that in riot and excess among his lewd and wicked companions, companions that the Devil has given him, which ought to be for the support of her whom God has given him for his companion; and who in the mean while has nothing to feed on but her sorrows, nothing to drink but her tears. See how deeply the Apostle has stigmatized such wretches; (1 Timothy 5:8). If any man provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

Thirdly, another duty that husbands owe their wives, is protection from dangers, when they are in jeopardy; and therefore when the Amalekites had burnt Ziklag, and with the rest of the prey had taken David's wives; he pursues them with no more than six hundred men, though they were a great host, and rescues his wives from their captivity (1 Samuel 30:18). And indeed the weakness and feebleness of that sex being more helpless in dangers than ours, and less able to relieve themselves, calls for this ready aid and succor from us; and he who is so churlish as not to afford it, is so unnatural also as to suffer a part of himself to perish. A wife is compared in Scripture to a fruitful vine; now a vine is a weak tender plant, and requires support, and the husband should be as the house-side for her stay and support; and therefore woman was at first made of a rib taken from under the man's arm; the office of the arm is to repel and keep off injuries, which signifies to us that the husband ought to defend his wife from all wrongs and injuries that she may be exposed to.

Fourthly; another duty is instruction and direction. Therefore the husband is called her head, the seat and fountain of knowledge and wisdom (Ephesians 5:23). The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church. And therefore as all direction and consolation is derived from Christ; so should the husband likewise derive down and communicate knowledge, and comfort, and guidance to the wife; called therefore her guide (Proverbs 2:17). And St. Peter requires of husbands that they should dwell with their wives according to knowledge, to be able to advise and inform them in all emergent cases, especially concerning God and their souls: From where St. Paul enjoins wives (1 Corinthians 14:35). That if they will learn any thing, they must ask their husbands at home; and therefore much more is it required of the husband, that he should have laid up a good stock of knowledge, and be able to teach them, lest such as creep into houses and lead captive silly women, ensnare their wives. For such is the subtlety of deceivers, following therein the method of the old serpent, that they first begin with the woman, and then make use of her to seduce the man: for heresy, as all other sins, does first inveigle the affections, and then by them corrupts the reason. And therefore the husband should be well grounded and principled with knowledge, that he may keep his wife from being led away by the crafty subtlety of those who lie in wait to deceive, and who by good words and fair speeches, affected phrases, and jingling expressions, that have nothing in them, but sound and error, pervert the hearts of the simple.

But if (as it sometimes happens) God has endowed the wife with a greater measure of prudence, and solid and substantial knowledge, than the husband; it is then his part to hearken to her advice, and to yield not indeed to the authority of the counselor, as she is bound to do, but to the authority of the counsel: And this she ought to tender him with all respect and submission, not having power to enjoin what she knows to be best and fittest, but only with modesty propounding it, and with meekness persuading him to embrace it.

Fifth; Another duty of the husband, is tenderness and mildness towards his wife, not causelessly grieving her either by speeches or actions. That is a wretched family, where those who are joined in the same yoke, spurn and kick at one another. If the wife be careful in performing her duty, there belongs to her a kind and loving acceptation of it, and praise and commendation for it; or, if she sometimes should fail, she ought not to be rebuked with bitterness, but with meekness, and in such a way as the reproof should show more of sorrow than of anger. But perpetual brawlings and contentions, besides, that they wholly embitter this state of life, and eat out all the comfort of it, instead of preventing offences for the future, do usually provoke and exasperate to more, and are perhaps a greater fault in the husband, than that which he exclaims at in his wife; besides, it will certainly indispose them, both to the performances of those duties which belong to them in their general and particular callings. It will hinder their prayers; for how can they lift up their hands without wrath, as the Apostle commands (1 Timothy 2:8), when they burn in choler one against the other? How can they pray to God for blessings upon each other, when they have been cursing and reviling each other? And as for the duties of their particular callings; do we not see, that in those families where this baneful contention reigns, they are commonly neglected, and all runs to wrack and ruin, out of a kind of revenge that one party thinks to take upon the other. The husband out of discontent will not provide, nor the wife manage; and so nothing is cared for, but only how they may quarrel and rail at each other. A misery that many families fall into, through the indiscreet heats and fierceness of the man upon every trivial offence of the wife, though perhaps it was sometimes unthought of, and sometimes unavoidable.

Sixth; Another duty of the husband, is to give due respect and honor to his wife (1 Peter 3:7). Give honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel; for being weak, she ought to be used with the more respect and gentleness. Think honorably of her, as the person whom God saw best and fittest for you in all the world; and be not tempted so much as in a thought, to believe that any other could have been either so proper, or so beneficial to you. Speak honorably of her, not divulging any of her failings and imperfections, to her discredit; but giving her the due praise of those virtues and graces that are in her. For he that disgraces his wife, disparages himself; and every one will censure him as guilty of folly, either in choosing or in governing her. Treat her honorably, neither making yourself a servant to her humor, for that will dishonor you; nor making her a slave to yours, for that is to dishonor her; but use her as your bosom-friend, your endeared companion, and in every thing but authority, equal to yourself.

Seventh; The last duty of a husband, is prudent maintaining and managing his authority. His authority over his wife is God's, who has entrusted him with it: and our Savior illustrates his own authority over the Church, by the authority of a husband over his wife (Ephesians 5). And therefore it is not basely to be betrayed, nor to be maintained with rigor and a tyrannical violence. But the right and most effectual way of keeping up this authority, is by prudence and gravity, by soberness and piety, and a stayed, exemplary and strict life. This will cause a reverent esteem and veneration in the wife, and in the whole family; whereas a humorsome lightness at one time, and as humorsome severity at another, will but expose us to contempt for the one, and hatred for the other. It is a hard matter for him to be reverenced by others, who does not first reverence himself; for he that will prostitute himself by foolish and ridiculous humors, or by vile and wicked actions, either injustice or intemperance, or lying, etc., it is impossible but that he must fall under the scorn of his nearest relations. And therefore Nabal's churlishness and drunkenness, made even wise Abigail to call him fool, Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. But where there is an excellent mixture of prudence and piety together, the one to be a guide, and the other to be an example, these will make a man truly awful and reverend, and induce the wife and the whole family to esteem, and to imitate him. And thus much for the duties of the husband towards the wife.

Let us next consider the duties of the wife towards the husband, and they are these which follow.

First; Subjection and obedience: And this is required from them as absolutely and peremptorily as to Christ himself (Ephesians 5:22). Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord. And again (verse 24), Therefore as the Church is subject to Christ; so let the wives be to their own husbands, in every thing. And not only does the Apostle give authority and command for it, but enforces it by sundry reasons. As,

1st. The woman was made out of the man, and therefore ought to be subject to him (1 Corinthians 11:3, 8). The head of the woman is the man; for the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. She is bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh; and therefore ought to pay him the homage of obedience and subjection for those materials of her being, which she first received of him.

2nd. Because the woman was made for the man, and therefore ought to be subject to him: So in the next verse, Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. She owes her being to the man's necessities and convenience; and the great end of her creation, next to the glory of God, was that she might be helpful and profitable to man (Genesis 2:18). It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him: And therefore having received their beings for the sake of man, they ought to be subject to him.

3rd. Another reason which the Apostle gives, is taken from the priority of the man's creation (1 Timothy 2:12, 13). I suffer not a woman to usurp authority over the man; for Adam was first formed, and then Eve: And therefore in the same rank of creatures, it is but fit that he should be first in dignity, who was first in nature. And,

4. Because by the occasion of the woman, sin entered into the world: So (verse 14) Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression. And therefore it is but fit and just that she who made all mankind disobedient against God, should herself be made subject and obedient to man. And this sentence we find inflicted upon her as a punishment for her transgression (Genesis 3:16): Your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you. Not as though there would have been no subjection due from her to man, if sin had not entered into the world by her means, for the reasons before alleged do manifestly prove the contrary; but that now her subjection is a curse; and whereas before it would have been easy and pleasing to her, now it is become burdensome and grievous; man being by sin made more humorsome, and harder to be pleased, and she being made less able and willing to do it, God justly and righteously punishing her, by imposing on her a work which she herself has made irksome and difficult. And let me add to these reasons of the Apostle,

5. That the man's titles do imply superiority and authority over the wife: Such as Lord (1 Peter 3:6): Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. He is likewise called the head and guide of his wife (1 Corinthians 11:3; Proverbs 2:17).

6. The husband represents Christ, the wife the Church, and that in this very particular of superiority and subjection: And therefore as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wife be to her own husband.

And thus we see their subjection abundantly proved, both by natural and spiritual arguments.

And in token of this subjection the Apostle tells us (1 Corinthians 11:10), that the woman was to have power over her head, because of the angels. Which place, especially the latter clause of it, is diversly interpreted. But I think all agree in this, that this power which they were to have on their heads was a veil or covering, which at other times, but most especially in the congregation, women ought to wear on their heads; and which in the primitive times covered not only their heads, but all their face, as a guard to their modesty, and a screen to keep off loose and wanton eyes. And this veil is called power, to signify that they were under the power and authority of their husbands. But the men were uncovered in their assemblies, as the Apostle tells us (verse 4), to signify that they had nothing over them, but were superior to all visible creatures, and subject only to God. This power, or veil, women were to wear because of the angels. Not as Tertullian did grossly conceive from that mistaken text (Genesis 6:2), to hide their beauty from the sight and inspection of angels (for what veil could do that, or how can angels be affected with corporal beauty?) But either by angels, are meant the ministers of the Church, before whom they are to show modesty and bashfulness; or else perhaps the celestial angels, who are always present and attending in the assemblies and congregations of the faithful; and therefore women should not do anything unbecoming and unseemly before them. Or lastly, because the angels themselves do reverence Christ, who is their head, and in token of their subjection to him, are said to veil and cover their faces: And therefore women also in token of their subjection to their husbands, who are their heads, as Christ is of the Church, should likewise cover their heads and faces with a veil. So we find (Genesis 24:65) that when Rebekah saw Isaac coming towards her, she took a veil and covered herself, as a sign of her subjection to him.

And this subjection is recommended to them by the example of holy women, to whose practice they ought to conform their own: So (1 Peter 3:6) holy women who trusted in God, being in subjection to their own husbands. And Saint Paul gives it in charge to Titus, to exhort wives that they be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands (Titus 2:5). And himself exhorts them to the same duty (Colossians 3:18): Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

These commands are so many and so express, that there is scarce any other duty which the Scripture does urge with so much instance and earnestness, with such pressing reasons and enforcing motives, as this of the wife's obedience. The duty is frequently expressed, Submit yourselves; and the manner of performing it, Be subject as to the Lord; submit in the Lord; which phrase carries in it three things.

- A Motive. - A Direction. And, - A Limitation.

First; A motive to obedience: It is done to the Lord. And though through the forward and peevish humors of the husband, they may have no other encouragement to observe and obey him; yet to the conscientious wife this will be encouragement enough, that the Lord will accept and reward their obedience; their heavenly husband Jesus Christ will account it as a service done to him. For marriage being a type of our mystical union to Christ, he especially is concerned that the duties of that relation be performed so, as to bear some proportion to that spiritual mystery.

