5. It is an erratic spirit, that usually carries men out of their place and calling. I confess there is an keroicits 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 pi'etend to the like, and unlawfid to expect such immediate commissions from Heaven now, when he issueth them out 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 called so. When I see any mira- culously 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, extra- ordinary calling and extraordinary teaching go together. Well, let us see what that erratic 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, 1 Tim. v. 13 : ' They learn to be idle, wandering from house to house, and not only idle, but busybodies.' 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 lie 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 vmhappy while they are shut up in such strait limits ; (indeed the whole world is too narrow a walk for a proud heart, ^stual infcelix aiigtisto limi/e nnindi ; 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' toork that Korah and his accomplices were so in love with, but the priests' honour which attended the work ; this they desired to share, and liked not to see others run away with it from them ; nor was it 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, M'hich being not 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 groimd 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; where- fore else have they gifts .' Certainly the gifts of the saints need not be lost any of them, tliough they be not laid oiit 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, perliaps not intending to hurt the coi'n ; and the reason was, because his firing tlie hedge was an occasion of the corn's 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 hatli been, and still sadly is among us. God forbid I should think so ! But, O that I could clear them from being accessory to it, in that they have fired the hedge which God hath set between the minister's calling and people's. If we will acknow-
STAND THEREFORE. 0Q^