public; no, not to dispense with the sin of his thoughts, more than of the openest words or actions. If some grave wise man did see our secret behaviour and our thoughts, should we not look more narrowly to them, and not suffer such rovings and follies in ourselves? Surely therefore we forget God's eye; which we could not, if we thought of it aright but should respect it more, than if all men did see within us.

Nor is this the main point to be pressed upon the ungodly only, but the children of God themselves have much need to be put in mind of this fear, and to increase in it. How often do they abuse the indulgence of so'loving a Father! They have not their thoughts constantly full of him, are not in his fear all the day long; but many times slip out of his directing hand and wander from him, and do not so deeply fear his pleasure, and so watch over all their ways, as becomes them; they do not keep close by him, and wait on his voice, and obey it constantly, and are not so humbled and afflicted in their repentings for sin, as this fear requires but only in a slight and superficial degree. These are things, my beloved, that concern us much, and that we ought seriously to lay to heart; for even they who are freed from condemnation, yet if they will walk fearlessly and carelessly at any time, he hath ways enough to make them smart for it. And if there were nothing more, should it not wound them deeply, to think how they requite so great, so unspeakable love?

Honor the king. This was the particular that the apostle pressed and insisted on before; and here he repeats it, as a special duty of the second table and a vindication of religion, which is wrongfully blamed in this point.

Ver. 18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward:

19. For this is thank-worthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

20. For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted

for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?) But if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently; this is acceptable with, God.

IN this, we may see the perfection of the holy scriptures, that they give those directions that are needful to all ranks and sorts of men. They not only speak of the duties of kings, how they ought to behave themselves on their thrones, and the duty of their subjects towards them in that dignity, and how ministers and others ought to carry themselves in the house of God; but they come into private houses, and give economic rules for them; teaching parents, and children, and masters, yea, and servants, how to acquit themselves one to another. Many things, yea, all the main things in them, are profitable for all, fitted to the use of the lowest estate and lowest capacities of men. Yea, it takes particular notice of their condition; stoops down to take the meanest servant by the hand, to lead him in the way to heaven; and not only in that part of it which is the general way of Christians, but even in those steps of it that lie within the walk of his particular calling; as here, teaching not only the duties of a Christian, but of a Christian servant.

The apostle having spoken of subjection to public authority, adds this of subjection to private domestic authority. It is a thing of much concernment, the right ordering of families; for all other societies, civil and religious, are made up of these. Villages, and cities, and churches, and commonwealths, and kingdoms, are but a collection of families; and therefore such as these are, for the most part, such must the whole societies predominantly be. One particular house is but a very small part of a kingdom, yet the wickedness and lewdness of that house, be it but of the meanest in it, of servants one or more, yet goes in to make up that heap of sin, which provokes the wrath of God and draws on public calamity.

We have here, I. the duty of servants; II. the due extent of it; III. the right principle of it.

L. Their duty, Be subject. Keep your order and station

under your masters, and that with fear and inward reverence of mind and respect to them; for that is the very life of all obedience. Their obedience then hath in it diligent doing and patient suffering: both these are in that word, Be subject. Do faithfully to your utmost that which is intrusted to you and obey all their just commands, and suffer patiently even their unjust rigors and severities. And this being the harder part of the two, and yet a part that the servants of those times bore, many of them being more hardly and slavishly used than any with us, especially those that were Christian servants under unchristian masters, therefore the apostle insists most on this. Now because this particularly concerns servants, let them reflect upon their own carriage and examine it by this rule; and truly the greatest part of them will be found very unconformable to it, being either secretly fraudulent and deceitful, or grossly stubborn and disobedient, abusing the lenity and mildness of their masters or murmuring at their just severity; so far are they from the patient endurance of the least undue word of reproof, much less of sharper punishment. And truly if any who profess religion dispense with this in themselves, they mistake the matter very much; for religion ties them the more, whether children or servants, to be most submissive and obedient even to the worst kind of parents and masters, always in the Lord; not obeying any unjust command, though they may and ought to suffer patiently their unjust reproofs or punishments.

