tion, and guidance; enjoying the sweet effluxes of his mercy and bounty; we there with become friends to the holy angels and blessed saints; to all good men, being united in a holy and happy consortship of judgment, of charity, of hope, of devotion with them: we become friends to all the world, which we oblige by good wishes, and good deeds, and by the influence of good example: we become friends to ourselves, whom we thereby enrich and adorn with the best goods; whom we gratify and please with the choicest delights: but, persisting in sin, we continue to affront, wrong, and displease our Maker, to be disloyal toward our sovereign Lord, to be ingrateful toward our chief benefactor, to disoblige the best friend we have, to provoke a most just and severe judge, to cope with omnipotency, to contradict infallibility, to enrage the greatest patience, to abuse immense goodness: we thereby become enemies to all the world; to God, whom we injure and dishonour; to the friends of God, whom we desert and oppose; to the creatures, which we abuse to our pride, lust, and vanity; to our neighbours, whom we corrupt or seduce; to ourselves, whom we bereave of the best goods, and betray to the worst evils. Beginning to live soberly, we begin to live like men, following the conduct of reason; beginning to live in charity, we commence the life of angels, enjoying in ourselves most sweet content, and procuring great benefit to others; but going on in sinful voluptuousness, we proceed to live like beasts, wholly guided by sense, and swayed by appetite; being pertinacious in malice, we continue to be like fiends, working torment in ourselves, and mischief to our neighbours. Embracing virtue, we become wise and sober men, worthy and honourable, beneficial and useful to the world; but continuing in vice, we continue to be foolish and vain, to be vile and despicable, to be worthless and useless. Jaginary goods, instead of those which are most substantial and true, a good mind, the love of God, the assured welfare of our souls. But this field of discourse is too spacious; I shall only therefore for conclusion say, that speedily applying ourselves to obedience, and breaking off our sins by repentance, is in effect nothing else but, from a present hell in trouble, and the danger of a final hell in torment, to be translated into a double heaven; one of joyful tranquillity here, another of blissful rest hereafter; unto the which Almighty God in his mercy bring us all, through Jesus Christ our Lord; to whom for ever be all glory and praise. Amen. The very God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. W SERMON L. OF INDUSTRY IN GENERAL. ECCLES. ix. 10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might. IN St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, among divers excellent rules of life, prescribed by that great master, this is one, T σnovdy μý čurnool, Be not slothful in business, or to business; and in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, among other principal virtues or worthy accomplishments, for abounding wherein the apostle commendeth those Christians, he ranketh all diligence," or industry exercised in all affairs and duties incumbent on them: this is that virtue, the practice whereof in this moral precept or advice the royal Preacher doth recommend unto us; being indeed an eminent virtue, of very general use, and powerful influence upon the management of all our affairs, or in the conduct of our whole life. Industry, I say, in general, touching By our delay to amend, what do we all matters incident, which our hand findgain? what, but a little flashy and tran-eth to do, that is, which dispensation of sient pleasure, instead of a solid and du- Providence doth offer, or which choice of rable peace; but a little counterfeit profit, instead of real wealth; but a little smoke of deceitful opinion, instead of unquestionably sound honour; shadows of im w 1 Thess. v. 23. Rom. xii. 11. • Πᾶσα στουδή.—2 Cor. viii. 7. reason embraceth, for employing our active powers of soul and body, the Wise Man doth recommend; and to pressing the observance of his advice (waving all curious remarks, either critical or logical upon the words) I shall presently apply my discourse, proposing divers considerations apt to excite us thereto; only first, let me briefly describe it, for our better apprehension of its true notion and na ture. By industry we understand a serious and steady application of mind, joined with a vigorous exercise of our active faculties, in prosecution of any reasonable, honest, useful design, in order to the accomplishment or attainment of some considerable good; as, for instance, a merchant is industrious who continueth intent and active in driving on his trade for acquiring wealth; a soldier is industrious who is watchful for occasion, and earnest in action, toward obtaining the victory; and a scholar is industrious who doth assiduously bend his mind to study for getting knowledge. oned an ingredient of industry; and laboriousness is a name signifying it; upon which account this virtue, as involving labour, deserveth a peculiar commendation; it being then most laudable to follow the dictates of reason, when so doing is attended with difficulty and trouble. Such in general I conceive to be the nature of industry; to the practice whereof the following considerations may induce. 