4.03. Application contd1

Motives from the Difficulties of the Work

Having stated to you the first class of reasons, drawn from the benefits of the work, I come to the second sort, which are taken from the difficulties. If these, indeed, were taken alone, I confess they might be rather discouragements than motives. But taking them with those that go before and follow, the case is far otherwise: for difficulties must excite to greater diligence in a necessary work. And difficulties we shall find many, both in ourselves and in our people; but because they are things so obvious that your experience will leave you no room to doubt of them, I shall pass them over in a few words.

1. Let me notice the difficulties in ourselves.

(1) In ourselves there is much dullness and laziness, so that it will not be easy to get us to be faithful in so hard a work. Like a sluggard in bed, that knows he should rise, and yet delays and would lie as long as he can, so do we by duties to which our corrupt natures are averse. This will put us to the use of all our powers. Mere sloth will tie the hands of many.

(2) We have a base man–pleasing disposition, which will make us let men perish lest we lose their love, and let them go quietly to hell lest we should make them angry with us for seeking their salvation. We are ready to venture on the displeasure of God, and risk the everlasting misery of our people, rather than draw on ourselves their ill–will. This distemper must be diligently resisted.

(3) Many of us have also a foolish bashfulness, which makes us backward to begin with them, and to speak plainly to them. We are so modest, forsooth, that we blush to speak for Christ, or to contradict the devil, or to save a soul, while, at the same time, we are less ashamed of shameful works.

(4) We are so carnal that we are drawn by our fleshly interests to be unfaithful in the work of Christ, lest we should lessen our income, or bring trouble upon ourselves, or set people against us, or such like. All these things require diligence in order to resist them.

(5) We are so weak in the faith that this is the greatest impediment of all. Hence it is, that when we should set upon a man for his conversion with all our might, if there be not the stirrings of unbelief within us, whether there be a heaven and a hell, yet at least the belief of them is so feeble that it will hardly excite in us a kindly, resolute, constant zeal. As a result, our whole motion will be but weak, because the spring of faith is so weak. O what need, therefore, have ministers for themselves and their work, to look well to their faith, especially that their assent to the truth of Scripture, about the joys and torments of the life to come, be sound and lively.

(6) Lastly, We have commonly a great deal of unskilfulness and unfitness for this work. Alas, how few know how to deal with an ignorant, worldly man, for his conversion! To get within him and win upon him; to suit our speech to his condition and temper; to choose the meet subjects, and follow them with a holy mixture of seriousness, and terror, and love, and meekness, and evangelical allurements—oh! who is fit for such a thing? I profess seriously: It seems to me, by experience, as hard a matter to confer aright with such a carnal person, in order to his change, as to preach such sermons as ordinarily we do, if not much more. All these difficulties in ourselves should awaken us to holy resolution, preparation, and diligence, that we may not be overcome by them, and hindered from or in the work.

2. Having noticed these difficulties in ourselves, I shall now mention some which we shall meet with in our people.

(1) Many of them will be obstinately unwilling to be taught. They will scorn to come to us, as being too good to be catechized or too old to learn, unless we deal wisely with them in public and private, and study, by the force of reason and the power of love, to conquer their perverseness.

(2) Many that are willing are so dull that they can scarcely learn a leaf of a catechism in a long time, and therefore they will keep away, as ashamed of their ignorance, unless we are wise and diligent to encourage them.

(3) And when they do come, so great is the ignorance and unapprehensiveness of many, that you will find it a very hard matter to get them to understand you. So if you have not the happy are of making things plain, you will leave them as ignorant as before.

(4) And yet harder will you find it to work things upon their hearts, and to set them so home to their consciences as to produce that saving change, which is our grand aim, and without which our labor is lost. Oh what a block, what a rock, is a hardened, carnal heart! How strongly will it resist the most powerful persuasions, and hear of everlasting life or death, as a thing of nothing! If, therefore, you have not great seriousness, and fervency, and powerful matter, and fitness of expression, what good can you expect? And when you have done all, the Spirit of grace must do the work. But as God and men usually choose instruments suitable to the nature of the work or end, so the Spirit of wisdom, life, and holiness does not usually work by foolish, dead, carnal instruments, but by such persuasions of light and life and purity as are like to itself, and to the work that is to be wrought thereby.

(5) Lastly, When you have made some desirable impressions on their hearts, if you look not after them, and have a special care of them, their hearts will soon return to their former hardness, and their old companions and temptations will destroy all again. In short, all the difficulties of the work of conversion, which you use to acquaint your people with, are before us in our present work.

Motives from the Necessity of the Work The third sort of motives are drawn from the necessity of the work. For if it were not necessary, the slothful might be discouraged rather than excited by the difficulties now mentioned. But because I have already been longer than I intended, I shall give you only a brief hint of some of the general grounds of this necessity.

1. This duty is necessary for the glory of God. As every Christian lives to the glory of God, as his end, so will he gladly take that course which will most effectually promote it. For what man would not attain his ends? O brethren, if we could set this work on foot in all the parishes of England, and get our people to submit to it, and then prosecute it skillfully and zealously ourselves, what a glory would it put upon the face of the nation, and what glory would, by means of it, redound to God! If our common ignorance were thus banished, and our vanity and idleness turned into the study of the way of life, and every shop and every house were busied in learning the Scriptures and catechisms, and speaking of the Word and works of God, what pleasure would God take in our cities and country! He would even dwell in our habitations, and make them his delight. It is the glory of Christ that shines in his saints, and all their glory is his glory. That, therefore, which honors them, in number or excellency, honors him. Will not the glory of Christ be wonderfully displayed in the New Jerusalem, when it shall descend from heaven in all that splendor and magnificence with which it is described in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 21:2)? If, therefore, we can increase the number or strength of the saints, we shall thereby increase the glory of the King of saints; for he will have service and praise where before he had disobedience and dishonor. Christ will also be honored in the fruits of his blood shed, and the Spirit of grace in the fruit of his operations. And do not such important ends as these require that we use the means with diligence?

