case, for want of a little care and pains to forfeit such advantages, what a pity, what a folly is it! Were an opportunity presented, by a little minding our business, and bestirring ourselves, to procure a fair estate, or a good preferment, would not he be deemed mad or sottish, who would sit still, and forego that his advantage? How much more wildness is it to be drowsy and sluggish in this case, thereby losing eternal bliss and glory! Well therefore might the Apostle say, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" How shall we escape, not only the sin and guilt of basest ingratitude toward him that graciously doth offer it, but the imputation of most wretched folly, in being so much wanting to our own interest and welfare?

Is it not a sad thing, a woful shame, to observe what pains men will throw away upon things of small or no concernment to them? Yea, what toil and

drudgery will they sustain in the service of Satan, in pursuit of sin, in the gratification of their vanities and lusts!

What pains will a covetous wretch take in scraping for pelf! How will he rack his mind with carking solicitude to get, to keep, to spare it! How will he tire his spirits with restless travel! How will he pinch his carcase for want of what nature craveth! What infamy and obloquy will he endure for his niggardly parsimony and sordidness!

How much labour will an ambitious fop undergo for preferment, or vain honour! To how many tedious attendances, to how pitiful servilities will he submit! What sore crosses and disappointments will he swallow! What affronts and indignities will he patiently digest, without desisting from his enterprise!

How will a man, as St. Paul observed, endure all painful abstinence and conti

nence, in order to the obtaining a "corruptible crown," a fading garland of bays, a puff of vain applause!

What diligence will men use to compass the enjoyment of forbidden pleasures; how watchful in catching opportunities, how eager in quest of them will they be! What difficulties will they undertake, what hazards will they incur, what damages and inconveniences will they sustain, rather than fail of satisfying their desires!

What achings of head and heart; what pangs of mind, and gripes of conscience; what anxieties of regret and fear will every worker of iniquity undergo! So faithful friends hath this vain and evil world; so diligent servants hath the accursed lord thereof; so careful and laborious will men be to destroy and damn themselves. O that we could be willing to spend as much care and pains in the service of our God! O that we were as true friends of ourselves! O that

we could be as industrious for our salvation! that is, in the business of our general calling: which having considered, let us proceed to the other business belonging to us, which is,

II. The business of our particular calling; that in reference whereto St. Paul doth prescribe, "Every man as the Lord hath called him, so let him walk. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called;" let him so abide, as faithfully to prosecute the work, and discharge the duty of it; the doing which otherwhere he termeth "to do our own business," ("working with our hands,") and enjoineth it in opposition to those two great pests of life, sloth and pragmatical curiosity; or the neglect of our own, and meddling with other men's affairs.

This the Apostle nameth "our calling," because we are called or appointed thereto by divine Providence; for he supposeth and taketh it for granted, that

to each man in this world God hath assigned a certain station, unto which peculiar action is suited; in which station he biddeth him quietly to abide, till Providence fairly doth translate him, and during his abode therein diligently to execute the work thereof.

Every man is a member of a double body; of the civil commonwealth, and of the Christian church: in relation to the latter whereof, St. Paul telleth us, (and what he saith by parity of reason may be referred likewise to the former,) that "God hath set the members every one in the body, as it pleaseth him ;" and as it is in the natural, so it is in every political and spiritual body, every member hath its proper use and function: "All members," saith St. Paul," have not the same office," or the same work and operation; yet every one hath some work. There is no member designed to be idle or useless, conferring no benefit to the whole; but "the whole body,"