many souls breaks in npon them at this door. First they break their ranks, and then they are led further into temptation. Absalom fii-st looks over the hedge in his ambitions thought ; a king he would be ; and this wandering 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 hand of Divine vengeance. The apostle joins order and stedfastness together, Col. ii. 5 : 'I am with you in the spirit, joying and beliolding your order, and the stedfast- ness of your faith.' If an army stands in close order, every one in his place attending his duty, content with his work, it is in a maimer impregnable. How came many in our days to fall from their stedfastness, but by breaking their order !
3. We shall never be charged for not doing another's work : ' Give an accoimt of thy stewardship,' Luke xvi. 2; that is, of what by thy place thou wert intrusted with. We may indeed be accessory to another's sin and miscarriage in his place. ' Be not partakers with them,' saith tlie apostle, Eph. v. 7. There is a partnership, if not very waichful, that we may have with others' sins, and therefore we may 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 to ; but it is not our sin that we do not supply others' 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 his work for him. 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, Psa. i. 3.
4. Tliere 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 are we killed all the day long,' saith the church, Psa. xliv. 22. But if suffering finds us out of our calling and place, we cannot say, ' For thj' 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 ' busybody' and suffering as a 'Christian,' 1 Pet. iv. 15, 16. It is to the latter he saith, ' Let him not be ashamed, but let liim glorify God on this behalf;' as for the busybody, he mates him with thieves and nuirderers ; and those, I trow, liave reason both to be ashamed and afraid. The carpenter that gets a cut or wound on liis leg from his axe, as he is at work in his calling, may bear it more patiently and comfortably than one tliat is wantonly meddling with his tools, and hath nothing to do with such work. When affliction or persecution ovei*- takes the Christian travelling in the way God hath set him in, he may shew the Bible, as that holy man (suffering for Clirist) did, and say, 'This hath made me poor, tills hath brought me to prison ;' that is, his faith on tjie 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 rims out of his place, and so meets with sufierings, he hath this to embitter them, that lie 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 conies home at night with his battered face meets with a whipjiing from his father into the bargain for being from home. This lay heavy on the spirit of that learned German, Joliannes 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: —
202 STAND THEREFORE.
To keep thy place and calling learn of me : Flee as the plague a meddler for to be.