Every Christian is obliged to do all he can for the salvation of others; but every minister is doubly obliged, because he is separated to the gospel of Christ, and is to give up himself wholly to that work (Romans 1:1). It is needless to make any further question of our obligation, when we know that this work is needful to our people’s conversion and salvation, and that we are in general commanded to do all that is needful to these ends, as far as we are able. Whether the unconverted have need of conversion, I hope is not doubted among us. And whether this be a means, and a most needful means, experience may put beyond a doubt, if we had no more. Let them that have taken most pains in public, examine their people, and try whether many of them are not nearly as ignorant and careless as if they had never heard the gospel. For my part, I study to speak as plainly and movingly as I can (and next to my study to speak truly, these are my chief studies), and yet I frequently meet with those that have been my hearers eight or ten years, who know not whether Christ be God or man, and wonder when I tell them the history of his birth and life and death, as if they had never heard it before. And of those who know the history of the gospel, how few are there who know the nature of that faith, repentance, and holiness which it requires, or, at least, who know their own hearts? But most of them have an ungrounded trust in Christ, hoping that he will pardon, justify, and save them, while the world has their hearts, and they live to the flesh. And this trust they take for justifying faith. I have found by experience that some ignorant persons, who have been so long unprofitable hearers, have got more knowledge and remorse of conscience in half an hour’s close discourse, than they did from ten years’ public preaching.

I know that preaching the gospel publicly is the most excellent means, because we speak to many at once. But it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner, as to himself. For the plainest man that is can scarcely speak plain enough in public for them to understand; but in private we may do it much more. In public we may not use such homely expressions, or repetitions, as their dullness requires, but in private we may. In public our speeches are long, and we quite over–run their understandings and memories, and they are confounded and at a loss, and not able to follow us, and one thing drives out another, and so they know not what we said. But in private we can take our work gradatim, and take our hearers along with us; and, by our questions, and their answers, we can see how far they understand us, and what we have next to do. In public, by length and speaking alone we lose their attention; but when they are interlocutors, we can easily cause them to attend. Besides, we can better answer their objections, and engage them by promises before we leave them, which in public we cannot do. I conclude, therefore, that public preaching will not be sufficient: for though it may be an effectual means to convert many, yet not so many as experience, and God’s appointment of further means, may assure us. Long may you study and preach to little purpose, if you neglect this duty.

2. This duty is necessary to the welfare of our people. Brethren, can you look believingly on your miserable people and not perceive them calling to you for help? There is not a sinner whose case you should not so far compassionate, as to be willing to relieve them at a much dearer rate than this comes to. Can you see them, as the wounded man by the way, and unmercifully pass by? Can you hear them cry to you, as the man of Macedonia to Paul, in vision, ‘Come and help us,’ and yet refuse your help (Acts 16:9)? Are you intrusted with the charge of a hospital, where one languishes in one corner, and another groans in another, and cries out, ‘Oh, help me, pity me for the Lord’s sake!’ and where a third is raging mad, and would destroy himself and you; and yet will you sit idle and refuse your help? If it may be said of him that relieves not men’s bodies, how much more of him that relieves not men’s souls: ‘If he see his brother have need, and shut up his affections of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him (1 John 3:17)?’ You are not such monsters, such hard–hearted men, but you will pity a leper; you will pity the naked, the imprisoned, or the desolate; you will pity him that is tormented with grievous pain or sickness; and will you not pity an ignorant, hard–hearted sinner? Will you not pity one that must be shut out from the presence of the Lord, and lie under his remediless wrath, if thorough repentance speedily prevent it not? Oh what a heart is it that will not pity such a one! What shall I call the heart of such a man? A heart of stone, a very rock or adamant; the heart of a tiger; or rather the heart of an infidel: for surely if he believed the misery of the impenitent, it is not possible but he should take pity on him. Can you tell men in the pulpit that they shall certainly be damned, except they repent, and yet have no pity on them when you have proclaimed to them such a danger? And if you pity them, will you not do this much for their salvation?

How many around you are blindly hastening to perdition, while your voice is appointed to be the means of arousing and reclaiming them! The physician has no excuse who is doubly bound to relieve the sick, when even every neighbor is bound to help them. Brethren, what if you heard sinners cry after you in the streets, ‘O sir, have pity on me, and afford me your advice! I am afraid of the everlasting wrath of God. I know I must shortly leave this world, and I am afraid lest I shall be miserable in the next.’ Could you deny your help to such poor sinners? What if they came to your study–door and cried for help, and would not go away until you had told them how to escape the wrath of God? Could you find in your hearts to drive them away without advice? I am confident you could not. Why, alas, such persons are less miserable than they who will not cry for help. It is the hardened sinner who cares not for your help that most needs it. And he who has not so much life as to feel that he is dead, nor so much light as to see his danger, nor so much sense left as to pity himself—this is the man that is most to be pitied.

Look upon your neighbors around you, and think how many of them need your help in no less a case than the apparent danger of damnation. Suppose that you heard every impenitent person whom you see and know about you, crying to you for help: ‘As ever you pitied poor wretches, pity us, lest we should be tormented in the flames of hell; if you have the hearts of men, pity us.’ Now, do that for them that you would do if they followed you with such expostulations. Oh how can you walk, and talk, and be merry with such people, when you know their case? Methinks, when you look them in the face, and think how they must suffer everlasting misery, you should break forth into tears (as the prophet did when he looked upon Hazael) (2 Kings 8:11-12), and then fall on with the most importunate exhortations. When you visit them in their sickness, will it not wound your hearts to see them ready to depart into misery, before you have ever dealt seriously with them for their conversion? Oh, then, for the Lord’s sake, and for the sake of poor souls, have pity on them, and bestir yourselves, and spare no pains that may conduce to their salvation.