Secondly; A direction how to perform it; it must be as to the Lord. She must obey her husband not only with a design of pleasing him, but the Lord Christ. For were it not that God commands it from them as part of their duty and obedience to him, it might sometimes seem very fit that humorsome and self-willed men should be crossed, and that those who have no other reason but their will, should fail of that observance and obsequiousness which they tyrannically expect. But then consider, it is not the husband only that commands, but the Lord, and the wife must eye his sovereign authority, through the authority of her husband; and then it will appear, that though there be no necessity in what is required, yet there is a necessity she should perform what is required.

Thirdly; The words import likewise a limitation of her obedience. The wife must submit and obey, but in the Lord, and as to the Lord: that is, only in lawful things, wherein by her obedience to her husband, she may not offend against God. And excepting this, in all other cases the wife is absolutely bound to obey the will and commands of her husband to the utmost of her power. 'Tis true he abuses his authority, if he commands what is unnecessary and unfit; but yet neither her unwillingness to perform them, nor her judging them inconvenient to be done, can excuse her, or exempt her from the obligation that lies upon her of a ready obedience; nothing can do this but the unlawfulness or impossibility of what is enjoined. In all other things, although they be never so contrary to her humor and inclination, she is bound by the law of God and nature to obey, and to submit, if not her judgment, yet at least her practice to the will of her husband, whether she think it fit or unfit to be done, as long as it is not unlawful; unless she can meekly persuade her husband to revoke his command, she is obliged to perform it. Otherwise when the Apostle commands wives to be subject to their husbands in every thing, it would signify no more than in every thing which they think fit; and this certainly is no greater a subjection than every husband would readily yield to his wife, and falls infinitely short of the Apostle's intent, who requires this subjection of the wife to the husband in every thing, as the Church is subject to Christ; which certainly is not in every thing she thinks fit; neither ought she to take upon her to judge, or reject his laws, but to fulfil them.

This therefore is the first and most comprehensive duty of a wife, subjection and obedience.

Secondly; Another duty of the wife towards her husband, is respect and reverence of his person (Ephesians 5:33). Let the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Now reverence consists in two things, esteem and fear.

First; She ought to cherish a high esteem of him, if not for his gifts and graces, yet at least for that relation in which he stands to her, as her lord, and her head, superior to her by God's appointment and ordinance: indeed, she must look upon him as that person whom God out of all the numerous millions of mankind, has particularly chosen and selected for her, and one whom he saw fittest and best to be her head and guide.

Secondly; Another part of reverence is fear, not a servile slavish fear, for that is inconsistent with love, but an awful and a loving fear, which will show itself in two things.

First, in her care to please him, endeavoring to conform her actions to his inclinations so far forth, as they are not repugnant to the supreme duty which she owes to God (1 Corinthians 7:34). She that is married cares for the things of this world, how she may please her husband: and therefore she will endeavor how to comport herself in her speeches, and in her gestures, and in her whole demeanor, so as may render her most grateful and most amiable to him.

Secondly, in her joy in pleasing him, and grief in offending him. Indeed a good wife should be like a mirror: a mirror you know has no image of its own, but receives its stamp and image from the face that looks into it; so should a good wife endeavor to frame her outward deportment, and her inward affections, according to her husband, to rejoice when he rejoices, to be sad when he mourns, and to grieve when he is offended; this is that reverence which wives owe to their husbands, thinking highly and honorably of them for their place's sake, and endeavoring to avoid and shun whatever may offend them: and therefore those who are cross and vexatious, and either by clamors and contentious speeches, or by thwarting and peevish actions grieve and sadden the hearts of their husbands; let them know that they highly provoke the Lord, who has commanded reverence and respect to be paid to the husband as his type, and as part of that reverence and respect which is due to himself.

Thirdly; Another duty of a wife is helpfulness to her husband: she ought indeed to be a help to him in every thing; to his soul in furthering his graces, and wisely and opportunely admonishing him to his duty, at least by a holy and blameless conversation; so commending the Gospel of Christ to her husband, that at length he may begin to esteem and reverence that piety which has so adorned and qualified his wife: And what do you know, O wife, whether by such an exemplary life as this you may save your husband, as the Apostle speaks (1 Corinthians 7:16). To his body, by cherishing and tendering of it; to his good name, by endeavoring to augment and preserve it, reporting well of him, and silencing and convincing any scandalous rumors that may be spread abroad concerning him; to his estate (wherein indeed lies her chief helpfulness, and which she ought to make her constant and daily employment) if she cannot bring in, and get any thing to increase the stock, yet she ought prudently and frugally to manage what her husband entrusts her withal, and not to waste it vainly and profusely; for let her know that whatever is so spent or wasted is but stolen; and if she shall alienate any thing from her husband contrary to his consent, either expressly declared, or else upon good grounds supposed to be tacitly granted and allowed, it is no better than theft. And therefore when we read that Abigail, without the consent of her husband, took a considerable present to bestow upon David to divert his wrathful intentions; it may very well be supposed that if Nabal had known, as well as she, the danger wherein he stood, he would have been as forward to encourage her to do it, as she was ready and willing. And therefore here were good grounds to suppose a tacit and implicit consent to the action. The husband is the true and only proprietor of all: and though the wife has a right to all, yet it is only a right of use, and not of dominion; she ought not to dispose of his estate, or any part of it, contrary to his mind and consent; her proper office is providently and faithfully to manage the affairs of the family that are committed to her oversight and care: and therefore in the description of a good wife given us at large (Proverbs 31, from verse 10 to the end), we find the whole of it taken up in showing her industry and care in ordering the affairs of the family.

Fourthly; Another duty of the wife is modesty, and that both in apparel and behavior.

First, in apparel; that it be according to her place and rank, not affecting gaudiness or strange fashions, nor yet affecting on the contrary a singularity of obsoleteness and outworn antiquity; for pride may be equally shown either way: the best temper is for them not to wear garments to be taken notice of. The Apostle gives them this rule (1 Peter 3:3-4): Let not the woman's adorning be the outward adorning, of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel: But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price. And so Saint Paul (1 Timothy 2:9-10): I will that women adorn themselves with modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becomes women professing godliness) with good works. This indeed is the best ornament, that which makes them lovely in the sight of God, and that too which makes them esteemed by all sober and serious persons. Indeed I do not think that costly array is in either of these places absolutely forbidden: Doubtless, gold and jewels may lawfully be worn, if we keep ourselves within our rank and quality, and fashion ourselves to those who are most sober in that rank, rather than to those who are most light and vain: but the prohibition is to be interpreted either by the degree, that is, be not excessive nor vain in your apparel, which happens when the habit exceeds either the quality or the ability of those that wear it; or else it is to be interpreted by a comparison, let not the adorning be the outward adorning of wearing of gold, or putting on of apparel; that is, study not so much how to set off yourselves in your garments, as how to adorn yourselves with a meek and quiet spirit, with sobriety, modesty, and good works, which is the richest and most beautiful robe you can wear.

Secondly, as she must be modest in her apparel, so in her behavior and deportment; her countenance, gesture, and speeches, must be all fitted to show the inward calmness and serenity of her mind; and therefore imperious, clamorous, and turbulent women, who at every word spit passion and poison, are a torment and vexation to themselves, and more to their husbands: the contentions of a wife, says the wise man, are a continual dropping (Proverbs 19:13). And it is such a dropping, as will at last eat and fret through his very heart, though it were made of stone.

These therefore are the duties of the wife.

There are likewise common duties to be performed by both mutually: I shall only name them to you. Such are fervent prayers to God both severally and together, that he would be pleased to pour down his blessings and his graces upon them, and give them wisdom to demean themselves towards each other aright: conjugal love, communion of themselves, of their estates, of their habitations, a mutual bearing one another's weakness, with prudent and pious endeavors to heal and remove them; the nurture and education of children, the government of their family committed to their charge, for whom they are to provide not only what is requisite for their corporal good, but much more for their spiritual; in as much as their souls are much more worth than their bodies; and therefore they ought to observe constant family duties, and make choice of honest and religious servants, and as far as in them lies, keep out the infection of evil company from entering within their doors, as carefully as they would the plague. And while they thus live, and thus love, they have good reason to believe, that as they are joined in a near relation each to other, so they are both joined in a near relation to the Lord Jesus, who is the husband of his church, and all the faithful in it; and when death shall dissolve their marriage union, and separate them one from the other, it is only to bring them to live for ever with that husband from whom they can never be separated nor divorced.

And thus much for the mutual duties of husbands and wives.

Let us in the next place proceed to consider the duties of another family relation, and that is between masters and their servants; for these also are comprehended under this commandment, Honor your father and your mother, since there is a confessed superiority of the one over the other; and upon that account (as I not long since told you) servants have honored their masters with the style and appellation of father: Thus (2 Kings 5:13), when those prudent servants sought to mitigate the rage of proud Naaman, who thought his greatness too much slighted by the prophet, in that he would only cure, and not compliment him; they reverently call him father; his servants came near and spoke to him, and said, My father, etc.

And here, not to discourse of dominion and servitude, whether the original and foundation of either be in nature and institution, nor of the difference of servants by war, purchase, or compact; I shall only speak of what is more immediately pertinent to my subject, and what may be more instructive and profitable to you, namely, the mutual and reciprocal duties that masters and servants ought to perform each to other.

The duties that equally concern them both, consist in the general, either in the right choosing, or in the right using one another.

I shall begin with the servant's duty, and that first as to the choice of his master.

He ought where his choice is left him free, to choose a faithful master, such an one as fears God, and will be willing to promote the spiritual good and salvation of his soul; with such certainly he shall best serve, who do themselves serve God; where he shall have nothing but reasonable and lawful commands to obey, and pious examples to imitate. Many poor ignorant souls have had cause for ever to bless God, that his Providence has cast them into such families, where they have received the first knowledge, and the first savor of godliness. But if the servant be beforehand knowing and religious, what comfort can it be to him to live, where there is a constant neglect of holy duties, nothing but excess and riot, and profaneness, and abusing of the name of God, and scoffing at his service and servants? Certainly necessity should hardly induce him, much less choice lead him to be a servant in a family, where the Devil is the master of it. The Psalmist sorely complains, that he was forced to take up his abode among wicked and ungodly men (Psalm 120:5): Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.

And as it cannot but be exceeding burdensome and tedious to you, and cut your soul to the very quick, to be at the command of those who rebel against your God, to hear his holy name blasphemed, his ways, and worship, and people derided, which are dearer to you than your very life; so is it very dangerous, and full of hazard. It is hard to keep zeal, and the sparks of grace and divine love alive, when you have the greatest helps to it that can be administered. How will you then preserve them alive, when you have so many quench-coals about you, when the floods of ungodliness shall compass and surround you about? Either you must dissemble your piety, (and that is the ready way to lose it, for grace is like fire, stifle and keep it close, and it will certainly die) or else you must put yourself upon the sore temptation of being mocked and scorned for it: you know not how far you may forsake God, and your first ways for compliance sake. It is the hardest thing in the world to be religious alone, and to keep up zeal and affection for God, when all that we converse with are wicked and ungodly. Vice is the most contagious plague that is; and it will be a very great wonder if those with whom you familiarly converse, with whom you eat, and drink, and sleep, do not at last infect you. We see holy Joseph, by living long in the Egyptian court, had learned some of the court fashions, and could readily swear by the life of Pharaoh.

