Jude vi. I find most probably interpreted. The ruin of many souls breaks in upon them at this door. First they break their ranks, and then they are led further into temptation. Absalom first looks over the hedge in his ambitious thoughts, a king he would be; and this wander ing desire beyond his place lets in those bloody sins, rebellion, incest, and murder; and these ripened him for, and at last delivered him up, into the hands of divine vengeance. The Apostle joins order and steadfastness together: "I am with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith." Col. ii. 5. If an army stands in close order, every one in his place attending his duty, content with his work, it is impregnable in a manner. How came many in our days to fall from their steadfastness but by breaking their order!

3. We shall never be charged for not doing another's work. "Give an account of thy stewardship," Luke xvi. 2, that is, of what by thy place thou wert entrusted with. We may indeed be accessary to another's sin and miscarriage in his place. "Be not partakers with them,' saith the Apostle, Eph. v. 7. there is a partnership (if not very watchful) that we may have with others sins, and therefore we may all say Amen to that holy man's prayer, "Lord, forgive me my other sins." Merchants

can trade in bottoms that are not their own; and we may sin with other men's hands many ways, and one especially is, when we do not lend our brother that assistance in his work and duty which our place and relation obligeth too; but it is not our sin that we do not supply another's negligence, by doing that which belongs not to our place. We are to pray for magistrates that they may rule in the fear of God; but if they do not, we may not step upon the bench and do their work for them. God requires no more than faithfulness in our place. We do not find fault with an apple-tree if it be laden with apples (which is the fruit of its own kind) though we can find no figs or grapes growing on it; we expect these only from their proper root and stock. He is a fruitful tree in God's orchard that brings forth his fruit in his season. Psal. i. 3.

4. There is poor comfort in suffering for doing that

which was not the work of our place and calling. Before we launch out into any undertaking, it behoves us to ask ourselves, and that seriously, what our tackling is, if a storm should overtake us in our voyage. It is folly to engage in that. enterprise which will not bear us out, and pay the charge of all the loss and trouble it can put us to. Now, no comfort or countenance from God can be expected in any suffering, except we can entitle him to the business we suffer for. "For thy sake we are killed all the day long," saith the Church, Psalm xliv.

22.

But if suffering finds us out of our calling and place, we cannot say, "for thy sake" we are thus, and thus afflicted, but for our own sakes; and you know the proverb, Self do, self have. The Apostle makes a vast difference between suffering as a "busy body," and suffering as a "Christian," I Pet. iv. 15, 16. It is to the latter he saith, "Let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf;" as for the busy body, he couples him with thieves and murderers, and those, we know, have reason both to be ashamed and afraid. The carpenter that gets a cut or wound on his leg from his axe, as he is at work in his calling, may bear it more patiently and comfortably than one that is wantonly meddling with his tools, and hath nothing to do with such work. When affiction or persecution overtakes the Christian travelling in the way God hath set him in, he may shew the Bible, as that holy man (suffering for Christ) did, and say, "This hath made me poor, this hath brought me to prison," that is, his faith on the truths, and obedience to the commands, in it; and therefore may confidently expect to suffer at God's cost, as the soldier to be kept and maintained by his prince in whose service he hath lost his limbs. But the other that runs out of his place, and so meets with sufferings, he hath this to embitter them, that he can look for nothing from God but to be soundly chid for his pains as the child is served that gets some hurt while he is gadding abroad, and when he comes home at night with his battered face, meets with a whipping from his father into the bargain for being from home. This lay heavy on the spirit of that learned German, Johannis Funccius, who of a minister

of the Gospel in his prince's court, turned minister of state to his prince, and was at last for some evil counsel (at least so judged) condemned to die. Before he suffered, he much lamented the leaving of his calling, and to warn others left this distich:

"To keep thy place and calling learn of me:
"Flee as the plague a meddler for to be."