3. This duty is necessary to your own welfare, as well as to your people’s. This is your work, according to which, among others, you shall be judged. You can no more be saved without ministerial diligence and fidelity, than they or you can be saved without Christian diligence and fidelity. If, therefore, you care not for others, care at least for yourselves. Oh what a dreadful thing is it to answer for the neglect of such a charge! And what sin more heinous than the betraying of souls? Does not that threatening make you tremble—‘If you could not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but HIS BLOOD WILL I REQUIRE AT YOUR HAND (Ezekiel 33:8)’? I am afraid, no, I have no doubt, that the day is near when unfaithful ministers will wish that they had never known the charge of souls. They would have rather been colliers, or sweeps, or tinkers, than pastors of Christ’s flock when, besides all the rest of their sins, they shall have the blood of so many souls to answer for. O brethren, our death, as well as our people’s, is at hand, and it is as terrible to an unfaithful pastor as to any. We need to see that die we must, and that there is no remedy—that no wit, nor learning, nor popular applause, can avert the stroke, or delay the time—but, willing or unwilling, our souls must be gone, and that into a world which we never saw, where our persons and our worldly interest will not be respected. Oh, then, for a clear conscience that can say, ‘I lived not to myself but to Christ; I spared not my pains; I hid not my talents; I concealed not men’s misery, nor the way of their recovery.’ O sirs, let us therefore take time while we have it, and work while it is day, ‘for the night comes, when no man can work (John 9:4).’ This is our day too; and by doing good to others, we must do good to ourselves. If you would prepare for a comfortable death, and a great and glorious reward, the harvest is before you. Gird up the loins of your minds, and quit yourselves like men, that you may end your days with these triumphant words: ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give unto me in that day.’ If you would be blessed with those that die in the Lord, labor now, that you may rest from your labors then, and do such works as you would wish should follow you, and not such as will prove your terror in the review (1 Peter 1:13, 1 Corinthians 16:13, 2 Tim. 9:6-8).

Application of These Motives

Having found so many and so powerful reasons to move us to this work, I shall now apply them further for our humiliation and excitation.

1. What cause have we to bleed before the Lord this day, that we have neglected so great and good a work so long; that we have been ministers of the gospel so many years, and done so little by personal instruction and conference for the saving of men’s souls! If we had but set about this business sooner, who knows how many souls might have been brought to Christ, and how much happier our congregations might have been? And why might we not have done it sooner as well as now? I confess, there were many impediments in our way, and so there are still, and will be while there is a devil to tempt, and a corrupt heart in man to resist the light. But if the greatest impediment had not been in ourselves, even in our own darkness, and dullness, and indisposedness to duty, and our dividedness and unaptness to close for the work of God, I see not but much might have been done before this. We had the same God to command us, and the same miserable objects of compassion, and the same liberty from governors as now we have. We have sinned, and have no just excuse for our sin; and the sin is so great, because the duty is so great, that we should be afraid of pleading any excuse. The God of mercy forgive us, and all the ministry of England, and lay not this or any of our ministerial negligences to our charge! Oh that he would cover all our unfaithfulness, and, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, wash away our guilt of the blood of souls; that when the chief Shepherd shall appear, we may stand before him in peace, and may not be condemned for the scattering of his flock. And oh that he would put up his controversy which he has against the pastors of his Church, and not deal the worse with them for our sakes, nor suffer underminers or persecutors to scatter them, as they have suffered his sheep to be scattered. And that he will not care as little for us, as we have done for the souls of men; nor think his salvation too good for us, as we have thought our labor and sufferings too much for men’s salvation (Hebrews 13:20, 1 Peter 5:4)! As we have had many days of humiliation in England for the sins of the land, and the judgments that have befallen us, I hope we shall hear that God will more thoroughly humble the ministry. May God cause them to bewail their own neglects, and to set apart some days through the land to that end, that they may not think it enough to lament the sins of others, while they overlook their own. And may God not abhor our solemn national humiliations, because they are managed by unhumbled guides; and may we first prevail with him for a pardon for ourselves, that we may be the fitter to beg for the pardon of others. And oh that we may cast out the dung of our pride, contention, self–seeking, and idleness; lest God should cast our sacrifices as dung in our faces, and should cast us out as the dung of the earth, as of late he has done many others for a warning to us. Oh that we may presently resolve in concord to mend our pace, before we feel a sharper spur than hitherto we have felt.

2. And now, brethren, what have we to do for the time to come, but to deny our lazy flesh, and rouse up ourselves to the work before us. The harvest is great; the laborers are few (Matthew 9:37-38). The loiterers and hinderers are many; the souls of men are precious. The misery of sinners is great, and the everlasting misery to which they are near is greater. The joys of heaven are inconceivable, the comfort of a faithful minister is not small, and the joy of extensive success will be a full reward. To be fellow–workers with God and his Spirit is no little honor; to subserve the blood–shedding of Christ for men’s salvation is not a light thing. To lead on the armies of Christ through the thickest of the enemy; to guide them safely through a dangerous wilderness; to steer the vessels through such storms and rocks and sands and shoals, and bring them safe to the harbor of rest, requires no small skill and diligence (John 4:35). The fields now seem even white unto harvest; the preparations that have been made for us are very great; the season of working is more calm than most ages before us have ever seen. We have carelessly loitered too long already. The present time is posting away. While we are trifling, men are dying; oh how fast are they passing into another world! And is there nothing in all this to awaken us to our duty, nothing to resolve us to speedy and unwearied diligence? Can we think that a man can be too careful and painful under all these motives and engagements? Or can that man be a fit instrument for other men’s illumination, who is himself so blind? Or for the quickening of others, who is himself so senseless? What, sirs! Are you, who are men of wisdom, as dull as the common people? And do we need to heap up a multitude of words to persuade you to a known and weighty duty? One would think it should be enough to set you to work, to show a line in the Book of God; to prove it to be his will; or to prove to you that the work has a tendency to promote men’s salvation. One would think that the very sight of your miserable neighbors would be motive sufficient to draw out your most compassionate endeavors for their relief. If a cripple do but unwrap his sores, and show you his disabled limbs, it will move you without words; and will not the case of souls, that are near to damnation, move you? O happy church, if the physicians were but healed themselves; and if we had not too much of that infidelity and stupidity against which we daily preach in others. And were more soundly persuaded of that of which we persuade others; and were more deeply affected with the wonderful things with which we would affect them! Were there but such clear and deep impressions upon our own souls of those glorious things which we daily preach, oh what a change would it make in our sermons, and in our private course of life! Oh what a miserable thing it is to the Church and to themselves, that men must preach of heaven and hell, before they soundly believe that there are such things, or have felt the weight of the doctrines which they preach! It would amaze a sensible man to think what matters we preach and talk of; what it is for the soul to pass out of this flesh, and appear before a righteous God, and enter upon unchangeable joy or unchangeable torment! Oh, with what amazing thoughts do dying men apprehend these things! How should such matters be preached and discoursed of! Oh the gravity, the seriousness, the incessant diligence, which these things require! I know not what others think of them; but for my part, I am ashamed of my stupidity, and wonder at myself that I deal not with my own and others’ souls as one that looks for the great day of the Lord. I wonder that I can have room for almost any other thoughts or words, and that such astonishing matters do not wholly absorb my mind. I marvel how I can preach of them slightly and coldly, and how I can let men alone in their sins, and that I do not go to them, and beseech them, for the Lord’s sake, to repent, however they may take it, and whatever pains or trouble it may cost me! I seldom come out of the pulpit, but my conscience smites me that I have been no more serious and fervent in such a case. It accuses me not so much for want of ornaments or elegancy, nor for letting fall an unhandsome word. It asks me, ‘How could you speak of life and death with such a heart? How could you preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, sleepy manner? Do you believe what you say? Are you in earnest or in jest? How can you tell people that sin is such a thing, and that so much misery is upon them and before them, and be no more affected with it? Should you not weep over such a people, and should not your tears interrupt your words? Should not you cry aloud, and show them their transgressions, and entreat and beseech them as for life and death?’ Truly, this is the peal that conscience does ring in my ears, and yet my drowsy soul will not be awakened.