Venture not yourself therefore into those families, where the governors are either corrupt and erroneous in their principles, or lewd and dissolute in their conversation; for it will be hard for you to swim against the stream both of example and authority. Or if you should be able to bear up against both, it will cost you more pains and struggling to do it, than all the temporal advantages you can there reap, will be worth to you.

This is the first duty that belongs to a servant, namely, that he choose a pious and religious master.

Secondly; After you have made your choice, and are entertained, consider how you ought to demean yourself towards your master.

And here, if by what you shall hear your duty seem very hard to you, yet it is no harder than it has pleased God to make it; indeed, and possibly not so hard as your master's. For he is bound to give an account for you to God; but so are not you for him. Your miscarriages shall be severely revenged upon him, if they have been through his default of needful instruction, or of care and discipline; but so shall not his upon you. And therefore in this respect, all inferiors have a mighty advantage to sweeten the meanness and lowness of their condition, that they shall not be punished for the sins of their superiors, but superiors may for the sins of their inferiors; indeed, and sometimes for their due obedience too, when they command them things, though not unlawful, yet unfit; for that may be a sin in a superior to command, which is a duty for an inferior to obey, when commanded: And certainly in the end, his task will be found easiest, who is to obey, rather than his who commands.

Now here, First; The chief and comprehensive duty of a servant, is obedience to the commands of his master. For this is absolutely enjoined them (Colossians 3:22): Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh: And again (Ephesians 6:5): Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh. In all things that are not dishonest, and contrary to the laws of God, then obedience is required; indeed, although in many things their commands should be impertinent, or too imperious and tyrannical, yet servants in such cases are no more exempted from obedience, than their masters shall be from punishment, for the unreasonableness of their commands they shall give an account to God, their master; and you for detracting your obedience both to them and him.

Secondly; Another duty is, a patient suffering their reproofs and corrections; indeed, and so patient are they to be, as not so much as to answer again (Titus 2:9): Exhort servants to please their masters well in all things, not answering again. So strictly has religion tied them up to obedience, that they ought not to reply against a rebuke, nor to derogate so much from the authority of their masters, as to murmur at it: And therefore to use violence against them, is so high a degree of disobedience, that it approaches near to sacrilege; indeed, and this quiet and silent submission, is required also not only where the servant has given just cause for reproof and correction, but although he suffer from the groundless rage and passion of his master. See (1 Peter 2:18-20): Servants be subject to your own masters, with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but to the contrary also: for this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience towards God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if when you be buffeted for your faults, you take it patiently? but if when you do well, you suffer for it, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. See here with what pressingness the Apostle enjoins them this duty. And indeed a duty so hard, so contrary to flesh and blood, had need to be pressed home upon your consciences: You ought to be patient not only when you are justly reproved and corrected for your faults; but if the distempered rage of a master should break forth without any reason, or contrary to all reason; if he should reprove and buffet you, not for your faults, but for your duty, you ought to take it patiently; and not to strike again, no not so much as to answer again; that is, not to answer with taunts and invectives, but calmly, and at fit and convenient seasons, to present to him the justice of your actions, and the reasons that moved you to them. I must confess, that of all things which belong to the duty of a servant, this is the most difficult; and there is nothing that can sweeten and facilitate it, but only conscience of their duty, and the acceptance and reward which they shall find with God for it; and therefore they had need pray for a great measure of self-denial, and mortification of those passions which will be apt to struggle in them upon this occasion, and by an eye of faith look up to God to support them, esteeming it a chastisement inflicted upon them by their heavenly Master; and that, be their spirits never so high, will enable them to undergo it without any more murmuring than they would use against God himself when he immediately afflicts them.

Third, another duty of servants is a reverential fear of their masters (Malachi 1:6). A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I be a father, where is my honor? If I be a master, where is my fear? And the Apostle has commanded servants to be obedient to their masters with fear and trembling (Ephesians 6:5). And again (1 Peter 2:18), servants be subject to your masters with all fear.

Which fear is to be expressed by them in their speeches and actions. In their speeches, by forbearing any clamors or irreverent muttering in their presence. Their words must be few and humble, giving them all those respectful titles that belong justly to their place and quality. Indeed, they must not only speak fair to them while they are present, but speak well of them when absent, begetting in others as good an opinion of them as they may, concealing their infirmities, and what they cannot speak truly of them to their credit, therein to be silent. They ought likewise to testify their reverence in their actions, comporting themselves with all the expressions of modesty and respect before them, and readily doing not only what their masters shall expressly command them, but what they judge will be pleasing and acceptable to them. And therefore we have that expression (Psalm 123:2), the eyes of servants look to the hands of their masters, and the eyes of a maiden to the hands of her mistress. Intimating to us, that good servants will not only readily obey when they have a verbal and oral command, but will be ready to take the least sign, the least beck from their masters, and strive not only to fulfill, but even to prevent their commands by the readiness and respect of their obedience.

Fourth, another duty of a servant is diligence in his master's affairs. He ought to set his mind to them, and employ his time in them. For he is not faithful who is negligent, and he steals from his master who does not use his strength and spend his time in his service. Every slothful servant is a thief, and so much advantage as he hinders his master of by his negligence and idleness, of so much he does but rob him. And therefore in the parable of the talents, when the master takes an account of every man's improvements, he calls that servant who had not used his talent, nor been industrious in his service, not only slothful, but wicked: "You wicked and slothful servant" (Matthew 25:26).

Fifth, another duty is fidelity and trust in what is committed to their charge — not defrauding their masters, nor purloining from them the least value, but serving them with all faithfulness and integrity. So (Titus 2:9-10): exhort servants to be obedient to their masters, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity.

And to this appertains carefulness in preserving their master's estate, not wasting or consuming it either by riotous living, or negligence. Doubtless many men have sunk and decayed under the unfaithfulness or carelessness of their servants, either stealing from them, or prodigally wasting what was theirs. Let such know, that every farthing stands upon account in God's debt-book — unless they make amends to their masters, if ever providence shall enable them to do it, they must make a punctual payment to divine justice, which is infinitely the more dreadful creditor.

Sixth, as trust in affairs, so likewise truth in speech is another duty of a servant. They ought to approve themselves such, that their masters may repose themselves upon their words. And as servants are the hands and the eyes of their masters, so they ought to make no other report to them, than what is as certain as though they had touched it and seen it themselves. We read of Gehazi, that when he was returned from taking a bribe of Naaman, he stood very demurely before his master, with a lie ready prepared in his mouth. "Where do you come from, Gehazi?" "Your servant," said he, "went nowhere." But this lie cost him a leprosy that stuck incurable to him and to all his posterity after. I am loath to be uncharitable, but I much doubt, that if the same judgment were inflicted upon every servant that comes to his master with a lying excuse, every family would be infected, and very few in this relation escape that loathsome contagion. Certainly it is only a cowardly, base, slavish fear that induces one to this vile sin of lying. And what — will you be more afraid to offend your master by confessing a fault, than to offend your God by committing another to conceal it? What else is this, but to heap up sin upon sin, and to make a single transgression become two thereby? A sin the most odious to God, who is Truth itself, and usually most detestable to men, and with difficulty pardonable by them — for it imputes a great deal of folly and ignorance to them, as such who are so weak that they cannot find out the matter. And therefore the Psalmist says, "He that tells lies shall not tarry in my sight" (Psalm 101:7).

Seventh, another duty of servants (and it is the last I shall mention) is to serve their masters with good will, and in singleness of their hearts — not grudgingly, as of constraint, for that is slavish, but readily and cheerfully as to the Lord. Not as men-pleasers only with eye-service, being no longer diligent than their master's eye is upon them, but careless and negligent as soon as his back is turned — but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, as the Apostle commands and directs them (Ephesians 6:5-7).

Now to perform service to their masters as to God and Christ imports these two things.

First, a serious consideration that God is concerned in everything they do, as the object of it. So (Colossians 3:23): whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord. And therefore servants are commanded to have respect, not so much to men as to God. This is the way to ennoble your service, be it never so mean — it is God whom you serve in them, that God whom the greatest princes and potentates of the earth ought to serve. And be the employment what it will, yet the greatness and glory of that master to whom you do it puts an honor and dignity upon it.

Second, to do service as to the Lord implies your doing of it upon this very account, because God has commanded it. Be the action what it will be, yet if you can truly say that you do it, not only because your master has commanded it, but because God, his master and yours, has laid the authority of his command and injunction upon you to obey him, this prefers a man's service to God, and makes it an action done truly to him.

And this may be a great encouragement to servants (for indeed their condition generally wants encouragement) that though their employments may be the meaner and inferior drudgeries of this life, and those possibly not very well accepted by their harsh and contrary masters, yet be their work never so painful and laborious, while they perform it out of conscience to God's command, it is accounted as done to him, and not to them; they are his servants more than theirs, and he will kindly accept and bountifully reward them.

We have thus considered the duties which servants owe to their masters. Let us now proceed to those duties which masters owe reciprocally to their servants. And those consist (as before I noted) either in the right choosing, or in the right using them.

The master's first duty is a prudent care and circumspection into the choice of his servants. And indeed this is a matter of great moment, and that wherein the happiness and comfort, or else the misery and trouble of a family does very much depend.

Now there are two qualifications in a servant that ought chiefly to be regarded in the making choice of him.

The one is ability to discharge his place, and manage those affairs which you commit to his care and trust.

The other is conscientiousness and piety in doing faithful service, not to you only, but to God, the common master of you both.

And indeed this latter is of more importance, and of greater concern to you than the former: for when you entertain a godly person, though possibly not so sufficient for your employment as some others, it will be a commendation of your charity that you maintain one of God's servants in your family. But when you entertain a lewd profane wretch, only because he is able to dispatch his work, you maintain one of the Devil's slaves, and take into your house a sworn servant to the deadliest enemy you have in the world, which is justly reproachable both with folly and impiety.

Yet how little is this usually regarded! I know it is the custom of too many that if they can light on those whom they think proper for their affairs, they never inquire what their principles or what their practices are as to religion, whether Popish or factious, whether for the Mass or the Meeting, but choose them as they would do beasts of burden, the most strong and able, and account it the only property of good servants to be able to perform their office, and willing to drudge as much as they would have them. But let them know that they make a very unwise and a very sinful choice. For such servants will assuredly make much more work than they dispatch, and leave more filth in the house than they cleanse out. Though they be never so able and fit for their employments, yet think not such a one fit for you, who refuses to serve that God whom you yourself are bound to serve; and believe it to be a design of the Devil to help you to one who shall do your work, but undo your family. One vile and wicked servant is enough to corrupt a whole household; for assure yourselves they come there to do the Devil more service than you, and their lewd examples and presumptions will seduce and draw others into the same excess with themselves. For to this I impute the rise and growth of that general profaneness that is too reigning in most families, especially in those whose quality or estates require a numerous attendance; they are commonly too careless what ruffian and debauched servants they entertain; and their children (which else might be the ornament and glory of the nation) conversing with these, learn from them those first rudiments of vice, which afterward their condition and wealth enables them to perfect into consummate villainy and devilism. Here they learned the first taste of excess and intemperance; here they were taught the first syllables of oaths, and instructed how to lisp out curses and obscenity, and according to their proficiency, applauded by these impious wretches for their genteel docility and aptness. Such servants as these should be rooted out, not only as the pests of particular families, but their influence reaches farther, even to corrupt those who may hereafter have an influence on the state and commonwealth; for they serve only to give youth the first relishes of sloth and pleasure and vice, which by woeful improvements grow at last to be inveterate habits, and make them only a shame to their families, and a curse to the kingdom.