5. It is an erratique spirit that usually carries men out of their place and calling.. I confess there is an heroicus impetus, an impulse which some of the servants of God have had from heaven, to do things extraordinary, as we read in Scripture of Moses, Gideon, Phineas, and others. But it is dangerous to pretend to the like, and unlawful to expect such immediate commissions from Heaven now, when he issueth them in a more ordinary way, and gives rules for the same in his Word; we may as well expect to be taught extraordinarily, without using the ordinary means, as to be so called. When I see any miraculously gifted, as the prophets and Apostles, then I shall think the immediate calling they pretend to is authentic. To be sure, we find in the Word extraordinary calling and extraordinary teaching go together. Well, let us see what that erratique spirit is which carries many out of their place and calling. It is not always the same sometimes it is idleness. First, men neglect what they should do, and then are easily persuaded to meddle with what they have nothing to do. The Apostle intimates this plainly, "they learn to be idle, wandering from house to house, and not only idle but busy bodies." 1 Tim. v. 13. An idle person is a gadder; he hath his foot on the threshold, easily drawn from his own place, and as soon into another's diocese. He is at leisure to hear the devil's chat. He that will not serve God in his own place; the devil, rather than he shall stand out, will send him of his errand, and get him to put his sickle into another's corn. Secondly, It is pride and discontent that makes persons go out of their place; some men are in this very unhappy, their spirits are too big and haughty for the place God hath set them in. Their calling, may be, is mean and low, but their spirits high and towering; and

whereas they should labour to bring their hearts to their condition, they project how they may bring their condition to their proud hearts. They think themselves very unhappy while they are shut up in such straight limits, (indeed the whole world is too narrow a walk for a proud heart, astuat infœlix angusto limite mundi: the world was but a little ease to Alexander) shall they be hid in a crowd, lie in an obscure corner, and die before they let the world know their worth? No: they cannot brook it; and therefore they must get on the stage, and put forth themselves one way or other. It was not the priests' work that Korah and his accomplices were so in love with, but the priest's honour which attended the work, this they desired to share, and liked not to see others run away with it from them; nor the zeal that Absalom had to do justice, which made his teeth water so after his father's crown, though this must silver over his ambition. These places of church and state are such fair flowers, that proud spirits in all ages have been ambitious to have them set in their own garden; though they never thrive so well as in their proper soil. In a third, it is unbelief: this made Uzzah stretch forth his hand unadvisedly to stay the ark that shook, which, being but a Levite, he was not to touch, see Numb. iv. 15. Alas! good man, it was his faith shook more dangerously than the ark; by fearing the fall of this, he fell to the ground himself. God needs not our sin to shore up his glory, truth, or church. Lastly, In some it is misinformed zeal; many think they may do a thing, because they can do it. They can preach, and therefore they may; wherefore else have they gifts? Certainly the gifts of the saints need not be lost any of them, though they be not laid out in the minister's work. The private Christian hath a large field wherein he may be serviceable to his brethren; he need not break the hedge which God hath set, and thereby occasion such disorder as we see to be the consequence of this. We read in the Jewish law, Exod. xxii. that he who set a hedge on fire, and that fire burnt the corn standing in a field, was to make restitution, though he only fired the hedge (may be not intending to hurt the corn), and the reason was, because his firing the hedge was an occasion

of the corn being burnt, though he meant it not. I dare not say that every private Christian who hath in these times taken upon him the minister's work, did intend to make such a combustion in the church, as hath been, and still sadly is among us (God forbid I should think so). But, O that I could clear them from being accessary to it, in that they have fired the hedge which God hath set between the minister's calling and people's. If we will acknowledge the ministry a particular office in the church of Christ (and this I think the Word will compel us to do), then we must also confess it is not any one's work, (though never so able) except called to the office. There are many in a kingdom to be found that could do the prince's errand, it is like, as well as his ambassador; but none takes the place but he that is sent, and can shew his letters-credential. Those that are not sent and commissioned by God's call for ministerial work, they may speak truths as well as they that are, yet of him that acts by virtue of his calling, we may say that he preacheth with authority, and not like those that can shew no commission but what the opinion themselves have of their own abilities gives them. Dost thou like the minister's work? Why shouldest thou not desire the office, that thou mayest do the work acceptably? Thou dost find thyself gifted, as thou thinkest, for the work; were not the church more fit to judge so than thyself? and if thou shouldest be found so by them appointed for the trial, who would not give thee the right hand of fellowship? There are not so many labourers in Christ's field, but thy help (if able) would be accepted; but as now thou actest, thou bringest thyself into suspicion in the thoughts of sober Christians; as he would justly do, who comes into the field, where his prince hath an army, and gives out he comes out to do his sovereign service against the common enemy, yet stands by himself at the head of a troop he hath got together, and refuseth to take any commission from his prince's officers or join himself with them. I question whether the service such a one can perform (should he mean as he say, which is to be feared) would do so much good, as the distraction which this his carriage might cause in the army would do hurt.