1. We may consider that industry doth befit the constitution and frame of our nature; all the faculties of our soul and organs of our body being adapted in a congruity and tendency thereto our hands are suited for work, our feet for travel, our senses to watch for occasion of pursuing good and eschewing evil, our reason to plod and contrive ways of employ. ing the other parts and powers; all these, I say, are formed for action; and that not in a loose and gadding way, or in a slack and remiss degree, but, in regard to determinate ends, with vigour requisite to attain them; and especially our appetites do prompt to industry, as inclining to things not obtainable without it; according to that aphorism of the Wise Man, Επιθυμίαι ὀκνηρὸν ἀποκτείνουσιν The desire of the slothful killeth him, for his hands refuse to labour; that is, he is apt to desire things which he cannot attain without pains; and, not enduring them, he for want thereof doth feel a deadly smart and anguish: wherefore in not being industrious we defeat the intent of our Maker; we pervert his work and gifts; we forfeit the use and benefit of our faculties; we are bad husbands of nature's stock. Industry doth not consist merely in action; for that is incessant in all persons, our mind being a restless thing, never abiding in a total cessation from thought or from design;* being like a ship in the sea, if not steered to some good purpose by reason, yet tossed by the waves of fancy, or driven by the winds of temptation somewhither. But the direction of our mind to some good end, without roving, or flinching, in a straight and steady course, drawing after it our active powers in execution thereof, doth constitute industry; the which therefore usually is attended with labour and pain; for our mind (which naturally doth affect variety and liberty, being apt to loathe familiar objects, and to be weary of any constraint) is not easily kept in a constant attention to the same thing; and the spirits employed in thought are prone to flut-itation and study doth render it capable ter and fly away, so that it is hard to fix them and the corporeal instruments of action being strained to a high pitch, or detained in a tone, will soon feel a lassitude somewhat offensive to nature; whence labour or pain is commonly reck Η γὰρ ψυχὴ φύσιν ἔχουσα τοῦ κινεῖσθαι διαπαντὸς, οὐκ ἀνέχεται ἠρεμεῖν, ἔμπρακτον τὸ ζῶν TOUTO ¿RoinGev d Oros, &c.-Chrys. in Act. Or. 5. 2. In consequence hereto industry doth preserve and perfect our nature, keeping it in good tune and temper, improving and advancing it toward its best state. The labour of our mind in attentive med and patient of thinking upon any object or occasion, doth polish and refine it by use, doth enlarge it by accession of habits, doth quicken and rouse our spirits, dilating and diffusing them into their proper channels. The very labour of our body doth keep the organs of action sound and clean, discussing fogs and su • Prov. xxi. 25; xiii. 4. perfluous humours, opening passages, | busy, by our industry sustaining our life, distributing nourishment, exciting vital and securing our pleasure; otherwise heat barring the use of it, no good con- weeds might have overgrown paradise, stitution of soul or body can subsist; but and that of Solomon might have been apa foul rust, a dull numbness, a resty list- plicable to Adam: I went by the field of lessness, a heavy unwieldiness, must seize the slothful, and by the vineyard of the on us; our spirits will be stifled and man void of understanding: and, lo, it choked, our hearts will grow faint and was all grown over with thorns, and netlanguid, our parts will flag and decay; tles had covered the face thereof. the vigour of our mind and the health of our body will be much impaired. It is with us as with other things in nature, which by motion are preserved in their native purity and perfection, in their sweetness, in their lustre, rest corrupting, debasing, and defiling them. If the water runneth, it holdeth clear, sweet, and fresh; but stagnation turneth it into a noisome puddle if the air be fanned by winds, it is pure and wholesome; but from being shut up, it groweth thick and putrid: if metals be employed, they abide smooth and splendid; but lay them up, and they soon contract rust: if the earth be belaboured with culture, it yieldeth corn; but, lying neglected, it will be overgrown with brakes and thistles ; and the better its soil is, the ranker weeds it will produce all nature is upheld in its being, order, and state, by constant agitation; every creature is incessantly employed in action conformable to its designed end and use; in like manner the preservation and improvement of our faculties depends on their constant exercise. 3. As we naturally were composed, so by divine appointment we were originally designed for industry; God did not intend that man should live idly, even in his best state, or should enjoy happiness without taking pains; but did provide work enough even in paradise itself: for the Lord God (saith the text) took man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it so that had we continued happy, we must have been ever * Πάντα γὰρ ἡ ἀργία βλάπτει καὶ τὰ μέλη σώματ Tos avrà, &c. Chrys. in Act. Orat. 35. Πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ τοιούτου τὸ σῶμα ἔκλυτον, δς. Ibid. † Ποῖος ἵππος χρήσιμος, ὁ τρυφῶν, ἢ ὁ ἐργαζόμενος ; ποία ναῦς, ἡ πλέουσα, ἢ ἡ ἀργοῦσα ; ποῖον ὕδωρ, τὸ τρέχον, ἢ τὸ ἐστώς ἢ ποῖος σίδηρος, ὁ κείμενος, ἢ ὁ ἐργαζόμενος, ότε. Ib. Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris.Hor. Ser. i. 3.-Plut. #epi Пaídwr 'Aywyns, p. 3, edit. Steph. d Gen. ii. 15. 4. By our transgression and fall the necessity of industry (together with a difficulty of obtaining good, and avoiding evil) was increased to us; being ordained both as a just punishment for our of fences, and as an expedient remedy of our needs for thereupon the ground was cursed to bring forth thorns and thistles to us and it was our doom pronounced by God's own mouth, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground: so that now labour is fatally natural to us; now man (as Job saith) is born to labour, as the sparks fly upward (or, as the vulture's chickens soar aloft, according to the Greek interpreters.*) h 5. Accordingly, our condition and circumstances in the world are so ordered as to require industry; so that without it we cannot support our life in any comfort or convenience; whence St. Paul's charge upon the Thessalonians, that if any one would not work, neither should he eat, is in a manner a general law imposed on mankind by the exigency of our state, according to that of Solomon: The idle soul shall suffer hunger; and, The sluggard who will not plough by reason of the cold, shall beg in harvest, and have nothing. Of all our many necessities, none can be supplied without pains, wherein all men are obliged to bear a share; every man is to work for his food, for his apparel, for all his accommodations, either immediately and directly, or by commutation and equivalence; for the gentleman himself cannot (at least worthily and inculpably) obtain them otherwise than by redeeming them from the ploughman and the artificer, by compensation of other cares and pains conducible to public good. The wise poet did observe well when he said, Pater ipse colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit. Virgil. Georg. i. ness do serve, without which they are not attainable. In whatever condition any man is, in what state soever he be placed, whatsoever calling or way of life he doth embrace, some peculiar business is thence imposed on him, which he cannot with any advantage or good success, with any grace, with any comfort to himself, or satisfaction to others, manage without competent industry: nothing will go on of itself, without our care to direct it, and our pains to hold it and forward it in the right course all which things show that divine wisdom did intend that we should live in the exercise of industry, or not well without it; having so many needs to be supplied, so many desires to be appeased thereby; being exposed to so many troubles and difficulties, from which we cannot extricate ourselves without it. But further yet, 6. Let us consider that industry hath annexed thereto, by divine appointment and promise, the fairest fruits, and the richest rewards: all good things (being either such in themselves, or made such by human esteem) are the fruits of industry; ordered to sprout from it, under the protection and influence of God's blessing which commonly doth attend it. And St. Chrysostom doth propose the same observation, that God, to whet our mind, and keep us from moping, would not that we should easily come by the fruits of the earth, without employing much art and many pains; in order thereto there must be skill used in observing seasons, and preparing the ground; there must be labour spent in manuring, in delving, and ploughing; in sowing, in weeding, in fencing it; there must be pains taken in reaping, in gathering, in laying up, in thrashing and dressing the fruit ere we can enjoy it; so much industry is needful to get bread: and if we list to fare more daintily, we must either hunt for it, using craft and toil to catch it out of the woods, the water, the air; or we must carefully wait on those creatures, of which we would serve ourAll good things, indeed, are the gifts selves, feeding them that they may feed of God, and freely dispensed by his us; such industry is required to prevent hand; but he doth not give them absomankind from starving. And to guard lutely without condition, nor miraculousus from other inconveniences, mischiefs, ly without concurrence of ordinary and dangers surrounding us, it is no less) requisite for, to shelter us from impressions of weather, we must spin, we must weave, we must build; and in order thereto we must scrape into the bowels of the earth to find our tools; we must sweat at the anvil to forge them for our use; we must frame arms to defend our safety and our store from the assaults of wild beasts, or of more dangerous neighbours, wild men. To furnish accommodations for our curiosity and pleasure, or to provide for the convenience and ornament of our life, still greater measures of industry are demanded; to satisfy those intents, a thousand contrivances of art, a thousand ways of trade and busi * Aià TOUTO eis dváyknν kartorηoev ¿pyacías Ocos, &c.