So it is proportionable in all meaner families; where the servants are wicked, the children ordinarily will be more ruled by their examples and flatteries than by their parents' authority and commands. And therefore it highly concerns you to make a prudent choice at first; or if therein you have been mistaken, as soon as you can to rid your houses of those vermin and caterpillars, which else will destroy the verdant and budding hopes of your children; and to bring in those who are sober, staid, and godly, who will make it their great care, first to serve God, and then you. Take the resolution of the royal Psalmist for your pattern and direction (Psalm 101:6-7): "My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walks in a perfect way, he shall serve me: he that works deceit, shall not dwell within my house; he that tells lies, shall not tarry in my sight." Certainly those will be the best servants to us who are faithful servants to God; or if they should be less fit for your occasions, yet they will sufficiently earn their wages, though they only pray for you. It is said of Joseph (Genesis 39:5), when he was brought into Potiphar's house to be his servant, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake: and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field. Godly servants bring a blessing along with them to the families where they reside; and having such a servant, you have a friend in court, one that can do you kind offices in heaven through his interest at the throne of grace. And therefore as it is your duty, so it is your wisdom and your concern to make choice of such; these best know their duty; these will make most conscience of performing it; in their integrity and faithfulness your heart may repose, and they will entitle you and your family to these blessings which attended them.

That's the first duty, respecting the choice of servants.

Secondly, another general duty of masters is rightly to use them when they are chosen: and that consists likewise in two things, government and provision.

First, their government ought to be prudent and discreet, such as may maintain their authority, and yet not be soured into tyranny: and therefore it should be a master's care to demean himself gravely and awfully before his servants; his very countenance and comportment should be enough to beget reverence in them. But when the master is vain and light, the servants will grow, first familiar, and then contemptuous.

Government consists in two things, command and correction: but that which does most of all tend to make both effectual, is good example.

First, therefore, a master ought wisely to command and enjoin his servants what they should do. And herein is required a great deal of skill and prudence. For though servants ought not to inquire into the reasons of all that their masters bid them do, yet doubtless it is a very difficult matter for them to bring themselves to do that which is apparently vain and ridiculous; and by imposing such things upon them, the master will much hazard the loss, or diminution of his authority; and therefore in laying his commands upon them, he ought to have regard both to the manner and matter of them.

As to the manner; he ought not to command with rigor, with ill language and revilings, as is the custom of too many, who when they enjoin their servants any thing, preface their commands with a reproach, which tends to nothing but to discourage them, to make them hate the employment, and him that sets them about it; and by this means we make our servants to become our enemies. The Apostle therefore has given this caution (Ephesians 6:9): You masters, do the same things to your servants, forbearing threatening. Nor yet should they prostitute their authority by any submissive entreaties; for it is an evil which the earth itself cannot bear, when a servant reigns and bears sway over his master, as the wise man observes (Proverbs 30:22). But there should be such an equal mixture of mildness with gravity, and love with authority, that the servant should not only be compelled, but inclined by it to obedience. Indeed there is required much evenness of temper in him that would make a good master; not to be hurried with violent and causeless passions, nor to be swayed by irrational humors; for nothing does more detract from authority than humorousness; because servants not having any standing measure of what will please such a master, will at last grow careless of it, and despise the commands of him who is as much a servant as they are servants; indeed, a very slave to his passions and humors, than which there cannot be a baser and a viler slavery: and therefore those who are servants to fickle and capricious masters, though they may seem very obsequious to them, yet cannot but secretly despise them: for power may indeed make their commands to be obeyed; but it is reason only, and gravity, that can make them venerable and reverend.

Second, as a master ought to respect the manner how he commands, so likewise the matter what he commands. And in this take these three rules.

First, he ought to command nothing but what is lawful to be performed; for both they and their servants have a supreme Lord and Master in the highest heavens, whom they both ought to fear and obey. His service is no farther due to you, than as it is consistent with the service of God; and when you command any thing contrary to it, you are not a master, but a tempter. It is true he is bound in conscience to observe you, yet it is only in those things wherein the law of God has left his conscience free; and therefore where the great and universal Lord has laid a prohibition upon him, his obedience is superseded, and your commands do only bind yourself to guilt, not him to observance. He is bound to work for you, but not to lie, or to steal, or to cheat for you: and if you are so wicked as to enjoin him any such thing, it is no uncivil answer to say to you, as the Apostles did (Acts 5:29): We ought rather to obey God than men.

Second, a master's commands must be not only lawful, but possible: to command things impossible, is the height of folly. And therefore when Abraham commanded his servant to procure a wife for his son; he prudently answers, What if she will not come? Upon which supposition his master acquits him from the oath of God that was between them (Genesis 24:8): If the woman will not be willing to follow you, then you shall be clear of this oath. To command things impossible to be effected, will but detract from the master's authority, and lessen his esteem, and cause the servant to think his own discretion to be a better guide for his actions, than his master's; indeed although the thing be not simply impossible in itself, but only to the servant, considering either his inability or employments; or if it be hugely inconvenient, or prejudicial, or unseasonable, the master ought not in conscience or prudence to exact it. For, as to command things unlawful, is impiety, and things impossible, folly; so to require things unreasonable and prejudicial, is mere tyranny: and as such it is recorded in Pharaoh and his taskmasters, who to weary and wear out the Israelites, exacted the whole tale of bricks, but would not allow straw to make them.

Third, a master's command ought not to be vain and impertinent; but he should have some compelling reason, though perhaps not always fit to be communicated to the servant, why he commands such things from him — reason sufficient to satisfy his own judgment, and his own conscience.

These three rules ought to be observed by masters; they ought to command nothing that is unlawful to be done; nothing but what is possible; nothing but what is profitable and useful. And this is the first part of a master's government, namely, prudent commanding of his servants.

Second, it is the master's duty to correct those servants that are stubborn and disobedient. The wise man tells us (Proverbs 29:19): There is a servant who will not be corrected with words; for although he understand, he will not answer.

Yet here prudence must be the measure of what discipline is fit for them, according to their age, disposition, and the nature of their offence. A reproof will work more effectually with some than stripes; and those who have ingenuous spirits, though in a servile condition, will either be discouraged, or exasperated by a too-rigorous usage. And God has expressly interposed his will in this particular (Leviticus 25:34): You shall not rule over him with rigor, but shall fear your God. Indeed no correction is to be inflicted on them out of passion and revenge: but either,

First, for reformation and amendment, that they may be the more wary for the future; or,

Secondly, for example's sake, to terrify others from the same, or the like offenses. Even a heathen could say, Nemo sapens punit, quia peccatum est, sed ne pelletur: No wise man does punish, because the offense is already committed, (for then it comes unseasonably and too late) but that it might not be committed again.

But still be sure that the corrections be not immoderate and too severe; neither exceeding the proportion of the fault, for that is cruelty, nor unbecoming you to inflict, or the age and quality of your servant to suffer, for that will be reproachful to both. Generally reproof is the best discipline. But if they be such contumacious fools as not to be amended with that, although it be lawful, and in some cases necessary to use a sharper method towards them; yet the best and most prudent course, and that which will tend most to your quiet and credit, is to discharge them.

Now to move you to mercy and lenity towards them; consider,

First, that you yourselves have a Master, the great and glorious God. This the Apostle urges, (Ephesians 6:9) Masters, forbear threatening, knowing that your Master also is in Heaven. Think with yourselves how often you provoke him, and yet he forbears you, although you are infinitely more inferior to him, than any servant can be to you: and this will calm your passions, and cause you, if not altogether to waive, yet at least to allay and mitigate the rigor and severity of your chastisements.

Secondly, consider that they are equal with you in respect of God. It is true, they are your servants, but both you and they are fellow-servants to the great Lord and Master. And if you in a rage should take your fellow-servant by the throat, and imperiously abuse him; fear, lest your Lord may require it, and vindicate his wrongs in the punishment of your tyranny. There is no respect of persons with him; but he that has done wrong, shall receive for the wrong that he has done. And what are you, O vile worm, that you should domineer over your fellow, who is moulded of as good earth, and has as precious and immortal a soul in him, as yourself? For,

Thirdly, consider that you are equal likewise in nature, only divine providence has made the difference. From where then such a supercilious disdain of servants, Quasi non iisdem tibi & constent & alantur elementis, eundemque spiritum carpant, (as Macrobius); as if they did not consist of the same materials, nor draw the same breath with yourself. They are servants, but yet they are men; they are servants, indeed rather they are your fellow-servants. And it is in the power of the same providence who has subjected them to you, to change the scene, exalt them, and bring you into bondage. Why then should you despise them? Whereas you know not how soon you may be brought under a more miserable servitude. They are servants out of necessity, when perhaps their masters are voluntary slaves: some are slaves to their lusts, others to covetousness, others to ambition, and all to hope, all to fear. And there is no servitude so justly contemptible, as that which is voluntary and willful.

Consider again, that he who is a servant to men, may be the Lord's freeman; whereas he that is free among men, may be a slave to his lusts, and by them to the Devil: and therefore we ought neither to think despicably of them, nor to use them severely, but to treat them with love, as our fellow-creatures, our fellow-servants, indeed, and fellow-heirs of the same inheritance of life and glory.

And thus much concerning the master's duty in government.

Another general wherein his duty consists, is provision; and that both for their temporal and spiritual good; for the welfare both of their bodies and their souls.

First; as for their temporal provision, he is bound to supply them with things necessary for them according to the tenor of the agreement and compact made between them, (Colossians 4:1) Masters, give to your servants that which is just and equal. He ought to provide for them food and clothing; or else in lieu of any of these, faithfully to pay them their agreed wages. (Leviticus 19:13) The wages of him that is hired shall not abide all night with you, until the morning. And again, (Deuteronomy 24:14-15) You shall not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy; at his day you shall give him his hire; neither shall the sun go down upon it, lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be sin to you. This oppression of servants in withholding from them their covenanted reward of their labor, is a crying and provoking sin. So the Apostle, (James 5:4) The hire of the laborers which have reaped down the fields, (so likewise of those who have done any other work and service for you) which is of you kept back by fraud, cries; and the cries of them that have reaped, are entered into the ears of the [reconstructed: Lord of Sabaoth].

Secondly; as the master is to make temporal provision for their bodies, so much more is he to provide for their spiritual welfare, and the good of their souls; in as much as their souls are incomparably to be preferred before their bodies. Every master is to be both a priest and a prophet within his own family, as well as a king; he is to instruct them in the will and laws of God, to inform their ignorance, resolve their doubts, excite and quicken them to the service of God, to rectify their errors and mistakes, to pray with them and for them, to direct them in the way that leads to Heaven and happiness, and above all, to walk before them in it by his holy and pious example. But how few are there that do conscientiously perform this duty! Do not the most think it enough if they provide necessaries and conveniences for the body, the dull, outward, and earthly part of man? And indeed it were enough, if they had only beasts to look after. But remember, your servants, and those who belong to your charge, have precious and immortal souls, capable of eternal glory and happiness, but liable to eternal misery and torments: and God has entrusted you with these souls of theirs, and will require them at your hands. What a heavy and tremendous doom will pass upon you, when God shall demand at your hands the souls of your servants, or of your children, which have perished through your default! Will it be enough then to plead, Lord, I fed and clothed them, and was careful of their health and welfare? Indeed, if their bodies only were committed to your care, this were enough; but see, there they stand condemned, and ready for eternal flames, for the ignorance which you ought to have informed, for the profaneness which you ought to have chastised and hindered, for those neglects of holy duties in the which you ought to have gone before them; and therefore though they shall die and perish in their sins, yet their blood will God require at your hands, whose carelessness or evil example has hardened them in wickedness, and led them on securely to destruction.

