But that we deceive not ourselves, as too many do that 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 nothing under this specious name of liberty that belongs not to it, make it not a cloak of maliciousness, it is too precious a garment for so base an 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 that as more honour than all these, A psalm of David, the servant of the Lord'. It is the only true happiness both of kings and their subjects to be his subjects, it is the glory of the angels to be his ministring spirits. The more we attain unto the faculty of serving him chearfully and diligently, the more still we find of this spiritual liberty, and have the more joy in it. As it is the most honourable, 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. Oh! 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, more careful of his affairs than of our own, accounting it our main business to seek the advancement of his glory. Happy is the servant whom the master when he cometh shall find so doing*.

i Psal. xviii. 1.

k Matth. xxiv. 46.

Ver. 17. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour 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; and these are the two books that the Psalmist sets open before us', the heavens, as a choice piece of the works of God instructing us, and the word of God more full and clear than they. Here is a constellation of very bright stars near together. These words have very briefly, and yet not obscured by briefness, but withal very plainly, the sum of our duty towards God and men; to men both in general, honor all men, and in special relation, in their christian or religious relation, love the brotherhood; and 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. We need not labour about the connexion; for in such variety of brief practical directions, it hath not such place as in doctrinal discourses. The apostle having spoke of one particular, wherein he would have his brethren to clear and commend their christian profession, now accumulates these directions as most necessary, and after goes on to particular duties of servants, &c. But first observe in general, how plain and easy, and how few these things are that are the rule of our life. Here are no dark sentences to puz zle the understanding, nor large discourses and long periods to burden the memory; they are all plain; there is nothing wreathed nor distorted in them, wpy, as wisdom speaks of her instructions".

And this gives check to a double folly amongst men, contrary the one to the other, but both, agreeing in mistaking and wronging the word of God. The one is of those that despise the word, and that doctrine and preaching that is conformable to it, for its plainness and simplicity; 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; and it is mainly requisite in laws, that they be both brief and clear; 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, (but I am not now to insist on this point) that there be dark and deep passages in scripture, for the exercise, yea, for the humbling, yea, for amazing and astonishing of the sharpest-sighted readers. But this argues much the pride and vanity of men's minds, when they busy themselves only in those, and throw aside altogether the most necessary, which are therefore the easiest and plainest truths in it. As in nature the commodities that are of greatest necessity, God hath made most common and easiest to be had, so in religion, such instructions as these now in our hands, that are both the most necessary and the plainest, are given us to live and walk by and by giving up themselves wholly to the search of things that are more obscure, and less useful, men evidence that they had rather be learned than holy, and have still more mind to the tree of knowledge, than the tree of life. And in hearing of the word, are not they that are any whit more knowing than ordinary, still gaping after new notions? Something to add to the stock of their speculative and discoursing knowledge; loathing this daily manna, these profitable exhortations, and requiring meat for their lust. There is an intemperance of the mind as well as of the mouth; you would think it, and,

may be, not spare to call it, a poor cold sermon, that were made up of such plain precepts as these, Honour all men; love the brotherhood; fear God; honour the king: and yet this is the language of God; it is his way, this foolish despicable way by which he guides, and brings to heaven them that believe.

Again, we have others that are still complaining of the difficulty and darkness of the word of God and divine truths; to say nothing of Rome's doctrine, that talks thus, to excuse her sacrilege of stealing away the word from the people of God; (a senseless pretext, though it were true, because the word is dark of itself, should it therefore be made darker, by locking it up in an unknown tongue ?) but we speak of the common vulgar excuse, that the gross ignorance and profaneness of many seeks to shroud itself under, that they are not learned, and cannot reach the doctrine of the scriptures. There be deep mysteries there indeed; but what say you to these things, such rules as these, honour all men, &c. Are such as these riddles, that you cannot know their meaning? rather do not all understand them, and all neglect them? Why set you not on to do these, and then you should understand more? A good understanding have all they that do his commandments, says the psalmist; and as one said well, "The best way to "understand the mysterious and high discourse in "the beginning of St. Paul's Epistles, is to begin at "the practice of these rules and precepts that are in "the latter end of them." The way to attain to know more, is to receive the truth in the love of it, and to obey that you know. The truth is, such truths as these will leave you inexcusable, even the most ignorant of you; you cannot but know, you hear often, that you ought to love one another, and to fear God, &c. and yet you never apply yourselves in earnest to the practice of these things, as will appear to your own consciences, if they deal honestly with you in the particulars.

• Psm. cxi. 10.

Honour all men.] Honour in a narrower sense is not an universal due to all, but peculiar to some kind of persons. Of this the apostle speaks", Render honour to whom honour is due, and that in different degrees, to parents, to masters, and other superiors. There is an honour that hath, as it were, Caesar's image and superscription on it, and so is particularly due to him; as here it follows, honour the king. But there is something that goes not unfitly under the name of honour, generally due to every man without exception; and it consists, as all honour doth, partly in inward esteem of them, partly in outward behavi our towards them. And the former must be the ground and cause of the latter.

༈

We owe not the same measure of esteem to all. We may, yea we ought to take notice of the different outward quality, or inward graces and gifts of men; nor is it a fault to perceive the shallowness and weakness of men with whom we converse, and to esteem more highly those on whom God hath conferred more of such things as are truly worthy of esteem: but unto the meanest we do owe some measure of esteem, 1. Negatively; we are not to entertain despising disdainful thoughts of any, how worthless and mean soever. As the admiring of men, the very best, is a foolish excess on the one band, so the total contemning of any, the very poorest, is against this rule on the other; for that contemning of vile persons, the Psalmist speaks of1, and commends, is the dislike and hatred of their sin, which is their vileness, and not accounting them for outward respects worthy of such esteem, as their wickedness does as it were strip them of 2. We are to observe and respect the smallest good that is in any. Although a Christian be never so base in his outward condition, in body or mind, of very mean intellectuals and natural endowments; yet they that know the worth of spiritual things, will esteem the grace of God that is in him, in the P Rom. xiii. 8.

Y 2

4 Psm. xv. 3.