ing present, will you consider that, while you are thus behaving to your masters, you are rebelling against God? I own, indeed, that, through your masters' want of resolution, or want of real love toward you, you may many of you do nearly what you will: but if you get the upper hand of your masters, will you be also able to do so of God? And what will you say to him for all this irreverence and undutifulness of yours to them, whom he has expressly charged you to honour? Nay, you may see plainly you are not only dishonouring and disobeying your masters, but God much more: and what think you this proud spirit of yours will end in? Be assured it will in all probability end in your utter ruin of soul and body. If you are old and wise enough to manage yourselves, let us see you making a right use of this selfmanagement: for, depend upon it, not a truly wise soul in the world will allow you have the least measure of that wisdom you conceit belongs to you till you have forsaken these ungodly, irreverent, and undutiful courses.-Such young persons as these are the objects of the greatest compassion; and all concerned with them or for them should exert themselves to rescue them from so dangerous'a condition. Their parents especially should use all their authority, lest they also by-and-by become slighted by them, and lose all power of doing them any good. But,

Fourthly. Another duty of servants is honesty. Not purloining, but showing all good faithfulness.' It is the property of a faithful servant to be true to his trust, not to convert to his own profit what belongs to his master, and is committed to his care; to be diligent too at his work, that he may render to his master that for which he pays him; nay, and to be as thrifty of what is his master's as if it were his own. These three things then fall under the title of honesty in servants, a clean hand, industrious labour, and a saving thriftiness.

1. Servants must have a clean hand. Picking and stealing is most abominable in servants, and incomparably worse in them than in any others. When a person is taken into the house, as one of the family, and intrusted with so much of what is there; when the master giveth him his wages, and provides for him everything needful for comfortable subsistence; then to fall a pilfering and plundering; this is theft of an enormous kind. If any servants have sinned this great sin, let them, as they

value their souls, make restitution according to their power. In the law of Moses the matter of restitution stood thus, He shall recompense his trespass with the principal thereof, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him against whom he hath trespassed.'* But if any, whether servant or other, keep what they have stolen, they will be sure to keep God's curse along with it for so it is said in the prophet Zechariah, I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter into the house of the thief; and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it, with the timber thereof, and the stones thereof.'+

2. Servants must be industrious. This is another branch of honesty in them. They may not be idle, consuming much, and working little. They are hired, and ought to labour. And, if they do not, their masters are as much defrauded as if they were actually robbed. If you are a slothful servant, I beseech you with what face can you ask your master to pay you your wages, when you know you have not earned them? And what is here said does as much affect such as are hired by the day as any other servants.

3. Also servants must be thrifty, taking care of their masters' interests as they would do of their own: they must content themselves with such necessary things as are allowed, and not think it is all their own, as we say; they must not carelessly waste and destroy anything, because not they, but their masters, must provide more; they must not take the liberty of giving away what is not permitted; nor, as the manner of some is, make spoil of what is their master's in riotous entertainments among their companions. Anything of this is dishonest, and shows a servant has not either much conscience toward God or regard for his master.

So you see the honesty and faithfulness of servants is of pretty large extent. It greatly demands their consideration, both on account of their duty towards God, and their own interest in the world, which has the nearest relation with their integrity and faithfulness.—I said, in the

Fifth and last place, that it was the duty of servants to pray for their masters, and for the success of their masters' business