-Chrys. in Áct. Hom. 35. -curis acuens mortalia corda; Nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno. Virg. Georg. i. VOL. I. 68 means by supporting our active powers, and supplying needful aid to our endeav ours; by directing and upholding us in the course of our action; by preventing or removing obstables that might cross us; by granting that final success which dependeth on his pleasure, he doth confer them on us; our hand commonly is God's hand, by which he worketh good and reacheth out benefits to us; governing and wielding it as he pleaseth.* God, indeed, could not well proceed otherwise in dispensing his favours to us; not well, I say; that is, not without subverting the method of things which himself hath established; not without slighting and voiding his own first bounty, or rendering the common gifts of nature (our reason, our senses, our active pow * Psal. xxxvii. 3, 23; Prov. iii. 6,-Dii laboribus omnia vendunt.-Judges vi. 36; vii. 7; 2 Kings v. 2; Josh. i. 17, 9. ers) vain and useless; not without mak- | do need any good thing, is said to be our ing us incapable of any praise, or any helper and succourer to the obtaining it ; reward, which suppose works achieved which doth imply that we must cooperate by our earnest endeavour; not without with him, and join our forces to those depriving us of that sweetest content, which he doth afford; so that as we can which springeth from enjoying the fruit do nothing without him, so he will do of our labour. nothing without us; yea, so that some Hence it is, that whatever in holy scrip-time we are said also to help God; Curse ture is called the gift of God, is other-ye Meroz, curse ye bitterly the inhabitwhile affirmed to be the effect of industry; it being the usual condition upon which, and the instrument whereby, divine Providence conveyeth good things to us :t what God said to Joshua, doth imply the general method of his proceeding, Only be thou strong and courageous -that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.' Hence whatever we are directed to pray for, we are also exhorted to work for; declaring thereby, that we are serious in our devotion, and do not mock God, asking that of him which we deem not worth our pains to acquire. It was well said of Cato in Sallust, Vigilando, agendo, bene consulendo, prospere omnia cedunt: ubi socordiæ te atque ignavia tradideris nequicquam deos implores; irati, infestique sunt. We are bid to pray even for our daily bread, yet we may starve if we do not work for it; and in St. Paul's judgment deserve to do so. Hence we are bound to thank God for all those things, for the want of which we must thank ourselves, and condemn our own sloth. Hence, although we should cast our care on God, and rely on his providence, being solicitous for nothing; yet we must not so trust him as to tempt him, by neglecting the means, which he doth offer, of relieving ourselves; to be presumptuously slothful being no less blameable, than to be distrustfully careful. Hence God in all such cases, when we * Καί τινος ἔμελλες λαμβάνειν τὸν μισθὸν, εἰ τὸ πᾶν ἔμελλεν ἔσεσθαι τοῦ Θεοῦ.—Chrys. in Eph. Orat. 2. † Περὶ ἐκεῖνα μᾶλλον ἡ ψυχὴ διάκειται, ὑπὲρ ὧν ἔκαμε· διὰ τοῦτο καὶ πόνους ἀνέμιξεν ἀρετῇ οἰκειῶσαι airy Taúrny Bovλóμevos,-Chrys. in Joh. Or. 36. Διὰ τοῦτο οὐ τὸ πᾶν ἑαυτοῦ ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ ̓ ἀφῆκέ τι ἐφ' ἡμῖν εἶναι, ἵνα εὐπρόσωπον λάβῃ πρόφασιν τοῦ διKalws hμās orεpavovv.-Chrys. tom. 5; Or. 28. † Αὐτός τι νῦν ὁρῶν, εἶτα τοὺς θεοὺς κάλει. — Cato apud Sal. in Bello Catil.- -Tào xipatori¢éροντα δεῖ τὴν τύχαν ἐπικαλεῖν.—Plut. Apoph. Lac. Josh. i. 7. | ants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." If ever God doth perform all without human labour conspiring, it is only in behalf of those who are ready to do their best, but unable to do any thing, being overpowered by the insuperable difficulty of things: but he never doth act miracles, or control nature; he never doth stretch forth his arm, or interpose special power, in favour of wilful and affected sluggards. In fine, it is very plain both in common experience, declaring the course of providence, and in holy scripture, expressing God's intention, that Almighty God doth hold forth all good things as the prizes and recompenses of our vigilant care, and painful endeavour; as by surveying particulars we may clearly discern. Nothing is more grateful to men, than prosperous success in their undertakings, whereby they attain their ends, satisfy their desires, save their pains, and come off with credit; this commonly is the effect of industry* (which commandeth fortune, to which all things submit and serve), and scarce ever is found without it: an industrious person, who as such is not apt to attempt things impossible or unpracticable, can hardly fail of compassing his designs, because he will apply all means requisite, and bend all his forces thereto; striving to break through all difficulties, and to subdue all oppositions thwarting his purposes: but nothing of worth or weight can be achieved with half a mind, with a faint heart, with a lame endeavour: any enterprize undertaken without resolution, managed without care, prosecuted without vigour, will easily be dashed, and prove abortive, ending in disappointment, damage, disgrace. * Τῆς ἐπιμελείας πάντα δοῦλα γίγνεται.—Antiph. Quodcunque imperavit sibi animus, obtinuit, &c.—Sen. de Ira, ii. 12. m Judges v. 23; Psal. lxxii. 12; xxii. 11; 2 Cor. xii. 10; 2 Chron. xiv. 11; 1 Sam. xiv. 6. |