τὸ μὴ ἐξὸν, οἱ πάντα δρῶντες ἃ ἐξὸν, i. e. They who will do all things that are lawful will quickly be induced to do what is unlawful; especially if they be strongly inclined to it; because the very nearness of what a man loves doth always render it more tempting and alluring to him. Thus he that hath a strong inclination to lying can never be safe so long as he allows himself to be excessive talkative; he that is vehemently propense to fleshly lust must needs endanger his innocence, if he come too near the farthermost limits of a modest freedom; and he whose nature is prone to malice and revenge cannot but run a mighty hazard, if he indulge to himself the utmost degree of a just and lawful resentment: for bad inclinations are never so impatient of restraint, as when they are within prospect of their proper satisfactions, and the objects which attract them are near and easy to be enjoyed. Upon which account it must needs be a very dangerous thing for such as are engaged in the Christian warfare, to live within sight of the temptations they are most inclined to; because the nearer they are to them, the more they will court and importune them; and while a man comes near a beloved lust, and doth not enjoy it, he doth but tantalize himself, and enrage his appetitę after those vicious satisfactions, whose alluring relishes he had almost forgotten. If therefore he would obtain a perfect victory over his lust, he must not only forbear to act, but also to approach it; at least till he hath so far weaned his inclination from it, as that its nearness ceases to be a temptation to him. For inclination, like all other motion, is always swiftest when it is nearest its centre, and when once it is within the reach and attraction of

it, it hurries towards it with fury and impatience; and if in this its violent rage it happen to break out to its beloved sin, and to taste the forbidden pleasure of it, it will thereby immediately recover all its impaired strength, and become as headstrong and outrageous as ever; and so all that ground which we get in a month's abstinence from our sin, we shall lose in a moment's enjoyment of it. Upon this account therefore it highly concerns us, if we would succeed in our Christian warfare, to be very watchful and circumspect, to look well to our steps, and not approach too near to any sin, but especially to any that we are strongly inclined to.

VIII. To give us good success in this our Christian warfare, it is also necessary that we be diligent and industrious in our particular callings. This is one of those instrumental duties which our religion prescribes throughout the whole course and progress of our Christian warfare. Thus 1 Thess. iv. 10, 11. We beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more; and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; and this, 2 Thess. iii. 10. he backs with another, that if any would not work, they should not eat, i. e. That they should not be maintained in their sloth and idleness, and, like drones, be permitted to dwell at ease in the hive, and devour the labours of the more industrious bees; and this, verse 11. he calls walking disorderly; and verse 8. and 9. he tells us, that it was for this cause that he rather chose to work with his own hands for his livelihood, than to be maintained by them, as he might justly have demanded; that he might make himself an example of diligence for

them to follow. So also, Eph. iv. 28. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, i. e. employing himself in some honest calling, that he may have to give to him that needs: the sense of all which is to oblige us to engage ourselves in some honest calling or employment, and to be diligent and industrious in it.

And how necessary this is to secure us in the whole course and progress of our religion appears from hence, that we are naturally a sort of very active beings, that must be employed one way or other; that we have a mind within us that will be always in motion; that being a spiritual subsistence, and as such, of a quite different nature from dull and sluggish matter, will never admit of rest and inactivity; that derives all its pleasures from action, and hath nothing to live upon but the grateful relish of its own motion. And this being the state of that active principle within us that constitutes us men, we had need take great care to keep it honestly busied and employed. For it being naturally such an exceeding busy thing, it will be sure to find something or other to work upon; and if it be not constantly employed about honest and lawful things, it will quickly divert the current of its motion another way, and exert its activity upon dishonest and unlawful ones. And hence it is, that, since the apostasy of human nature, God hath placed the generality of men in such circumstances, wherein some honest calling, and their diligence and industry therein, is indispensably necessary to their comfortable subsistence. For he wisely considered that such was the indisposition of our degenerate natures, to

the divine and spiritual exercises of religion, that it would be impossible for us, in this imperfect state, to keep our minds always intent upon them, to fix our thoughts continually upon him, and exert our powers without any pause or interruption, in perpetual acts of love, adoration, and imitation of him; that there is such a repugnance in our tempers to these blessed operations, that, if we had nothing else to do, they would soon grow irksome and intolerable to us; and therefore, lest, being quite tired out with these spiritual acts of religion, we should hate them, and so turn the current of our activity into the contrary channel, he hath placed us in such circumstances, wherein we have frequent opportunities to rest our wearied minds from these abstracted exercises in such innocent employments, as are necessary to our comfortable subsistence in this world. So that by putting us under the necessity of employing ourselves in secular trades and callings, he hath taken care to intercept our minds, that they may not fly off from the pure acts of religion into the contrary impieties; and that when they are not divinely, they may be innocently employed; and by diverting our activity with honest, when it is weary of spiritual exercise, he hath taken a wise course to confine and bound it, and leave it less scope and liberty to rove and make incursions into sinful and prohibited actions. And therefore, as Aristotle commends Archytus for his invention of rattles, because children, by playing with them, are kept from breaking vessels of use; so ought we to admire the wisdom and goodness of God, for thus necessitating us to exert our activity in secular arts and trades, because by thus innocently employing our corrupt and

busy natures, he hath taken an admirable course to divert us from mischievous actions.

And he having thus obliged us, by our necessities, to follow some honest calling for a comfortable livelihood, he expects that we should be diligent and industrious in that particular calling wherein his providence hath placed us: for otherwise he loses his end; which was to restrain us from being sinfully active, by necessitating us to be innocently so. And now that by putting us into those necessities, by which we are put upon furnishing one another with those several conveniencies of life, for the supply of which our respective trades and callings are intended, we, by being diligent therein, approve ourselves faithful servants in the great family of God, and by industriously discharging those particular offices wherein he hath placed us, we act as dutiful ministers of his providence towards one another: because by so doing we supply those wants and necessities which God hath made, and which he hath made to be supplied by our office and ministries; so that now to mind our own business is a part of our religion, and it is that particular part to which God's providence hath called us. If therefore we are idle and neglective in this, we are undutiful servants to the common Master of the world, how officious soever we may be in other matters: for this is the proper work of our office; and therefore, if we are unfaithful in this, we can be faithful in nothing. Should the bailiff of a family neglect letting his master's lands and gathering in his rents, he would be thought a bad servant, how diligent soever he might be in the kitchen or the stables: and so, if we are remiss in our particular offices and employments,