Oh what a thing is a senseless, hardened heart! O Lord, save us from the plague of infidelity and hard–heartedness ourselves, or else how shall we be fit instruments of saving others from it? Oh, do that on our own souls, which you would use us to do on the souls of others! I am even confounded to think what a difference there is between my sickbed apprehensions, and my pulpit apprehensions, of the life to come. That ever that can seem so light a matter to me now, which seemed so great and astonishing a matter then, and I know will do so again when death looks me in the face, when yet I daily know and think of that approaching hour. And yet these forethoughts will not recover such working apprehensions! O sirs, surely if you had all conversed with neighbor Death as often as I have done, and as often received the sentence in yourselves, you would have an unquiet conscience, if not a reformed life, as to your ministerial diligence and fidelity. You would have something within you that would frequently ask you such questions as these: ‘Is this all your compassion for lost sinners? Will you do no more to seek and to save them? Is there not such and such—oh how many round about you!—that are yet the visible sons of death? What have you said to them, or done for their conversion? Shall they die and be in hell before you will speak to them one serious word to prevent it? Shall they there curse you forever that did no more in time to save them?’

Such cries of conscience are daily ringing in mine ears, though, the Lord knows, I have too little obeyed them. The God of mercy pardon me, and awaken me, with the rest of his servants that have been thus sinfully negligent. I confess to my shame that I seldom hear the bell toll for one that is dead, but conscience asks me, ‘What have you done for the saving of that soul before it left the body? There is one more gone to judgment; what did you to prepare him for judgment?’ And yet I have been slothful and backward to help them that survive. How can you choose, when you are laying a corpse in the grave, but think with yourselves, ‘Here lies the body; but where is the soul? And what have I done for it, before it departed? It was part of my charge; what account can I give of it?’

O sirs, is it a small matter to you to answer such questions as these? It may seem so now, but the hour is coming when it will not seem so. ‘If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts,’ and will condemn us much more, even with another kind of condemnation than conscience does (1 John 3:20). The voice of conscience is a still voice, and the sentence of conscience is a gentle sentence, in comparison of the voice and the sentence of God. Alas, conscience sees but a very little of our sin and misery, in comparison of what God sees. What mountains would these things appear to your souls, which now seem molehills? What beams would these be in your eyes, that now seem motes, if you did but see them with a clearer light? (I dare not say, As God sees them). We can easily make shift to plead the cause with conscience, and either bribe it, or bear its sentence; but God is not so easily dealt with, nor his sentence so easily borne. ‘Wherefore we receiving,’ and preaching, ‘a kingdom that cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence, and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:28-29).’ Because you shall not say that I affright you with bugbears, and tell you of dangers and terrors when there are none, I will here show you the certainty and sureness of that condemnation that is like to befall negligent pastors, particularly how many will be ready to rise up against us and condemn us, if we shall hereafter be willful neglecters of this great work.

(1) Our parents, that destined us to the ministry, will condemn us, and say, ‘Lord, we devoted them to your service, and they made light of it, and served themselves.’

(2) Our masters that taught us, our tutors that instructed us, the schools and universities where we lived, and all the years that we spent in study, will rise up in judgment against us, and condemn us; for why was all this, but for the work of God?

(3) Our learning and knowledge and ministerial gifts will condemn us; for to what end were we made partakers of these, but for the work of God?

(4) Our voluntary undertaking the charge of souls will condemn us; for all men should be faithful to the trust which they have undertaken.

(5) All the care of God for his Church, and all that Christ has done and suffered for it, will rise up in judgment against us if we be negligent and unfaithful, and condemn us; because by our neglect we destroyed them for whom Christ died.

(6) All the precepts and charges of Holy Scripture, all the promises of assistance and reward, all the threatenings of punishment, will rise up against us and condemn us; for God did not speak all this in vain.

(7) All the examples of the prophets and apostles, and other preachers recorded in Scripture, and all the examples of the faithful and diligent servants of Christ in these latter times, and in the places around us, will rise up in judgment and condemn us; for all these were for our imitation, and to provoke us to a holy emulation in fidelity and ministerial diligence.

(8) The Holy Bible that lies open before us, and all the books in our studies that tell us of our duty, directly or indirectly, will condemn the lazy and unprofitable servant; for we have not all these helps and furniture in vain.

(9) All the sermons that we preach to persuade our people to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, to lay violent hands upon the crown of life, and take the kingdom by force, to strive to enter in at the strait gate, and so to run as to obtain, will rise up against the unfaithful and condemn them. For if it so nearly concern them to labor for their salvation, does it not concern us who have the charge of them to be also violent, laborious, and unwearied in striving to help on their salvation? Is it worth their labor, and patience, and is it not also worth ours (Php 2:12, Matthew 7:13)?

(10) All the sermons that we preach to them to set forth the evil of sin, the danger of a natural state, the need of a Savior, the joys of heaven, and the torments of hell, yes, and the truth of the Christian religion, will rise up in judgment against the unfaithful, and condemn them. And a sad review it will be to themselves, when they shall be forced to think, ‘Did I tell them of such great dangers and hopes in public, and would I do no more, in private, to help them? What? Tell them daily of damnation, and yet let them run into it so easily? Tell them of such a glory, and scarcely speak a word to them personally, to help them to it? Were these such great matters with me at church, and so small matters when I came home?’ Ah, this will be dreadful self–condemnation!

