other, are turned into scourges one to another, or into a devouring fire; as it is in the parable, Judg. ix, 20, fire going forth from Abimelech to devour the men of Shechem, and fire from Shechem to devour Abimelech.

Ver. 15. For so is the will of God, that with well do ing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

16. As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

THIS continues the same reason of the same Christian duty. The words indeed are more general than the former, but they relate chiefly, in this place, to the particular in hand, implying that neither in that way nor in any other, Christians should dishonor their profession and abuse their liberty, mistaking it as an exemption from those duties to which it doth more straightly tie them. So then the point of civil obedience and all other 'good conversation amongst men, is here recommended to Christians, as conformable to the will of God, and the most effectual clearing of their profession, and very agreeable to their Christian liberty.

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The will of God. This is the strongest and most binding reason that can be used to a Christian mind, which hath resigned itself to be governed by this rule, to have the will of God for its law. Whatsoever is required of upon that warrant, it cannot refuse. Although it cross a man's own humour or his private interest, yet if his heart be subjected to the will of God, he will not stand out against him in any thing. One word from God, "I will have it so," silences all, and carries it against all opposition.

It were a great point, if we could be persuaded to think duly of this: it were indeed all. It would make light and easy work in those things that go so hardly on with us, though we are daily exhorted to thein. Is it the will of God that I should live soberly? Then, though my own corrupt will and my companions be against it, yet it must be so. Wills he that I forbear cursing and

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oaths, though it is my custom to use them? Yet I must offer violence to my custom, and go against the stream of all their customs that are round about me, to obey his will, who wills all things justly and holily. Will he have my charity not only liberal in giving but in forgiving, and real and hearty in both? Will he have me bless them that curse me, and do good to them that hate me, and love mine enemies? Though the world counts it a hard task and my own corrupt heart possibly finds it so, yet it shall be done; and not as upon unpleasant necessity, but willingly and cheerfully, and with the more delight because it is difficult; for so it proves my obedience the more, and my love to him whose will it is. Though mine enemies deserve not my love, yet he who bids me love them, does; and if he will have this the touchstone to try the uprightness of my love to him, shall it fail there? No. His will commands, me so absolutely, and he himself is so lovely, that there can be nobody so unlovely in themselves or to me, but I can love them upon his command and for his sake.

But that it may be thus, there must be a renewed frame of mind, by which a man may renounce the world, and the forms of it, and himself, and his own sinful heart; and study and follow the only good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God, and have his whole mind taken up in searching it, and his whole heart in embracing it. Let this then be your endeavour, to have your wills crucified to whatsoever is sinful, yea, to will outward things with a kind of indifferency. The most things that men are so stiff in are not worth an earnest willing. In a word, it were the only happy and truly spiritual temper, to have our will quite rooted out, and the will of God placed in its stead; to have no other will than his, that it might constantly, yea, so to speak, identically follow it in. all things. This is the will of God, therefore it is mine.

Thus with well doing ye may put to silence the igno rance of foolish men. The duties of the second table or of well doing towards men, are more obvious to men devoid of religion, than those that have an immediate relation to God; and therefore the apostle is here particular in these, for the vindicating of religion to them that are without. Ignorance usually is loud and prattling,

235 making a mighty noise, and so hath need of a muzzle to silence it, as the original word imports. They that were ready to speak evil of religion, are called witless or foolish men; there was perverseness in their ignorance, as the word intimates. And generally all kinds of evil speakings and uncharitable censurings do argue a foolish worthless mind, whence they proceed; and yet they are the usual divertisement of the greatest part of mankind, and take up very much of their converse and discourse; which is an evidence of the baseness and perverseness of their minds; for whereas those that have most real goodness delight most to observe what is good and commendable in others and to pass by their blemishes, it is the true character of vile unworthy persons, as scurvy flies sit upon sorês, to skip over all the good that is in men and fasten upon their infirmities.