in their hands. This, at least to the servants themselves, may be a good proof of the conscience they make of their calling, and of the care they have to glorify God in it. You may see a very devout prayer to this purpose made by Abraham's servant, when he was sent upon an important business by his master. And I suppose you will hardly think that when the Lord made whatever Joseph did to prosper in his hands, and blessed his master the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake, that both the one and the other were not commended to God by him in daily prayer. Indeed it cannot be well seen how they can be Christian servants, who in a confidence of their own strength and sufficiency, and not calling on the Lord for help, are going on with the whole work of their calling. Now then you have found much cause of condemnation from one and another of those duties which I have been laying before you. You have not, as you ought, had an eye to God in your service; you have failed prodigiously of inward and outward reverence; you have been sadly self-willed and impatient; nay, you have not been so honest as you ought, at least in the articles of diligence and thriftiness. But have you not to add to all these that your calling has not been sanctified as it should have been by diligent daily prayer? And may not this have been the main cause also that you have so greatly failed in those other duties of your calling? Yes verily: and I will add further, that you ought to charge it to your neglect herein that you have met with all those crosses and disappointments you are ready to complain of: for I know not that there is a promise made in Scripture of any blessing that is not prayed for.

On the whole, you cannot but see how content and happy the practice of your duty in the instances mentioned would render you in your calling, though in some respects service may seem to you clogged with peculiar inconveniences. It is the calling God has placed you in; and let that satisfy you. Let it be your care to do your duty in it as becomes the servant of the Lord; and in the end, if you are faithful, God will not forget you in Jesus Christ.

Gen. xxi. 12.

SERMON XXXVI.

GALATIANS iii. 24.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

I TREATED last of the duty of servants toward their masters; and am now to speak on the other side of the duties of masters. Servants, it was shown, must serve God in their calling, so must their masters also; servants must reverence their masters, because God hath put his authority upon them, and masters must therefore use that authority in such manner as that God may be glorified by it; servants must be obedient to their masters' orders, therefore masters must be mild and reasonable in them; servants must be faithful, and masters must be kind; servants must pray for their masters, and masters in their turn must watch over their servants' souls. It is impossible not to remark, in the consideration of those relative duties which the law requires of us, how exactly suited to promote the happiness and well-being of society our religion is; seeing it interposes a divine authority to restrain the violence of our corrupted hearts, and lays us under a curse for our failures in duty one toward another, just as it does for our sins committed immediately against God himself. Servants must act their parts becomingly to their masters, and they again to them, under divine penalties; nor shall transgressions of this kind, any more than those directly against God, be blotted out and pardoned, but through the blood of Christ humbly and penitently applied unto. To say the whole, there is such an intimate relation between God's glory and our happiness, as that the one may not be severed from the other: and in instances of the very lowest kind, where the glory of God demands obedience from us, we shall find that obedience pro

ducing the happiest effects even upon our present ease and quiet. Particularly in that family, where the fear of the Lord influences all the members to a religious discharge of the duties of their several stations in it, there will be found a most desirable and delightful peace.

But to come to the duties of masters. I observe, by way of introduction, that it is the part of a religious master, with good advice, to make choice of the servants he takes into his family. 'He that walketh in a perfect way,' saith David, he shall serve me. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell in my house. He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.'* David would have none but religious persons for his servants; no proud, lying, swearing, ungodly persons, should harbour under his roof. And with good reason; for how could he think they would serve him well, who served God so ill? He would not bring a leprosy within his walls, to infect his children, and the other servants; nor venture to take the curse of God into his house, together with the wicked servant he admits into it. This is the foundation: there must be a good choice made of servants; and the master must look to it that he hire none for servants whose conduct shows they do not fear God. If we have failed here we have set out wrong; and I dare say shall be found to have done very little of that duty God requires at our hands as masters of families. What that duty is I come now to explain under the particulars above mentioned. And,

First. It is the duty of masters to serve God in that calling. And a very important calling it is, that of a master of a family. For the whole world is but a collection of families, under the direction of their respective heads; and as these are nurseries of religion, or vice, so in general must the world be. There cannot therefore be any private trust of such moment as that of a family-governor; as also the account to be rendered up of it must be of the last importance to our souls. Upon the faithfulness or remissness of the master the state of the family will unavoidably turn; be orderly and exemplary on the one hand, or a harbour of licentiousness, riot, and wickedness, on the other: wherefore when God distributed the world of men into rich and poor, superiors and inferiors, it was not but upon a wise design for the *Psalm ci. 6, 7.