(11) All the sermons that we have preached to persuade other men to such duties – as neighbors to exhort one another daily, and parents and masters to teach their children and servants the way to heaven – will rise up in judgment against the unfaithful, and condemn them; for will you persuade others to that which you will not do, as far as you can, yourselves? When you threaten them for neglecting their duty, how much more do you threaten your own souls!

(12) All the maintenance which we take for our service, if we be unfaithful, will condemn us; for who is it that will pay a servant to take his pleasure, or sit idle, or work for himself? If we have the fleece, surely it is that we may look after the flock; and, by taking the wages, we oblige ourselves to the work.

(13) All the witness that we have borne against the scandalous, negligent ministers of this age, and all the endeavors that we have used for their removal, will condemn the unfaithful; for God is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11). If we succeed them in their sins, we have spoken all that against ourselves; and, as we condemned them, God and others will condemn us, if we imitate them. And, though we should not be so bad as they, it will prove sad if we are even like them.

(14) All the judgments that God has, in this age, executed on negligent ministers, before our eyes, will condemn us, if we be unfaithful. Has he made the idle shepherds and sensual drones to stench in the nostrils of the people? And will he honor us, if we be idle and sensual? Has he sequestrated them, and cast them out of their habitations, and out of their pulpits, and laid them by as dead, while they are yet alive, and made them a hissing and a byword in the land? And yet dare we imitate them? Are not their sufferings our warnings? And did not all this befall them as an example to us? If anything in the world would awaken ministers to self–denial and diligence, methinks we have seen enough to do it. Would you have imitated the old world if you had seen the flood that drowned it? Would you have indulged in the sins of Sodom—idleness, pride, fullness of bread—if you had stood by, and seen the flames which consumed it ascending up to heaven? Who would have been a Judas, that had seen him hanged and burst asunder? And who would have been a lying, sacrilegious hypocrite, that had seen Ananias and Sapphira die? And who would not have been afraid to contradict the gospel, that had seen Elymas smitten with blindness (2 Peter 2:5-6, Acts 1:18, Acts 5:5, Acts 13:10-12)? And shall we prove idle, self–seeking ministers, when we have seen God scourging such out of his temple, and sweeping them away as dirt into the channels? God forbid! For then how great and how manifold will our condemnation be!

(15) Lastly, All the days of fasting and prayer, which have, of late years, been kept in England for a reformation, will rise up in judgment against the unreformed, who will not be persuaded to the painful part of the work. This, I confess, is so heavy an aggravation of our sin, that it makes me ready to tremble to think of it. Was there ever a nation on the face of the earth, which so long and so solemnly followed God with fasting and prayer, as we have done? Before the parliament began, how frequent and fervent were we in secret! After that, for many years together, we had a monthly fast commanded by the parliament, besides frequent private and public fasts on other occasions. And what was all this for? Whatever was, for some time, the means we looked at, yet still the end of all our prayers was Church–reformation, and, therein, especially these two things: a faithful ministry, and the exercise of discipline in the Church. And did it once enter then into the hearts of the people, or even into our own hearts, to imagine, that when we had all we would have, and the matter was put into our own hands, to be as painful as we could, and to exercise what discipline we would, that then we would do nothing but publicly preach? That we would not be at the pains of catechizing and instructing our people personally, nor exercise any considerable part of discipline at all? It astonishes me to think of it. What a depth of deceit is the heart of man (Jeremiah 17:9)! What? Are good men’s hearts so deceitful? Are all men’s hearts so deceitful? I confess, I then told many soldiers and other sensual men that though they had fought for a reformation, I was confident they would abhor it, and be enemies to it, when they saw and felt it. I thought that the yoke of discipline would have pinched their necks, and that, when they were catechized and personally dealt with, and reproved for their sin in private and public, and brought to public confession and repentance or avoided as impenitent, they would scorn and spurn at all this, and take the yoke of Christ for tyranny. But little did I think that the ministers would let all fall, and put almost none of this upon them; but let them alone for fear of displeasing them, and let all run on as it did before.

Oh the earnest prayers which I have heard for a painful ministry, and for discipline! It was as if they had even wrestled for salvation itself. Yes, they commonly called discipline ‘the kingdom of Christ, or the exercise of his kingly office in his church,’ and so preached and prayed for it, as if the setting up of discipline had been the setting up of the kingdom of Christ. And did I then think that they would refuse to set it up when they might? What! Is the kingdom of Christ now reckoned among things indifferent?

If the God of heaven, who knew our hearts, had, in the midst of our prayers and cries, on one of our public monthly fasts, returned us this answer, with his dreadful voice, in the audience of the assembly: ‘You deceitful–hearted sinners! What hypocrisy is this, to weary me with your cries for that which you will not have, if I would give it to you; and thus to lift up your voices for that which your souls abhor! What is reformation, but the instructing and importunate persuading of sinners to entertain my Christ and grace, as offered to them, and the governing of my Church according to my Word? Yet these, which are your work, you will not be persuaded to, when you come to find it troublesome and ungrateful. When I have delivered you, it is not me, but yourselves, that you will serve; and I must be as earnest to persuade you to reform the Church, in doing your own duty, as you are earnest with me to grant you liberty for reformation. And, when all is done, you will leave it undone, and will be long before you will be persuaded to my work.’ If the Lord, or any messenger of his, had given us such an answer, would it not have amazed us? Would it not have seemed incredible to us, that our hearts should be such as now they prove? And would we not have said, as Hazael, ‘Is your servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’ or as Peter, ‘Though all men forsake you, yet will not I (2 Kings 8:13, Matthew 26:33),’? Well, brethren, sad experience has showed us our frailty. We have refused the troublesome and costly part of the reformation that we prayed for; but Christ yet turns back, and looks with a merciful eye upon us. Oh that we had yet the hearts immediately to go out and weep bitterly, and to do no more as we have done, lest a worse thing come upon us; and now to follow Christ, whom we have so far forsaken, through labor and suffering, even though it were to death!