But especially doth it discover ignorance and folly, to turn the failings of men to the disadvantage of religion, None can be such enemies to it, but they that know it not, and see not the beauty that is in it. However, the way to silence them, we see, is by well doing that silences them more than whole volumes of apologies. When a Christian walks irreproveably, his enemies have no where to fasten their teeth on him, but are forced to gnaw their own malignant tongues. As it secures the godly thus to stop the lying mouths of foolish men, so it is as painful to them to be thus stopped, as muzzling is to beasts, and it punishes their malice. And this is a wise Christian's way-instead of impatiently fretting at the mistakes or wilful censures of men, to keep still on his calm temper of mind, and upright course of life, and silent innocence. This, as a rock, breaks the waves into foam that roar about it.

As free. This the apostle adds, lest any should so far mistake the nature of their Christian liberty, as to dream of an exemption from obedience either to God or to men, for his sake and according to his appointment.. Their freedom he grants, but would have them understand aright what it is.

We are naturally subject to the vile drudgery of sin, and so are condemned to the proper wages of sin, which the apostle tells us is death, according to the just sentence.

of the law. But our Lord Christ was anointed for this purpose, to set us free, both to work and to publish liberty; to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening, of the prison to them that are bound. Having paid our complete ransom, he sends his word as the message, and his Spirit to perform it effectually, to set us free; to let us know it, and to bring us out of prison. He was bound and scourged, as a slave or malefactor, to purchase for us this liberty; therefore ought it to be our special care, first, to have part in it, and then to be like. it, and stand fast in it in all points.

But that we deceive not ourselves, as too many do who have no portion in this liberty, we ought to know that it is not to inordinate walking and licentiousness, as our liberty, that we are called, but from them, as our thraldom. We are not called from obedience, but to it. Therefore beware that you shuffle in under this specious name of liberty nothing that belongs not to it. Make it not a cloak of maliciousness; it is too precious a garment for so base a use. Liberty is indeed Christ's livery that he gives to all his followers, but to live suitably to it is not to live in wickedness or disobedience of any kind, but in obedience and holiness. You are called to be the servants of God, and that is your dignity and your liberty.

The apostles of this gospel of liberty gloried in this title, The servants of Jesus Christ. David, before that psalm of praise for his victories and exaltations, being now settled on his throne, prefixes, as more honor than all these, A psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, Psal. xviii. It is the only true happiness both of kings and the angels to be his ministering spirits. The more we attain unto the faculty of serving him cheerfully and diligently, the more we find of this spiritual liberty, and have the more joy in it. As it is the most honorable, it is likewise the most comfortable and most gainful service, and they that once know it, will never change it for any other in the world. O that we could live as his servants, employing all our industry to do him service in the condition and place wherein he hath set us, whatsoever it is; and as faithful servants, be more careful of his affairs than of our own, accounting it our main business to seek the

eir subjects to be his subjects. It is the glory of

advancement of his glory. Happy is that servant, whom : his Lord when he cometh, shall find so doing.

Ver. 17. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.

THIS is a precious cluster of divine precepts. The whole face of the heavens is adorned with stars, but they are of different magnitudes, and in some parts they are thicker set than in others: thus is it likewise in the holy scriptures. Here is a constellation of very bright stars near together. 'These words have very briefly, but withal very plainly, the sum of our duty towards God and men; to men both in general, Honor all men, and in special relations; in their Christian or religious relation, Love the brotherhood, and in a chief civil relation, Honor the king. And our whole duty to God, comprised under the name of his fear, is set in the middle betwixt these, as the common spring of all duty to men, and of all due observance of it, and the sovereign rule by which it is to be regulated.

I shall speak of them as they lie in the text. But first observe how plain and easy, and how few are those things that are the rule of our life: no dark sentences to puzzle. the understanding, nor large discourses and long periods to burden the memory; they are all plain; there is nothing wreathed nor distorted in them, as Wisdom speaks of her instructions, Prov. viii, 8.

And this gives check to a double folly amongst men, the one contrary to the other, but both agreeing in mistaking and wronging the word of God. The one is of those that despise the word, and the doctrine and preaching that is conformable to it, for its plainness and simpli city; the other of those that complain of its difficulty and darkness. As for the first, they certainly do not take the true end for which the word is designed, that it is the law of our life, that it is our guide and light to happiness; and if that which ought to be our light be darkness, how great will that darkness be!

It is true, that there be dark and deep passages in scripture, for the exercise, yea, for the humbling, yea, for the amazing and astonishing of the sharpest sighted readers; but this argues much the pride and vanity of