But, on the other side, this does not justify nor at all excuse the unmerciful austerities and unbridled passion of masters. It is still a perverseness and crookedness in them, as the original word is here, and must have its own name, and shall have its proper reward from the sovereign Master and Lord of all the world.

II. There is here also the due extent of this duty, namely, To the froward. It is a more deformed thing to have a distorted crooked mind, or a froward spirit, than any crookedness of the body. How can he that hath servants under him, expect their obedience, when he cannot command his own passion, but is a slave to it? And unless much conscience of duty possess servants, more than is

commonly to be found with them, it cannot but work a master into much disaffection and disesteem with them, when he is of a turbulent spirit, a troubler of his own house, imbittering his affairs and commands with rigidness and passion, and ready to take things by that side which may offend and trouble him; thinking his servant slights his call, when he might as well think he hears him not; and upon every slight occasion, real or imagined, flying out into reproachful speeches or proud threats, contrary to St. Paul's rule, which he sets over against the duty of servants; Forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master also is in heaven, and that there is no respect of persons with him. Think therefore when you shall appear before the judgment seat of God, that your carriage will be examined and judged as well as theirs; and think, that though we regard much those differences of masters and servants, yet they are nothing with God; they vanish away in his presence,

Consider who made thee to differ. Might he not with a turn of his hand, have made your stations just contrary, have made thee the servant and thy servant the master? But we willingly forget those things that should compose our minds to humility and meekness, and blow them up with such fancies as please and feed our natural vanity, and make us somebody in our own account.

That Christian servant however, who falls into the hands of a froward master, will not be beaten out of his station and duty of obedience by all the hard and wrongful usage he meets with, but will take that as an opportunity of exercising the more obedience and patience, and will be the more cheerfully patient, because of his innocence, as the apostle here exhorts. Men do indeed look sometimes upon this as a just plea for impatience, that they suffer unjustly, which yet is very ill logic; for, as the philosopher said, "Would any man that frets because he suffers unjustly, wish to deserve it, that he might be påtient?" Now, they seem to speak so, when they exclaim, that the thing that vexeth them most is, that they have not deserved any such thing as is inflicted on them. Truly, desert of punishment may make a man more silent under it, but innocence, rightly considered, makes

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him more patient. Guiltiness stops a man's mouth indeed in suffering, but surely it doth not quiet his mind; on the contrary, it is that which mainly disturbs and grieves him; it is the sting of suffering, as sin is said to be of death. And therefore, when there is no guilt, the pain of sufferings cannot but be much abated; yea, the apostle here declares that to suffer undeservedly and withal patiently, is glorious to a man and acceptable to God. It is commendable indeed to be truly patient even in deserved sufferings, but deserving them tarnishes the lustre of that patience, and makes it look more like constraint; which is the apostle's meaning, in preferring spotless suffering much before it. And this is indeed the true glory of it, that it pleaseth God; it is a pleasing thing in God's eyes, and therefore he will thank a man for it, as the original word is. Though we owe all our patience under all kinds of afflictions as a duty to him, and though this grace is his own gift, yet he hath obliged himself by his royal word, not only to accept of it, but to praise it and reward it in his children. Though they lose their thanks at the world's hands, and be rather scoffed at and taunted in all their doings and sufferings, it is no matter; they can expect no other here; but their reward is on high, in the sure and faithful hand of their Lord.

How often do men work earnestly, and do and suffer much for the uncertain wages of glory and thanks amongst men! And how many of them fall short of their reckoning, either dying before they come to that state where they think to find it, or not finding it where they looked for it, and so they live but to feel the pain of their disappointment! Or, if they do attain their end, such glory and thanks as men have to give them, what amounts it to? Is it any other than a handful of nothing, the breath of their mouths, and themselves much like it, a vapor dying in the air? The most real thanks they give, their solidest rewards, are such as a man cannot take home with him; or if they go so far with him, yet at furthest he must leave them at the door, when he is to enter his everlasting home. All the riches, and palaces, and monuments of honor that he had and that are erected to him after death, as if he had then some interest in them, reach him not at