Let me therefore warn you who are masters and heads of families, that as you tender the souls of those who are under your charge, indeed, as you tender your own souls, which are deeply engaged and concerned in theirs; so that you would use all diligence and industry in promoting their spiritual good, that you may at the last day present them with joy before the tribunal of God; Lo here am I, and the children and servants that you have given me. Now that you may with joy and triumph present them before the throne of justice then, be frequent in presenting them before the throne of grace now. Let not a day pass without its stated hours of prayer in your family; instruct those that are ignorant, reduce those that are erroneous, admonish and rebuke with all authority those that are faulty, discard those that are contumacious and incorrigible: let not a scoffing Ishmael, a scorner and derider of piety and holiness, remain within your doors; and especially be careful that both you and your family do strictly observe and sanctify the Lord's Day; for therein consists a great part of the life and strength of religion, and this day usually gives a seasoning to all the days of the week after. Prepare your families by private duties, for public; let none of them stay at home from the ordinances, but upon great and urgent necessity. Suffer them not to wander, some to one pasture, and some to another; but where the ordinances of God are duly dispensed; and there do you lead your own, that as they altogether receive their bodily food in your house, so they may altogether receive their spiritual food in the house of God; take an account of their profiting by what they hear; be as careful to see your family well employed in the service of God upon that day, as to see them employed in your own service and affairs the other days of the week: and therefore be not long nor unnecessarily from them, for God has made you his overseer; and if his work go not forward in private family duties, especially on the Lord's Day, you can never expect a blessing upon what they do for you.

And thus much concerning the mutual duties of masters and servants.

The next sort of relative duties that I shall treat of is, that of pastors and their flocks, ministers and their people. For between them also is such a relation of superiority and inferiority, as brings them under the direction of this commandment. We do not arrogate too much to ourselves, nor take too much upon us, when we affirm that we are superior to the people, and have an authority over them in things spiritual, and appertaining to God. And although through the vices and foul miscarriages of those who are dignified with this high honor, and partly through the meanness of their outward state and condition; to which may be added likewise, the meanness and abjectness of their spirits, as a consequent upon the former, basely prostituting themselves, and forfeiting the respect that is due to them, by their [reconstructed: sordid] crouching for a morsel of bread at the lower end of a gentleman's table; though by these, I say, not only their persons, but their office be sunk into the lowest scorn and contempt; yet I cannot but with the Apostle magnify my office, which is truly excellent and venerable; and it is the great sin of the people to despise this calling, although the follies and indiscretions of ministers themselves may not only occasion, but invite them to do it.

Now here I shall plainly set down the reciprocal duties which they ought mutually to perform each to other.

The duties of ministers either respect their call to that office; or their management and discharge of it.

The great duty that respects their call is to look to it that they be rightly called, that they do not temerariously thrust themselves into so sacred a function, unless they be duly set apart for it. For as the priests under the law were taken from among men, and ordained for men in things pertaining to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices, as the Apostle speaks (Hebrews 5:1), so likewise the ministers of the Gospel are to be duly sanctified and set apart for this high employment, to stand before the Lord, and to minister in things that appertain to his worship: and it is an intolerable presumption for any to intrude themselves into this lot, without being selected to it by that order which God himself has appointed and left to his Church. For no man takes this honor to himself, but he that is called of God, as the Apostle subjoins (verse 4). And therefore God complains of those prophets whom he had not sent, and yet they ran; and to whom he had not spoken, and yet they prophesied (Jeremiah 23:21). Audacious, undertaking men it seems they were; like some of late days, who thought their forwardness alone a sufficient consecration, and the seal of whose commission bears only the stamp of their own impudence.

Now to the due constitution of a minister there is requisite a twofold call.

First; he must have an inward call, which consists both in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and also in the inclination of his will to use them for God's glory in this holy ministration. Now these gifts with which he must be endowed, some of them are absolutely necessary to capacitate him for the office; others are only conducive to make his ministration in it the more effectual.

That which is absolutely necessary, is a competent knowledge in the truths of the Gospel, without which the great end of the ministry cannot be attained, which is to teach and instruct the people. It is indeed their duty to strive after an eminence in this knowledge; for they are the lights of the world, and should be able to diffuse abroad their beams, that they might enlighten those that are ignorant, and sit in darkness. But yet there is no stated measure nor standard for their knowledge. For we find that our Lord Jesus Christ, the great minister and teacher of the world, sent forth his disciples to preach, when yet they were very ignorant of many important truths of the Gospel. Eminent knowledge is therefore necessary for their duty, but competent knowledge is necessary for their office.

That which is highly conducive to the effectualness of their ministry, is sanctifying grace, and a holy life and conversation. Not that they are not true ministers without this; for we find a Judas sent forth with the same authority and commission as the rest of the disciples. Indeed the Apostles, who had Christ himself for their master and instructor, yet are by him sent to attend upon the ministry of the scribes and Pharisees; who, though they were very wicked and ungodly hypocrites, yet because they sat in Moses's seat, that is, because they had a rightful authority to teach the people, therefore he commands his own scholars to hear and obey them; "Whatever they bid you observe, that observe and do" (Matthew 23:2-3). It is not therefore personal grace that gives authority to our ministry; but yet it may and does contribute much efficacy to it. God may feed his people, as he did Elijah, by a raven; and make a cold breath kindle the sparks of grace in the hearts of others, and blow it up into a flame. But yet it is far more comfortable and profitable to the people to sit under a minister who shall go before them in example, as well as in doctrine; who not only prescribes them rules of holiness, but is himself an example to those rules: such a one who speaks from the heart, is most likely to speak to it; and having himself experienced the ways of holiness, can more savorily recommend them to the acceptance of his flock. And certainly he will be more like to speed in his errand, when he shall persuade them to nothing but what he has found the goodness and sweetness of in himself. All others are but like those mercurial statues, which in old times were set up in cross-ways, with their hands extended to point out the right road to passengers, but themselves never walked in them: these indeed may be serviceable to direct their people. But a minister should not only be a director, but a leader; he should not only point out the way, but walk before his flock in it. And it is commonly observed, that they are the labors of such, that God most usually owns and crowns with success.

Secondly; as he must have an inward call in the gifts of the Spirit of God, so likewise he must have an outward call by a solemn separation of him to this work through imposition of hands. This indeed gives him the ministerial power, and invests him with authority to dispense the ordinances of Jesus Christ as an officer and minister of the Gospel: and this authority Saint Paul calls a gift (1 Timothy 4:14), "Neglect not the gift that is in you, which was given you by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." This gift here spoken of, I take to be nothing else but the ministerial office conferred upon him by ordination, according to those predictions and prophecies which were before given of him by some divinely-inspired men, who foretold that he was by God designed for the work of the ministry, and should glorify God by a careful discharge of it; of which we read (Chapter 1, verse 18). Indeed this office is by our Saviour himself called the Holy Ghost; and ordination (how harsh soever the phrase may seem to be) is a giving of the Holy Ghost, not indeed either in the gifts or graces of it (which were afterwards plentifully bestowed upon them on the day of Pentecost) but only authority to exercise the ministerial function. Consult (John 20:22-23): "When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said, Receive you the Holy Ghost." Which Holy Ghost I take to be nothing else but their solemn mission to the ministry; and this (though perhaps it may seem a strange interpretation of the place) I cannot but judge it to be the true sense and import of it, upon these two considerations.

First; that the Holy Ghost was in no other respect at all at that time given to them. They neither received any extraordinary degree of grace, or any extraordinary gifts of grace more than they were before endowed with. Indeed, it is plainly expressed, that as yet the Holy Ghost was not given them in his extraordinary gifts, but they were commanded to wait for the promise of the Father at Jerusalem; and the first accomplishment of that promise was on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit descended upon them in the form of fiery cloven tongues. Here then being a receiving of the Holy Ghost, and that not in the extraordinary gifts or graces of it; what can remain, but that our Savior by breathing on them, gave them the Holy Ghost, that is, mission and authority to preach the Gospel, and to dispense his ordinances to the church?

Secondly; the words following interpret these in this sense. Receive the Holy Ghost. Whoever's sins you remit, they are remitted to them; and whoever's sins you retain, they are retained. Now these words seem to me a clear exposition of the former, Receive the Holy Ghost, that is, receive authority to remit and retain sins, which is one great part of the ministerial power, to declare pardon to the penitent, and wrath to the incorrigible and obstinate. This, though it may seem a strange, yet to me it seems the only true and consonant exposition of this place. But I shall not now further vindicate it.

Now as our Savior used this sign of breathing upon his disciples when he ordained them; so the apostles afterwards instituted and used another sign, namely laying on of hands, of which there is frequent mention in Scripture, and which was introduced into the Christian church from the pattern of the Jewish church. Thus we read (Acts 9:17) that Paul is ordained by the imposition of the hands of Ananias; he put his hands on him, and said, The Lord Jesus has sent me that you might receive your sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost; that is, that he might be endowed with ministerial gifts, and invested with the ministerial authority. And again (which I wish heartily our dissenting brethren, who so much decry re-ordination, would but a little more maturely weigh and consider) he the second time receives mission and ordination with Barnabas (Acts 13:2). As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul, to the work to which I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

Indeed this imposition of hands was so inseparable an attendant upon ordination, that sometimes it is used alone to signify it. So (1 Timothy 5:22) Lay hands suddenly on no man, that is, ordain no man rashly, and without due advice.

Now since this external call is so expressly and frequently mentioned, and the manner of it so particularly described, how daringly presumptuous are they, who without regarding those methods which the Holy Ghost has prescribed, indeed despising and condemning them as obsolete and outworn formalities, rush into the ministry, and pretend an inward call of gifts and graces, which yet in very many of them, are no other than most of the people might as well pretend to, if they had but the like impudence; and so we should have more ministers than people, more shepherds than sheep? But let their gifts and their graces be never so eminent and admirable, they ought not to take this honor to themselves, until they are set apart by the church, and as well empowered to preach by an outward mission, as enabled to do it by their gifts and qualifications.

And thus much for the first thing which a minister ought to regard, which is his call to that office.