I have thus showed you what will come of it, if you will not set yourselves faithfully to this work, to which you are under so many obligations and engagements; and what an inexcusable thing our neglect will be, and how great and manifold a condemnation it will expose us to. Truly, brethren, if I did not apprehend the work to be of exceeding great moment to yourselves, to the people, and to the honor of God, I would not have troubled you with so many words about it, nor have presumed to speak so sharply as I have done. But when the question is about life and death, men are apt to forget their reverence and courtesy and compliments and good manners. For my own part I apprehend this is one of the best and greatest works I ever in my life put my hand to; and I verily think, that if your thoughts of it are as mine, you will not think my words too many or too keen. I can well remember the time when I was earnest for the reformation of matters of ceremony; and, if I should be cold in such substantial matter as this, how disorderly and disproportionable would my zeal appear! Alas, can we think that the reformation is wrought, when we cast out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures, and gestures, and forms! Oh no, sirs! It is the converting and saving of souls that is our business. That is the chief part of reformation, that does most good, and tends most to the salvation of the people. And now, brethren, the work is before you. In these personal instructions of all the flock, as well as in public preaching, does it consist. Others have done their part, and borne their burden, and now comes in yours. You may easily see how great a matter lies upon your hands, and how many will be wronged by your failing of your duty, and how much will be lost by the sparing of your labor. If your labor be more worth than the souls of men, and than the blood of Christ, then sit still, and look not after the ignorant or the ungodly. Follow your own pleasure or worldly business, or take your ease. Displease not sinners, nor your own flesh, but let your neighbors sink or swim; and, if public preaching will not save them, let them perish. But, if the case be far otherwise, you had best look about you.

Part II. Objections to This Duty I shall next answer some of those objections which may be made to the practice I have been recommending.

OBJECTION 1. We teach our people in public; and how then are we bound to teach them, man by man, besides?

ANSWER: You pray for them in public: must you not also pray for them in private? Paul taught every man, and exhorted every man, and that both publicly, and from house to house, night and day, with tears (Acts 20:27). But what need we say more, when experience speaks so loudly on this subject? I am daily forced to wonder how lamentably ignorant many of our people are, who have seemed diligent hearers of me these ten or twelve years, while I spoke as plainly as I was able to speak. Some know not that each person in the Trinity is God; nor that Christ is God and man; nor that he took his human nature to heaven; nor what they must trust to for pardon and salvation; nor many similar important principles of our faith. No, some who come constantly to private meetings are grossly ignorant; whereas, in one hour’s familiar instruction of them in private, they seem to understand more, and better entertain it than they did in all their lives before.

OBJECTION 2. All the parish are not the church, nor do I take the pastoral charge of them, and therefore I am not satisfied that I am bound to take these pains with them.

ANSWER: I will pass by the question, Whether all the parish are to be taken for your church, because in some places it is so, and in others not.

[a] The common maintenance which most receive is for teaching the whole parish, though you be not obliged to take them all for a church.

[b] What need we look for a stronger obligation than the common bond that lies on all Christians, to further the work of men’s salvation and the good of the Church, and the honor of God, to the utmost of their power; together with the common bond that is on all ministers, to further these ends by ministerial teaching to the utmost of their power? Is it a work so good, and apparently conducing to so great benefits to the souls of men, and yet can you perceive no obligation to the doing of it?

OBJECTION 3: This course will take up so much time, that a man will have no opportunity to follow his studies. Most of us are young and inexperienced, and have need of much time to improve our own abilities and to increase our own knowledge, which this course will entirely prevent.

ANSWER: (1) We suppose those whom we persuade to this work to understand the substance of the Christian religion and to be able to teach it to others; and the addition of lower and less necessary things is not to be preferred before this needful communication of the fundamental principles of religion. I highly value common knowledge, and would not encourage any to set light by it; but I value the saving of souls more. That work which is our great end must be done, whatever be left undone. It is a very desirable thing for a physician to be thoroughly studied in his are, and to be able to see the reason of his practice, and to resolve such difficult controversies as are before him. But what if he had the charge of a hospital, or lived in a city where the pestilence was raging, and he would be studying fermentation, the circulation of the blood, blisters, and the like, and such like excellent points, when he should be visiting his patients, and saving men’s lives. What if he should even turn them away, and let them perish, and tell them that he has not time to give them advice, because he must follow his own studies. I would consider that man as a most preposterous student, who preferred the remote means before the end itself of his studies. Indeed, I would think him but a civil kind of murderer. Men’s souls may be saved without knowing whether God did predetermine the creature in all its acts; whether the understanding necessarily determines the will; whether God works grace in a physical or in a moral way of causation; what freewill is; whether God have scientiam mediam or positive decrees concerning the blame for evil deeds; and a hundred similar questions, which are probably the things you would be studying when you should be saving souls. Get well to heaven, and help your people there, and you shall know all these things in a moment, and a thousand more, which now, by all your studies, you can never know. And is not this the most expeditious and certain way to knowledge?

(2) If you grow not extensively in knowledge, you will by this way of diligent practice obtain the intensive more excellent growth. If you know not so many things as others, you will know the great things better than they; for this serious dealing with sinners for their salvation, will help you to far deeper apprehensions of the saving principles of religion than you will get by any other means. A little more knowledge of these is worth all the other knowledge in the world. Oh, when I am looking heavenward and gazing towards the inaccessible light, and aspiring after the knowledge of God, and find my soul so dark and distant that I am ready to say, ‘I know not God—he is above me quite out of my reach,’ methinks I could willingly exchange all the other knowledge I have, for one glimpse more of the knowledge of God and of the life to come. Oh that I had never known a word in logic or metaphysics, nor known whatever schoolmen said, so I had but one spark more of that light which would show me the things that I must shortly see. For my part, I conceive, that by serious talking of everlasting things and teaching the creed, or some short catechism, you may grow more in knowledge (though not in the knowledge of more things) and prove much wiser men than if you spent that time in studying common or curious, yet less necessary things. And perhaps it will be found, before we have done, that this employment tends to make men much abler pastors for the Church than private studies alone. He will be the ablest physician, lawyer, and divine too, that adds practice and experience to his studies. Meanwhile that man shall prove a useless drone that refuses God’s service all his life, under presence of preparing for it, and lets men’s souls pass on to perdition, while he pretends to be studying how to recover them, or to get more ability to help and save them.

