bove gain. Therefore in matters of duty do the moft; in matters of privilege and divifions of right, and proportions of gain (where there is any doubt) choose the leaft; for this is always fafe. Thus I have laid down the rule, and explained it, and have given as particular directions as I could fafely adventure to do: I must now leave it to every man, to apply it more particularly to himfelf, and to deal faithfully with his own confcience in the use of it. Circumftances which vary cafes are infinite therefore when all is done, much must be left to the equity and chancery of our own breafts. I have not told you how much in the pound you may gain, and no more, nor can I: A man may make a greater gain at one time than another, of the fame thing; he may take thofe advantages which the change of things, and the providence of God gives him, using them moderately: A man may take more of fome perfons than of others; provided a man use all men righteously, he may ufe fome favourably. But I have on purpofe forborn to defcend to too many particularities; among other reasons, for the fake of Sir Thomas More's obfervation concerning the cafuifts of his time, who (he faith) by their too particular refolutions of cafes, did not teach men non peccare, not to fin, but did fhew them quàm prope ad peccatum liceat accedere fine peccato, "how near men might come to fin, and yet not fin. Let us not revenge our felves: The rule is not, we fhould do to others as they do to us; but as we would have them to do to us: as if it were on purpose to prevent revenge. St. Luke forbids revenge from this rule, Luke vi. 31, 32. For if you love them that love you, &c. but love your enemies.. Revenge is the greatest offence against this rule; for he that revengeth an injury hath received one; he that has received one knows beft what that is which he would not have another to do to him. The nature of evil and injury is better known to the patient than to the agent: Men know better what they fuffer, than what A a 3 they they do; he that is injured, feels it, and knows how grievous it is; and will he do that to another? USE 2. Let me prefs this rule upon you: Live by it; in all your carriage and dealings with men, let it be prefent to you. Ask yourselves upon every occafion, Would I that another fhould deal thus with me, and carry himself thus towards me? But I fhall prefs this chiefly as to justice and righteoufnefs in our commerce. It is faid that Severus the Emperor caufed this rule to be written upon his palace, and in all publick places; let it be written upon our houses, and fhops and exchanges. This exhortation is not altogether improper for this auditory: You that frequent thefe exercifes, feem to have a good fenfe of that part of religion which is contained in the first table; Do not, by your violations of the fecond, mar your obedience to the firft; Do not prove your felves hypocrites in the firft table, by being wicked in the fecond: Give not the world just caufe to say, That you are ungodly, becaufe they find you to be unrighteous; but manifeft your love to God whom you have not feen, by your love to your brother whom you have feen; and if any man wrong his brother, he cannot love him. Do not reject or defpife this exhortation, under the contemptuous name of morality. Our Saviour tells us, this is a chief part of that which hath ever been accounted religion in the world, it is the Law and the Prophets; and he by enjoining it, hath adopted it into Christianity, and made it gofpel. We fhould have an efpecial love to this precept, not only as it is the dictate of nature, and the law of Mofes; not only as it is a Jewish and Gentile principle, but as it is of the houshold of faith. When the young-man told Christ, that he had kept the commandments from his youth, it is faid, Jefus loved him, Mark x. 20, 21. Whereever we have learnt to defpife morality, Jefus loved it. When I read the Heathen writers, especially Tully and Seneca, and take notice what precepts of morality and laws of kindness are every where in + Lampridius. their writings, I am ready to fall in love with them, How fhould it make our blood rife in many of our faces who are Chriftians, to hear with what ftrictnefs Tully determines cafes of confcience, and how generously he speaks of equity and juftice towards all ment? Societatis arctiffimum vinculum eft magis arbitrari effe contra naturam, hominem homini detrahere fui commodi caufâ, quàm omnia incommoda fubire: "This is the ftrongest bond of fociety, to account it to be more against nature for any man "to wrong another for his own advantage, than "to undergo the greatest inconveniencies." And again, Non enim mihi eft vita mea utilior, quàm animi talis affectus, neminem ut violarem commodi mei gratiâ: "Nor is my life more dear and profit"able to me, than fuch a temper and difpofition " of mind, as that I would not wrong any man for my own advantage," Again, Tollendum eft in rebus contrahendis omne mendacium: "No kind of lying "must be used in bargaining." And to mention no more; Nec ut emat melius, nec ut vendat quicquam, fimulabit aut diffimulabit vir bonus: "A good man * will not counterfeit or conceal any thing, that he may buy the cheaper, or fell the dearer." And yet further, to check our pronenefs to defpife moral righteousness, I cannot but mention an excellent paffage to this purpofe, which I have met with in a learned man of our own nation: " Two things. (faith he) make up a Chriftian, a true faith, and an honeft converfation; and though the former. ufually gives us the title, the latter is the furer: for true profeffion without an honeft conversation "not only faves not, but increafeth our weight of punishment; but a good life without true profef"fion, though it brings. us not to heaven, yet it leffens the meafure of our judgment: fo that a "moral man, fo called, is a Chriftian by the furer "fide." And afterwards, "I confefs, (faith he) "I have not yet made that proficiency in the schools of our age, as that I could fee why the fecond "table + Offic. lib. 3. Mr. Hales "table, and the acts of it, are not as properly the parts of religion and Chriftianity, as the acts and "obfervation of the first. If I mistake, then it is. St James that hath abufed me; for he defcribing religion by its proper acts, tells us, That pure re"ligion, and undefiled before God and the Father "is this, to vifit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the "world: fo that that thing which in an especial refined "dialect of the new Chriftian language, fignifies nothing but morality and civility, that in the language of the Holy Ghost imports true religion." Mark xii. 33, 34. When the Scribe told Christ, that to love God with all the heart, &c. and our neighbour as ourselves, was more than whole burnt-offerings and facrifices; it is faid, When Jesus faw that be answered difcreetly, he faid unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. They that would have a religion without moral righteousness, talk indifcreetly, and are farther from the kingdom of God than a mere moral man. If we neglect this part of religion, we difparage the gospel, and abufe our profeffion; we are but pretenders to Chriftianity. Plu tarch fpeaks fomewhere to this purpose ; "He had rather pofterity fhould fay, there was never fuch a man as Plutarch, than that he was a vicious, or "cruel, or unjust man. ་་ I had rather a man fhould not call himself a Chriftian, that he fhould renounce his title, than that by his life and actions he fhould reprefent Chriftians to the world as oppreffors, as unjuft and treacherous dealers. If men will only ufe religion to cover their unrighteoufnefs, I had rather they would put off their cloaks, and be knaves in querpo, that every body may know them, than that they fhould go like highway-men in vizards and difguifes, only that they may rob honeft men the more fecurely. And to move you to the practice of this rule, I fhall only offer to you one confideration, but which hath fo much weight in it, that it may be inftead of many: As you deal with others, so you shall be dealt with. With what measure you mete to others, it fball fhall be measured to you, is a proverbial fpeech often used by our Saviour, and which one time or other you will find to be very fignificant. God doth many times by his providence order things fo, that in this life mens unrighteoufnefs returns upon their own heads, and their violent dealing upon their own pates. There is a divine Nemefis which brings our iniquities upon ourselves. No man hath any vice or humour alone, but it may be matched in the world, either in its own kind, or in another: If a man be cruel and infolent, a Bajazet shall meet with a Tamerlane: if a man delight to jeer and abufe others, no man hath so good a wit, but another hath as good a memory; he will remember it to revenge it. He that makes a trade of deceiving and cozening others, doth but teach others to cozen him; and there are but few mafters in any kind, but are outdone by fome of their scholars. But however we may efcape the hands of men, how fhall we efcape our own confciences, either trouble of conscience in this life, or the worm of confcience in the next? How fhall we escape the hands of the living God? How fhall we escape the damnation of hell? Theff. iv. 6. Let no man go beyond, or defraud his brother in any matter, for God is the avenger of all fuch. He will take their caufe into his own hands, and render to us according to our cruel and fraudulent dealing with others: Matth. xviii. 35. So likewife shall my heavenly Father do alfo unto you, &c. What our Saviour faith, Matth. xix. 29. That there is no man that denies himself in houses and lands, &c. for Chrift's fake, and the gofpel's, but fhall receive in this life a hundred fold, and in the world to come everlasting life; is true alfo here: There is no man that is injurious to his brother, his houses, or lands, or good name, or any other thing, but fhall probably receive in this world a hundred fold; however (without repentance) in the world to come everlafting mifery. In the next world men will find that they have but impoverished themselves by their ill-gotten wealth, and heaped up for themselves treafures of wrath: Read those words, and tremble at them |