When we are assured that our call is right, and according to the will of God, there are then many other duties incumbent upon us in the due exercise of our calling. As,

First, and chiefly: We ought to be good examples to the flock. This St. Paul most expressly enjoins Timothy (1 Timothy 4:12): Be an example to the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Indeed it is very sad to consider how the unsuitable conversation of ministers does quite enervate all the force and strength of their doctrine and exhortations. For let them speak with the tongues of angels, and preach as holily and powerfully, as if the Holy Ghost did immediately inspire them; yet if their lives be loose, and their conversation contradictory to their doctrine, the people will be ready to conclude, that so much strictness is not necessary, that they only urge it as a matter of high and fine perfection in religion, and that certainly they know a nearer way to heaven than through so many severities which they press upon the people; and that therefore they will take the same course, and run the same venture that their ministers do. And indeed how is it likely that such a ministry should be effectual to bring others to holiness, when the minister himself declares to all the world by his actions, that he looks upon it as unnecessary? What hold can his admonitions and reproofs take upon the consciences of men? Certainly his own guilt must needs rise up in his throat, and choke his reproofs. For conscientiousness of the same miscarriages will retort whatever we can say against others, more strongly upon ourselves; and suggest to us that it is but base hypocrisy to blame that which ourselves practise. With what face can you press others to repent and reform; what arguments can you use to prevail with them, who by continuing in the same sin, do you yourself judge those arguments to be of no force? Indeed it were a temper to be wished and prayed for, that we could only respect how righteous the reproof is, and not how righteous the person who gives it; and be content to have our motes plucked out, though it be by those who have beams in their own eyes: that we could learn that hard lesson which our Saviour gives his disciples, to do as they say, but not to do after their works; for indeed there is no more reason to reject sound admonition, because it comes from an unsound heart, than there is to stop our ears against good counsel, because it is delivered perhaps by a stinking breath. But yet so it usually fares, that when ministers of defiled and loose lives, shall yet preach up holiness and strictness to their people, and as they ought, reprove them sharply for their sins; they will be apt to think, What, is he in earnest? and does he not see that he himself is as bad or worse? With what face can he thunder out woe, and wrath, and hell against my sins, which yet are no more mine than his own? Does he think to fright me with denouncing threats and curses, when he himself, who stands as fair a mark for them as I, slights and contemns them? Or does he envy me my sins, and would engross them all to himself? And thus with such carnal reasonings drawn from the evil examples and wicked lives of ministers, they sit hardened under their preaching, and account all they say, but as a lesson they must repeat, and a tale they must tell to get their living by. Certainly such shall perish in their iniquities, but the blood of their souls God will require at your hands.

But now when a minister walks conscientiously and exemplary before his flock, his doctrine gains a mighty advantage to work upon them, by his life. This is building up the Church of Christ with both hands, showing them both the equity and the easiness of that holiness which he persuades them to, by his own practice. When he reproves, his reproofs break in upon the consciences of his hearers with conviction and authority; and if they do not reform, yet at least daunt and terrify them, and make them self-accused, and self-condemned. Here is one reproves me for sin, who believes it to be as evil as he represents it, by his own eschewing it. Here is one that denounces wrath if I repent not, who doubtless believes it to be as terrible as he declares it, by his own carefulness to escape it. Certainly preaching never comes with such power and energy into the conscience, as when the minister preaches as well by his works, as by his word; and to induce the people to it, is first obedient himself to the truths which he teaches them. Men are easier led by examples, than by precepts; for though precepts are the more exact, yet examples are the more easy way of teaching. And he is a perfect workman who joins both together, neither teaching what he will not do, nor doing what he dares not teach; and therefore it is observed of our Lord Jesus Christ the great Teacher of his Church, that he began both to do and teach (Acts 1:1).

Now ministers must be exemplary both in themselves, and in their families. In themselves they must be blameless, as the stewards of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no strikers, not given to filthy lucre; lovers of hospitality, lovers of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; as the Apostle sums up their duties (Titus 1:7-8). These are the things which will give them a good report among those which are without, and will recommend the doctrines and truths which they teach, to the acceptance and love of their very enemies, and the enemies of their holy profession.

They must likewise be exemplary in their families: A minister must rule well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity (1 Timothy 3:4).

And because there are so many who are ready maliciously to asperse us, we must by a serious and circumspect conversation, cut off all occasions from slanderous tongues; that they who watch for our halting, may be ashamed when they can find nothing to reproach us with, save in the matter of our God.

But if any such there be, who speak like angels, but live like devils; who when they are in the pulpit, it is pity they should ever come out; and when they are out, it is great pity they should ever come into it again; who are heavenly lights in it, but hellish firebrands out of it. Would to God they would consider how they destroy the very end of their calling; and instead of converting souls, do but harden them in their sins, making men abhor the offerings and ordinances of the Lord, putting arguments in their mouths to justify their continuance in their wickedness, or else prejudices in their hearts, causing them to depart and separate from holy institutions, because dispensed by profane and scandalous ministers; let them pretend never so highly to uniformity and obedience, yet certainly these are the men who have made all our separatists, that now sadly rend our church in pieces. For when the sheep see a wolf set over them instead of a shepherd, no wonder if they run from him and scatter into other pastures. It is in vain for them to tell people that they ought to be obedient to the laws of the church their mother, when those that tell them so are not obedient to the laws of God their father. And O that they would but consider not only the damage which they do to the church, of which too many of them seem zealous propugners, but the heavy woe and wrath which they bring upon their own souls. Every sermon they study, they do but draw up a bill of indictment against themselves; and every time they preach, they do but pronounce the sentence of their own damnation: And woe to such pastors, when they whom Christ has set over his sheep, shall themselves be found at the last day standing among the goats.

Secondly, another great duty of ministers is, a diligent and conscientious employing of their gifts and talents; they must be both able and willing to teach; they themselves must be well-grounded in the knowledge and doctrine of Christ: The priest's lips should preserve knowledge, and men should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts (Malachi 2:7). And therefore the apostle rejects a novice, a raw, ignorant and unexperienced person: for if the blind lead the blind, both will be in danger of falling together into the ditch. And God himself tells such ignorant and foolish teachers (Hosea 4:6), Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you, that you shall be no priest to me: seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

And as they must be able to teach, so they must be diligent in teaching: A necessity is laid upon them, and woe to them if they preach not the gospel, as the apostle speaks (1 Corinthians 9:16). They ought to be instant in season, and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2): Preach the word, be instant in season, and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. Not as if the minister must be continually in the exercise of preaching, but he ought to preach in season, that is, in the ordinary and stated times for it; and out of season, that is, on extraordinary occasions, when the necessity or utility of the church shall require it.

His doctrine ought to be,

First, sound, such as cannot be condemned (Titus 2:1): Speak you the things which become sound doctrine. It must have its authority either from the express words of Scripture, or the analogy of faith rationally deduced from Scripture; for he that preaches false doctrine inconsistent with these, does but mingle poison with his people's meat.

Secondly, it must be profitable; not setting before them alien and unintelligible notions, or such thin airy speculations as can scarce consist with sense, much less with divinity: for this is to give them wind instead of food. (2 Timothy 2:14) Charge them before the Lord, that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. And (Titus 3:8) these things I will that you affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God, be careful to maintain good works: these things are good and profitable to men.

Thirdly, their preaching must be plain, and suited to the capacity of their hearers as much as can be without disgusting any; for he that shall only disgorge and tumble out a heap of bombastic theatrical words, at which the people only stare, and gape, and wonder, preaches to them in an unknown tongue, although he speak English: and this is but to give them stones instead of bread.

Fourthly, their preaching must be grave and solid, not slovenly and too much neglected, for that will but beget a nauseating in the hearers; nor yet too nicely and sprucely dressed, for that will be apt to divert the attention from the matter to the phrase. Their sermons ought to have a comely and matron-like, not a gayish and meretricious attire. The truths they preach must be delivered in such words as may adorn, but not hide nor bury them; such as may rather recommend the doctrine to the consciences, than the art and rhetoric of the preacher to the ears and fancies of the hearers.

Fifthly, they ought to preach powerfully and with authority (1 Timothy 4:11): These things command and teach. We come to the people in the name of God, and are his ambassadors, and therefore ought to deliver his message boldly, being sent to the people by the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords: And those who mince his errand, as if they were afraid to speak that which God has given them in commission, shall at their return to him receive the reward of treacherous and unfaithful messengers.

There are very many other duties, which cannot without too much length be particularly insisted on.

As hospitality according to the measure of their estates (1 Timothy 3:2): They must be given to hospitality. And (Titus 1:8) they must be lovers of hospitality. And therefore they ought to be liberally and plentifully endowed, that they may make their table a snare in a good sense, and may get some to follow and observe them, though it be but for the loaves. And here it will be a good point of their wisdom, if they can handsomely make use of such opportunities (as we find our Savior did after he had miraculously fed the multitude) to break to them the Bread of Life, and with their bodily nourishment to feed their souls.

Then gravity in their discourse, and in all their converse: A minister should neither speak nor do anything that is unseemly. Intemperate mirth, clamorous talk, scurrilous jestings, but especially the least syllable of an oath, although it be never so much varied and disguised, in a minister's mouth, as it is wicked, so it is utterly misbecoming the dignity of his profession, and renders him mean and contemptible.

Again; a pious and assiduous care in visiting the sick, who are certainly most capable of good advice and counsel then, although perhaps they have all their lifetime before despised and refused it. You may possibly do more good by the sick bed, than in the pulpit: for death is a terrible and thundering preacher; and he must needs be a most forlorn and obdurate wretch who will not listen to your admonitions, when the hopes of a long life, which made him formerly reject them, have forsaken him.

Again; diligence in catechising and instructing the younger in the principles of faith and religion; root them well at first, and they will continue stable ever after. This will save yourselves and your successors much labor afterwards: for if once you can insinuate into their minds piety and verity, they will grow up to farther degrees of perfection in the ordinary course of your ministry, and be your comfort and rejoicing here, and your crown and glory hereafter.

There are many other duties necessary to the right discharge of the ministerial function, but these already mentioned shall suffice; and all others may be reduced to some of these. I shall therefore conclude this with my earnest request, that you would ever seriously meditate upon that charge which God gives the prophet, and in him all ministers (Ezekiel 3:17-19): Son of Man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel; therefore hear the Word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, You shall surely die; and you do not give him warning, nor speak to warn the wicked of his evil way to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand. Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul.

The people's duty towards their minister is especially twofold.

First, obedience, in being persuaded by his good advice and admonitions. We have this most expressly commanded (Hebrews 13:17): Obey them which have the rule over you; that is, not only civil magistrates, and your rulers in state affairs, but ministers also; for so it is added, for they watch for your souls, as those that must give an account; that they may do it with joy, and not with grief. And they are called the elders that rule well (1 Timothy 5:17). I know that this obedience to ministers is a duty so utterly forgotten in the practice of most men, that I doubt of some prejudice in them against these places of Scripture by which it is so plainly enjoined. Alas, that ever Christ and his Apostle should invest us with such authority, which when we assume, we are looked upon by the people as almost ridiculous for it, as if we had only a reed in our hands, and a crown of shame rather than of dignity put upon our heads, and are accounted of rather as insolent usurpers upon their liberty, than as officers empowered by God himself. Sirs, we take to ourselves no power over you, but what God has by his patent and charter given us; and when we propound to you the will of God revealed in his Word; or in cases not so clearly determined therein, do give our judgment as those who have found mercy to be accounted faithful, we do, and may challenge your obedience to it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we find that in those particular cases wherein the Apostle had no express revelation from Christ, yet he prescribes to the Corinthians what he judges fit for them to do, and by that direction obliged their practice, not indeed simply and absolutely, yet so that in such circumstances as the Apostle supposes, they had sinned if they had done otherwise than he directed them. We desire not to lord it over God's inheritance by any burdensome imposition of things either unlawful, or in themselves unfit. But when we require from you those things which God himself has commanded; or if not expressly commanded, yet are in the judgment of those to whom you owe obedience, thought convenient and lawful to be done, I know not how you can excuse yourselves from disobedience against God, if in these cases you be not obedient to us: and if you call this usurpation, and a taking too much upon us, you do but speak the language of Korah and his accomplices, and shake not so much ours, as God's title and authority over you, who has given us this power and commission.