(3) Yet let me add, that though I count this the chief, I would have you to have more, because these subservient sciences are very useful. Therefore I say that you may have competent time for both, lose no time upon vain recreations and employments; consume it not in needless sleep; trifle not away a minute. Do what you do with all your might; and then see whether you have not competent time for these other pursuits. If you set apart but two days in a week to this great work, you may find some time for common studies out of the other four.

Indeed, are not four days in the week (after so many years spent in the university) a fair proportion for men to study controversies and sermons? Though my weakness deprive me of abundance of time, and extraordinary works take up six, if not eight parts of my time, yet I bless God I can find time to provide for preaching two days a week, notwithstanding the two days for personal instruction. Now, for those that are not troubled with any extraordinary work (I mean writings, and vocations of several sorts, besides the ordinary work of the ministry), I cannot believe, but, if they are willing, they may find two half days a week at least for this work.

(4) Duties are to be taken together: the greatest is to be preferred, but none are to be neglected that can be performed. No one is to be pleaded against another, but each is to know its proper place. But if there were such a case of necessity, that we could not carry on further studies and instruct the ignorant too, I would throw aside all the libraries in the world, rather than be guilty of the perdition of one soul; or at least, I know that this would be my duty.

OBJECTION 4: But this course will destroy the health of our bodies, by continually spending our spirits, and allowing us no time for necessary recreations. And it will wholly lock us up from friendly communion with others, so that we must never stir from home, nor enjoy ourselves a day with our friends, for the relaxation of our minds But as we shall seem uncourteous and morose to others, so we shall tire ourselves, and the bow that is always bent will be in danger of breaking at last.

ANSWER: (1) This is the plea of the flesh for its own interest. The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion in the way,’ nor will he plough because of the cold. There is no duty of moment and self–denial, but, if you consult with flesh and blood, it will give you as wise reasons as these against it. Who would ever have been burned at a stake for Christ, if this reasoning had been good? Yes, or who would ever have been a Christian?

(2) We may take time for necessary recreation, and yet attend to this work. An hour, or half an hour’s walk before meat, is as much recreation as is necessary for the health of most of the weaker sort of students. I have reason to know somewhat of this by long experience. I have a body that has languished under great weaknesses for many years, and my diseases have been such as require as much exercise as almost any in the world. I have found exercise the principal means of my preservation until now, and, therefore, have as great reason to plead for it as any man that I know. Yet I have found that the foresaid proportion has been blessed to my preservation, though I know that much more had been like to have tended to my greater health. Indeed, I do not know one minister in a hundred that needs so much exercise as myself. Yes, I know abundance of ministers, that scarce ever use any exercise at all, though I commend them not in this. I doubt not but it is our duty to use so much exercise as is necessary for the preservation of our health, so far as our work requires. Otherwise, we should, for one day’s work, lose the opportunity of many. But this may be done, and yet the work that we are engaged in, be done too. On those two days a week that you set apart for this work, what hinders but you may take an hour or two to walk for the exercise of your bodies, and much more on other days? But as for those men who limit not their recreations to stated hours, but must have them for the pleasing of their voluptuous humor and not merely to fit them for their work, such sensualists have need to study better the nature of Christianity. They need to learn the danger of living after the flesh, and to get more mortification and self–denial before they preach these things to others. If you must needs have your pleasures, you should not have put yourselves into a calling that requires you to make God and his service your pleasure, and restrains you so much from fleshly pleasures. Is it not your baptismal engagement to fight against the flesh? And do you not know that much of the Christian warfare consists in the combat between the flesh and the spirit? And that this is the difference between a true Christian and an unconverted man, that the one lives after the spirit, and mortifies the deeds and desires of the body, and the other lives after the flesh? And do you make it your calling to preach all this to others; and, notwithstanding this, must you needs have your pleasures? If you must, then, for shame, give over the preaching of the gospel and the profession of Christianity, and profess yourselves to be what you are; and as ‘you sow to the flesh, so of the flesh you shall reap corruption.’(Galatians 6:8)Does even Paul say: ‘I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beats the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway’? (1 Corinthians 9:26)And have not such sinners as we still more need to do so? What? Shall we pamper our bodies and give them their desires in unnecessary pleasure, when Paul must keep under his body, and bring it into subjection? Must Paul do this, lest, after all his preaching, he should be a castaway? And have not we much more cause to fear it of ourselves? I know that some pleasure is lawful; that is, when it is of use to fit us for our work. But for a man to be so far in love with his pleasures, as for the sake of them to waste unnecessarily his precious time, and to neglect the great work of men’s salvation, yes, and to plead for this, as if it must or might be done, and so to justify himself in such a course, is a wickedness inconsistent with the common fidelity of a Christian, much more with the fidelity of a minister of Christ. Such wretches as are ‘lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God’ (2 Timothy 3:5) must look to be loved of him accordingly, and are fitter to be cast out of Christian communion, than to be the chief in the Church; for we are commanded ‘from such to turn away.’ (2 Timothy 3:5)Recreations for a student must be specially for the exercise of his body, he having before him such variety of delights to his mind. And they must be used as whetting is by the mower; that is, only so far as is necessary to his work. We must be careful that they rob us not of our precious time, but be kept within the narrowest possible bounds.

(3) The labor in which we are engaged is not likely much to impair our health. It is true, it must be serious; but that will but excite and revive our spirits, and not so much spend them. Men can talk all day long about other matters without any abatement of their health; and why may we not talk with men about their salvation without such great abatement of ours?

(4) What have we our time and strength for, but to lay them out for God? What is a candle made for, but to burn? Burned and wasted we must be; and is it not fitter it should be in lighting men to heaven, and in working for God, than in living to the flesh? How little difference is there between the pleasure of a long and of a short life, when they are both at an end! What comfort will it be to you at death, that you lengthened your life by shortening your work? He who works much, lives much. Our life is to be esteemed according to the ends and works of it, and not according to the mere duration. As Seneca says of a drone, ‘There he lies, not there he lives; and long he abode, not long he lived.’ Will it not comfort us more at death to review a short time faithfully spent, than a long life spent unfaithfully?

(5) As for visits and civilities, if they be of greater use than our ministerial employments, you may break the Sabbath for them, you may forbear preaching for them, and you may also forbear this private work. But if it be otherwise, how dare you make them a presence for neglecting so great a duty? Must God wait on your friends? What though they be lords, or knights, or gentlemen; must they be served before God? Or is their displeasure or censure a greater hurt to you than God’s displeasure or censure? Or dare you think, when God will question you for your neglects, to put him off with this excuse: ‘Lord, I would have spent more of my time in seeking men’s salvation; but such a gentleman, or such a friend, would have taken it ill, if I had not waited on them’? If you yet ‘seek to please men,’ (Galatians 1:10) you are no longer the servants of Christ. He who dare spend his life in flesh–pleasing, and man–pleasing, is bolder than I am. And he who dare waste his time in compliments, does little consider what he has to do with it. Oh that I could but improve my time, according to my convictions of the necessity of improving it! He who has looked death in the face as often as I have done, I will not thank him if he value his time. I profess I wonder at those ministers who have time to spare; who can hunt or shoot or bowl, or use the like recreations two or three hours, yes, whole days together; that can sit an hour together in vain discourse, and spend whole days in complimental visits, and journeys to such ends. Good Lord! What do these men think on, when so many souls around them cry for help, and death gives us no respite, and they know not how short a time their people and they may be together; when the smallest parish has so much work that may employ all their diligence, night and day?

Brethren, I hope you are content to be plainly dealt with. If you have no sense of the worth of souls, and of the preciousness of that blood which was shed for them, and of the glory to which they are going, and of the misery of which they are in danger, you are not Christians, and consequently are very unfit to be ministers. And if you have, how can you find time for needless recreations, visits or discourses? Dare you, like idle gossips, chat and trifle away your time, when you have such works as these to do, and so many of them? O precious time! How swiftly does it pass away! How soon will it be gone! What are the forty years of my life that are past? Were every day as long as a month, methinks it were too short for the work of a day. Have we not already lost time enough, in the days of our vanity? Never do I come to a dying man that is not utterly stupid, but he better sees the worth of time. O then, if they could call time back again, how loud would they call! If they could but buy it, what would they not give for it? And yet we can afford to trifle it away; yes, and to allow ourselves in this, and willfully to cast off the greatest works of God. O what a befooling thing is sin, that can thus distract men that seem so wise! Is it possible that a man of any compassion and honesty, or any concern about his ministerial duty, or any sense of the strictness of his account, should have time to spare for idleness and vanity? And I must tell you further, brethren, that if another might take some time for mere delight, which is not necessary, yet so cannot you; for your undertaking binds you to stricter attendance than other men are bound to. May a physician, when the plague is raging, take any more relaxation or recreation than is necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death? As his pleasure is not worth men’s lives, still less is yours worth men’s souls. Suppose a city were besieged, and the enemy watching, on one side, all advantages to surprise it, and, on the other, seeking to fire it with grenades, which they are throwing in continually. I pray you, tell me, if certain men undertake, as their office, to watch the ports, and others to quench the fire that may be kindled in the houses, what time will you allow these men for recreation or relaxation when the city is in danger, and the fire will burn on and prevail, if they intermit their diligence? Or would you excuse one of these men if he come off his work and say, I am but flesh and blood, I must have some relaxation and pleasure? Surely, at the utmost, you would allow him none but what was absolutely necessary. Do not grudge at this, and say, ‘This is a hard saying; who can hear it?’ For it is your mercy; and you are well, if you know when you are well, as I shall show you in answering the next objection.

OBJECTION 5: I do not think that it is required of ministers that they make drudges of themselves. If they preach diligently, and visit the sick, and perform other ministerial duties, and occasionally do good to those they converse with, I do not think that God does require that we should thus tie ourselves to instruct every person distinctly, and to make our lives a burden and a slavery.

ANSWER: Of what use and weight the duty is, I have showed before, and how plainly it is commanded. And do you think God does not require you to do all the good you can? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death and say, ‘God does not require me to make myself a drudge to save them’? Is this the voice of Christian or ministerial compassion? Or rather is it not the voice of sensual laziness and diabolical cruelty? Does God set you work to do, and will you not believe that he would have you do it? Is this the voice of obedience, or of rebellion? It is all one whether your flesh prevail with you to deny obedience to acknowledged duty, and say plainly, I will obey no further than it pleases me; or whether it may make you willfully reject the evidence that should convince you that it is a duty, and say, I will not believe it to be my duty, unless it please me. It is the character of a hypocrite, to make a religion to himself of the cheapest part of God’s service which will stand with his fleshly ends and felicity, and to reject the rest, which is inconsistent therewith. And to the words of hypocrisy, this objection superadds the words of gross impiety. For what a wretched calumny is this against the most high God, to call his service a slavery and drudgery! What thoughts have such men of their Master, their work, and their wages? The thoughts of a believer, or of an infidel? Are these men like to honor God, and promote his service, that have such base thoughts of it themselves? Do these men delight in holiness, that account it a slavish work? Do they believe indeed the misery of sinners, that account it such a drudgery to be diligent to save them? Christ says, that ‘he who denies not himself, and forsakes not all, and takes not up his cross, and follows him, cannot be his disciple.’ (Luke 14:26) (Matthew 10:38) But these men count it a slavery to labor hard in his vineyard, and to deny their ease, at a time when they have all accommodations and encouragements. How far is this from forsaking all! And how can these men be fit for the ministry, who are such enemies to self–denial, and so to true Christianity?

I am, therefore, forced to say that hence arises the chief misery of the Church, THAT SO MANY ARE MADE MINISTERS BEFORE THEY ARE CHRISTIANS. If these men had seen the diligence of Christ in doing good when he neglected his meat to talk with one woman, and when he had no time to eat bread, would they not have been of the mind of his carnal friends, who went to lay hold on him, and said, ‘He is beside himself’? (John 4:34) (Mark 3:21) They would have told Christ he made a drudge or a slave of himself, and God did not require all this ado. If they had seen him all day in preaching, and all night in prayer, it seems he would have had this censure from them for his labor. I cannot but advise these men to search their own hearts, whether they unfeignedly believe that Word which they preach. Do you indeed believe that such glory awaits those who die in the Lord, and such torment those that die unconverted? If you do, how can you think any labor too much for such weighty ends? If you do not, say so, and get you out of the vineyard, and go with the prodigal to keep swine, and undertake not to feed the flock of Christ. Do you not know, brethren, that it is your own benefit which you grudge at? The more you do, the more you will receive; the more yo