Secondly; another duty of the people is to honor their ministers as their spiritual fathers: indeed the Apostle speaks of a double honor that is due to them (1 Timothy 5:17): Let elders that rule well, be accounted worthy of double honor. All must have that honor given them which is due to their function, but those who rule the flock well, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], that is, not barely commendably, but excellently, must have this honor doubled to them: and those who not only thus rule, but excel others in teaching them likewise, must have this double honor doubled upon them; especially they that labor in the Word and doctrine.

Now this double honor is commonly taken for the honor of reverence, and the honor of maintenance; and perhaps this place does most especially mean this latter, when it speaks of double honor. For this word [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] often signifies reward and maintenance, and is in that sense used in this very chapter, verse 3: [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], Honor widows, that is, relieve widows, that are widows indeed. And here by the way we may see how groundless the assertion is, who from this place establish an order, new and unknown to the church of God till of late, of lay-ruling elders. For if this text gives them any such authority, it gives them the double honor too; and so consequently, by divine right they may challenge maintenance from the people, as well as the ministers themselves; nay, and if they rule well, a large and plentiful maintenance, double as much as may suffice others of their own rank and order; which honor when they shall challenge to themselves, as doubtless they may upon as good proof and evidence as the authority they pretend to, certainly their pastors will find greater reason to annihilate these creatures of their fancy and politic accommodation, than ever they had to forge them.

But to return. We owe them,

First, the honor of reverence. We ought to honor and esteem them for their office and their work's sake. So expressly, (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13): We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you: and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And again, (Philippians 2:29): Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in reputation. And certainly they who cast any contempt upon ministers, either by injurious actions, or reviling speeches (as it is grown a common custom, to make them a by-word, a very scoff, and song of the drunkards) do not so much despise them, as Christ who sent them. He that despises you, despises me, says our Savior (Luke 10:16). And God will not leave this sin unpunished, indeed he speaks of it as almost an unpardonable crime (2 Chronicles 36:16): They mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of God was against his people, and there was no remedy.

Secondly; they owe to them the honor of maintenance. So (Galatians 6:6): Let him that is taught in the Word, communicate to him that teaches, in all good things. And there is good reason for it: For if we have sown to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? says the Apostle, (1 Corinthians 9:11). What you give them is not a matter of bounty, and mere voluntary benevolence; and the minister who so accounts, or receives it, undervalues his authority, and wrongs his right; but it is your duty, and his due. He must have a competent and liberal maintenance, not stinted to the bare size of necessity, but it should be affluence, such as may enable him to relieve the necessities of others, to provide comfortably for his own family, and to use hospitality in his house: this is his due, and he owes you no more thanks for tendering it, than you do him for receiving it. Not here to dispute the divine right of the tenth part, (which yet was not all that was due to the ministers under the Law, for they had a considerable accession by offerings and sacrifices:) I think it certain that the encouragement of ministers under the Gospel should equal, if not exceed theirs, in as much as our labor is far greater, and our ministry more excellent than theirs. But they who think it fit to keep ministers poor and dependent, may well be suspected to do it in favor of their own vices: For how shall he dare to reprove them, who is afraid of losing part of his stipend, or the benefit of his patron's trencher? But while the gentleman in black must sit below the salt, and after dinner converse with the better sort of serving-men, there is no danger that he should be so audacious as to find faults; or if he should, no great heed will be taken to what so despicable a thing as he can say.

Thus much for the duties of ministers and people.

The first head of mutual duties between superiors and inferiors that I shall insist on, is, between those who differ in the gifts of divine bounty. And these may be considered, either as the gifts of special grace, or of common providence. Of which briefly.

First; God does endow some with an excellent measure of sanctifying grace, and is pleased to show the world by a few rare and choice instances, how wonderfully he can sublime our corrupted nature, and how near he can exalt human frailty to an angelic perfection. This indeed is the most excellent of all his gifts, and that which we ought most earnestly to covet and desire: For although other gifts, as knowledge, wisdom, power, etc. do in some imperfect manner assimilate us to God; yet sanctity and holiness does far transcend all these, both because it stamps upon us the resemblance of the divine nature, in that attribute which is its greatest glory (from which God assumes it to his style, that he is glorious in holiness) and likewise because God has highly honored it, and given it the dignity and prerogative to be the only means of bringing us to the complete and eternal fruition of our felicity.

Now those whom God has thus blessed with an eminent degree of this his best gift, ought,

First, to beware that they do not secretly despise their weaker brothers in their hearts, nor with a censorious austerity reject those whom God has received. It is often seen that fellow-servants are more inexorable each to other, than their common Lord and Master; and that those errors and infirmities which are rather the slips of thoughtlessness, than the products of a resolved will, can hardly obtain pardon among men, though God has forgiven and forgotten them. Now this arises from a spiritual pride, which makes us envious towards those who excel us, and scornful towards those who fall short. For when men grow conceited of their own excellencies and attainments, they will be ready to condemn other men's duties, as formal hypocrisy, and their sins as total apostasy; they will mistake the smoking flax for a reeking dunghill, and be forward imperiously to cast them out of God's family, though themselves were but lately received into it out of mere charity. Certainly this is a spirit (though it too much prevails in this broken and shattered age, wherein every one thinks so much the better of himself, by how much the worse he thinks of others; yet this I say is a spirit) utterly misbecoming the sweetness and mildness of the Gospel, which teaches us to be meek and gentle, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. It would better become you, O Christian, not to observe other men's falls, but to look to your own standing: you stand by faith: be not high minded, but fear (Romans 11:20). It is the worst way that so excellent a thing as divine grace can be perverted, when it makes you proud and censorious. For my part, I should much more confide in the security of a humble soul that creeps along to heaven, though with a slow yet an even pace, than in the ecstatic zeal and fervor of such who perhaps far out-strip others, but also contemn them: for the one is still pressing forward, and regards with admiration those who excel; but the other is often looking back with disdain upon those who are slower than himself, and while he minds not so much his way, as the advances he has made, offers many advantages to the Devil to trip him up, and give him many a sore and shameful fall. And therefore, O Christian, the more eminent your graces are, the more need you have to pray and strive for humility. The tallest cedars had need have the deepest roots, otherwise the storms and winds will easily overturn them: so truly the higher any grow, the more they spread and flourish, being like the cedars of God, beautiful in their leaves, and plentiful in their sap, the more need have they to be deeply rooted in humility; or else believe it, the wind and tempest of temptations, to which they stand more exposed than others, will not only sorely shake them, but utterly overturn them; when those whom they shall despise as mean shrubs, shall stand secure, and with a tender pity weep over their fall.

Secondly, another duty of such as are eminent in grace, is to improve it to the benefit and advantage of others. God has given you a larger portion, that you should be helpful to your brothers. The stock of grace which he has offered you, is not only that you yourself should live well upon it, but it was intended for the relief and comfort of the whole family. Has God endowed you with a clear and distinct knowledge of the mysteries of the Gospel? Know that this lamp was lighted up in you, that you should give light to others, that you should diffuse and scatter abroad its rays round about you, to inform the ignorant, guide the doubting, confirm the wavering, resolve the scrupulous, reduce the erroneous, and convince the malicious opposers of the truth. This is not the minister's duty only, though more eminently and especially his, but it is the duty of every private Christian, whom God has blessed with a large measure of true knowledge more than others, still keeping within his due bounds and limits. Or, has the Holy Spirit kindled in your breast a flame of divine affection? And is it not to this end, that you should breathe warmth into the languishing desires of others, and by holy conferences and spiritual discourses, illustrating the beauty of holiness, the excellency of true piety in itself, and the rewards it brings after it, apply your heavenly fire to their chill and freezing hearts, until you have kindled them too, and set them on a flame, that so both together might burn with vigorous love towards God and his Christ? Or, has God exercised you with grievous trials, and violent temptations? Why is it, but that you should the better know how to help those that are tempted; and by your own experiences, counsel and comfort those who are ready to sink under their load, which not only the weight, but the unusualness makes the more intolerable? For the greatest accent and emphasis that such do usually put upon their miseries, is, that never any before were so severely afflicted, never any before were so violently assaulted. Let them know, that no temptation has befallen them, but what is common to men, and that you yourself have come triumphantly from under the like: expound to them the depths and methods of Satan; unravel his wiles and subtleties; stretch out the entangled folds of that old and crooked serpent: for therefore has God comforted you in all your tribulations, that you might be able to comfort them who are troubled, with the same comforts by which you yourselves have been comforted of God, as the Apostle speaks (2 Corinthians 1:4). Or, if you are not so fit either for instruction or counsel, yet at least let your graces be beneficial to others by a holy and exemplary conversation; if your graces cannot shine through your gifts, yet at least let them shine through your life, that others seeing your good works, may give glory to your heavenly Father. And therefore never complain that you cannot honor God in so noble a way as others, that you cannot speak, nor plead for him as others do. If you live to him, you plead for him; for certainly a holy life is a much better commendation of holiness, than all the elaborate encomiums of art and rhetoric. These are the duties of those that excel in grace.

As for others, their duty is,

First, highly to love and esteem those whose graces are more eminent and conspicuous. God is the comprehensive and ultimate object of our love and veneration; and therefore the nearer any creature approaches to the similitude of God, the more ought we to esteem and prize it. Now God is not more lively represented in anything, than in the holiness of his saints. This is the most perfect portrait and image of him who has styled himself the Holy One of Israel. They are begotten of God, made partakers of the divine nature, and conformed to his image: and therefore as we would adore this glorious attribute of God in its infinite original, so we ought to esteem and venerate it in these happy souls, to whom God has communicated some rays and strictures of it. Every one that loves him that begat, loves him also that is begotten of him, says the Apostle (1 John 5:1), because of the likeness he bears to his heavenly Father: and the more express this resemblance is, the more intense, and the more endearing should our affections be. We ought to associate with them, to make them our bosom-friends, our confidants, and our companions; our delight should be in the saints, and in the excellent ones of the earth, as David professes his to have been (Psalm 16:3).

Secondly; another duty is, imitation of their holy examples, and following of them wherein they follow the Lord Christ. If you see others far out-strip you, mend your pace, endeavor to overtake them, tread in the same steps, and do your very utmost to keep even with them; envy not their graces, but be sure to emulate them. Indeed some there are, who that they might not seem to be behind the best, prove hindrances and pull-backs to them, lest the forwardness of their zeal and piety, should be a reproach to their own sloth; like truants at school, who, lest their fellows should get too much before them, do what they can to entice them from their books. But this is a most wicked envy, and the root of it is pride and laziness. But a holy emulation never repines at, or hinders the proficiency of others, it rather would by all means promote it; but only it will put us upon endeavors to be as forward as any. It will not be a curb to them, but a spur to us. And such an emulation as this, every true Christian should highly cherish. For the shame of being out-stripped, is as great an incentive, as any can be given to virtue. Christians are like a company of men running in a race, every one should strive, and strain every nerve and sinew to be first at the goal, the first that should lay hold on the prize and reward: and here be sure you set your pattern right; take not the most noisy and airy Christians, who glory in talk and censures; take not one who has an affectation of being religious after a new mode and fashion; take not one who seeks to raise a fame for piety only, by decrying or condemning this or that form of profession; and who, if there were no differences among us, would lose very much of his reputation for sanctity. For these are only torrents that run with a violent stream; but they are shallow, and we know not how soon they may grow dry, and deceive the hopes of those who come to refresh themselves at them. But propound those to yourselves for examples, who are of fixed principles, and sober practices, who are grave and solid, and in all the duties that belong to a Christian conversation, labor to do them substantially rather than ostentatiously; that live within God and themselves, that have deep thoughts, and solid expressions of them, and whose actions are suitable and correspondent to both. Such a one is the Christian indeed, and such (for some such there are,) I recommend to you for your imitation. And yet there is no man that walks so uprightly, but that sometimes he steps awry. And therefore be not led by a blind and implicit adherence to them, but continually eye the rule; and in whatever they forsake that, be they Apostles, indeed, or if it were possible, even angels themselves, therein forsake them.

And thus much for the mutual duties of superiors, and inferiors, in respect of grace.

Let us next consider them in respect of the gifts of God's common bounty, which he promiscuously distributes both to the good and to the bad; I shall but briefly mention them to you.

God's gifts of providence may respect either their persons, or else their outward estate.

Those which respect the person, are either gifts of the mind, or of the body.

First; those who excel in gifts of the mind, in knowledge, and wisdom, and parts, a profound judgment, or a winning elocution, etc., they ought to improve these to the good and advantage of others; not as Achitophel did his politic counsel, or Tertullus his flattering oratory, to oppress right and equity, but to guide and advise for the benefit of mankind, and the glory of God. For these gifts, though they are not sanctifying, yet may be very serviceable to the Church. Hiram though he were a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, yet provided many excellent materials for the building of the Temple. So God does many times embellish those who are strangers to him, with many admirable ornaments of understanding and learning, and makes use of the materials which they have prepared and laid in, for the edification of his Church. And as Noah employed many to build his Ark, who were themselves overwhelmed in the Deluge; so God many times employs such as these to build his Ark the Church, who yet may at last be swept away with the deluge of his wrath, and drowned in perdition: these, though they should possess such gifts without any sanctifying and saving grace, yet are they very considerable men; and our duty is to esteem and reverence them, to love their excellencies, and to encourage their labors, to praise God for them, and pray for an increase of their gifts. How much more then, when their natural and acquired endowments are conjoined with sanctifying grace, and the love of the truth does as much possess their hearts, as the knowledge of it does their heads? It is a sordid baseness to detract from any man's worth, or extenuate his abilities, by some slanderous buts, and exceptions, which is the disingenuous practice of many, who think all that added to their own praise, which they thus nibble away from another man's.

Secondly; another superiority which God has granted some over others, is that of old age, which is of itself reverend and awful; and we ought to give that due respect to it, which both nature and the law of God requires (Leviticus 19:32). "You shall rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear your God." God has put a signal honor upon it, by styling himself the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9), and he threatens it as a great judgment upon a people (Isaiah 3:5), that the children shall behave themselves proudly against the ancients. We read how severely a scorn cast upon an aged prophet was revenged in those children which mocked his baldness. A reverend awe before them is not only a point of manners, but part of a moral and express duty; and therefore it is said of Elihu (Job 32:4), that he waited till Job had spoken, because they were elder than he; and (verse 6), he says, "I am young, and you are very old, therefore I was afraid, I dared not show you my opinion."

And if such respect and reverence be due to them from others, they ought chiefly to reverence themselves; and by grave, and prudent, and holy actions, to put a crown of glory upon their own gray heads. They ought not to be vain and light in their converse, nor children of a hundred years old, nor by the folly and wickedness of their lives, expose themselves to that contempt which will certainly be cast upon them where age is not accompanied with gravity and prudence. And therefore we find it (Proverbs 16:31), "The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness;" otherwise instead of being a glory, it is but a double shame and reproach.

Thirdly, there is another sort of the gifts of common providence, wherein some excel others, and that is, riches and honor: these the Scripture calls fathers. Nabal, although he were a fool and a churl, yet David in his messages to him, does implicitly call him father (1 Samuel 25:8), "Give, I pray you, whatever comes to your hand, to your servants, and to your son David."

Their duty is to be humble towards their inferiors, knowing that they are only external goods; and those the least considerable of all the stores of God's blessings that make them to differ from others. And to communicate to the relief of others' necessities, that they may be rich in good works, and make themselves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness, that when they fail they may be received into everlasting habitations: for he that is rich only in hoarding and keeping up his store, is no better to be accounted of, than the base earth, which looks up more treasures in its bowels, than they can in their chests.

And their inferiors' duty, is to pay them all due respects according to what God has bestowed upon them; to acknowledge the riches of God in making them rich, and to endeavor to promote as far as in them lies, the spiritual good of their souls, that they may not be rich here, and undone eternally. For a rich man may be more universally instrumental either of good or evil, than others can: and therefore to win such a one to the faith, or to preserve him stable in it, is a most charitable work, not only to their souls in particular, but to the Church of Christ; the affairs of which may be much advanced by such a man's wealth and interest.

And so much for this last relation between inferiors and superiors, in the gifts of God's especial grace or common bounty.

Thus now I have at last gone through the mutual duties of many relations; some natural, some civil, some ecclesiastical, and some economical; I know not with what acceptation or success. Possibly some may think these things too mean and trivial to be so long insisted on. But let me tell such, that relative duties, as they are the most difficult of all others to perform, so they are the best trials of true Christianity, and the power of godliness: he that endeavors not to walk closely with God in these, let his notions and profession be never so lofty and sublime, it will be no uncharitableness at all to judge that all his pomp is but a mere form of godliness, and a hypocritical ostentation.

Let me exhort you therefore in the fear of God, that you would be much in pondering these things. There needs no great labor to understand them, nor to find out mysteries and concealed depths in them. It is true they are plain, but they are of daily use; and it is but requisite that we should not be long understanding what we are continually to practice.

Let me subjoin but one general rule to this, and I have done with it; and that is, that in all these mutual duties, it is no excuse for the one party to fail of the most conscientious and careful performance of what belongs to him, because the other does so. For certainly another man's sin cannot excuse mine; and God has bound us in duty not only to one another, but all of us to himself. And therefore although they may break their obligations and covenants, yet that does not take off our obligation. Should the father be careless of, and cruel to his child, yet this does not at all exempt him from paying duty and obedience to his father: should a master be tyrannical over his servant, yet the servant's duty remains still stated and unaltered, to reverence, fear and obey him. Should a minister be careless of the flock committed to his charge, yet his people are still bound to give him respect and honor in regard of his office. Should a magistrate tyrannize over his subjects, yet still they are to own him, and obey his commands in all lawful things. For misadministration of any office, or any authority, cannot countenance and excuse want of duty in inferiors; still we are as carefully to perform what God has required, as if they were the best parents, or magistrates, or masters in the world: and if there be any wrong done, or defect on their part, we must leave it to him to reward our conscientious obedience, and to punish their willful offenses. And so likewise it is incumbent upon superiors to perform their duties faithfully and conscientiously toward their inferiors, be they never so perverse, ungrateful, or rebellious; for their faults cannot excuse our neglects.

And thus much for this large and comprehensive precept, "Honor your father and your mother."

To the precept is added the promise, as a motive and encouragement to obedience; "That your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you." And this promise God's faithfulness stands engaged to fulfil to all that are dutiful and obedient.

Now here we may observe, that whereas the free and genuine administration of the Gospel, promises eternal life, and the joys and glories of Heaven to believers; the old Law runs generally upon earthly and temporal blessings; and among them insists frequently upon length of days, and a happy and prosperous life, as the chief blessing and highest expectation of human nature: which must not be so understood, as if the promises of the Law were only for these beggarly and terrene concernments; but because this procedure was more suitable to the whole system of that pedagogy wherein God thought fit to discipline them by types, and to lead them to the Sun by shadows: Therefore as he allayed his own spiritual worship with the mixture of very many external rites, and pompous observances; so he propounded likewise their eternal rewards to them, by temporal and earthly promises; and by both attempered their religion to their estate of infancy, bringing it down as much as possible to the verdict of sense, reserving the manly and heroic duties of believing his word without a pawn, to the more grown ages of the Church.

But however, although these promises made to the Jews were thus typical, yet these figures were not altogether so figurative, as not to be properly understood and fulfilled. Though Heaven were typified by Canaan, yet God's veracity would have suffered, if he had brought them to Heaven, the true land of promise, and not given them their inheritance in the earthly Canaan; so likewise that God might be true to his promise, it is not enough that he rewards the obedient with eternal life, but his faithfulness stands obliged to prolong their temporal life, to such a duration as may be fit at least to make a type of the everlasting rest.

Neither does the more spiritual dispensation of the Gospel, look upon this blessing of long life, as a thing below its cognizance, but propounds it as a promise of moment, though it be now divested of its typical use, and stands for no more than it itself signifies. And therefore we find that the Apostle puts a value upon this Fifth Commandment on this very reason, that it is the first with promise (Ephesians 6:2-3). And Saint Peter at large transcribes that passage of Psalm 34: What man is he that desires to live, and loves many days? let him depart from evil, and do good, etc. And Saint Paul tells us, that godliness is profitable to all things, having the promises of this life, and of that which is to come. And what is there that can concern this life, more than life itself? God's faithfulness is therefore obliged by promise, to lengthen out a holy and obedient life.

Nor will it be very hard to vindicate his faithfulness in the performance of this promise; although God suffer many to grow old in their sins, whose youth began their course of wickedness with rebellion against their parents, and who continue to their decrepit days, their impieties and rebellions against God; when as early towardliness and piety, are generally looked upon as mortal symptoms; and God seems especially to shorten their days to whom he here promises a long life. For since this present life is nothing else but a tendency and preparative to eternity; neither it nor any thing in it can be called good, but only as it relates to our eternal state. And therefore all promises of earthly blessings, must necessarily imply this condition, that they shall be literally fulfilled to us, if they may promote our eternal happiness; otherwise they would not be promises, but threats; and that which we apprehend a blessing, would indeed prove no other to us than a snare and curse. We may boldly challenge long life, when all the circumstances of it will tend to our everlasting welfare. But God, who knows how frail and yielding the best of us are, and in the series of his Divine Providence, sees what prevailing temptations we shall be exposed to, does oftentimes in mercy abridge this promise, and takes us from the world, lest the world should take us from him; and deals with us as princes deal with duelists, they make them prisoners, that they might preserve them: So God that he might preserve his people from their great enemy, commits them to the safe custody of the grave. And if this be to be unfaithful, certainly his faithfulness would be nothing else but an art to circumvent and undo us; should he only to keep that inviolate, perform those promises which would be to our hurt and detriment. Nor indeed can any man, whom God has blessed with a right judgment and due esteem of things, be willing to compound for the continuance of this present life, with the hazard or diminution of his future happiness.

Thus much for the explication of the Fifth Commandment.