3. Now I shall give you the reasons of this duty.
[1.] To prevent contempt. Human nature is incapable of bearing it. Whatsoever rank we are in, we should not despise others, but acknowledge the gifts of God in them. Therefore, to prevent this con- tempt and disrespect that is usually in men's hearts towards inferiors
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(and is a sore trial to them), God requireth that we should submit ourselves to one another. I remember it is said, Prov. xiv. 31, ' He that oppresseth the poor reproachetli his maker ; but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor.' There is a double sort of men there represented, some that oppress the poor, and some that have mercy on the poor. They oppress that despise them, contemn them, deny them their right ; these add affliction to affliction, and so reproach God, who puts men into this condition. On tlie other side, they have mercy on the poor that relieve them, that have the courage and the heart to perform their duty to them, giving them food, raiment, counsel, pro- tection ; this man honoureth God, acknowledgeth the dominion of his providence, that God might have put him into the same condition Again, Prov. xvii. 5, ' Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his maker.' God maketh poor and rich. The heathens counted things struck by thunder sacred. It is God that hath distributed the world into hills and valleys, who hath also made the condition of one man to differ from another. Once more, Prov. xviii. 3, ' When the wicked cometh, thea cometh also contempt ; and with ignominy, reproach ;' that is to say, they have a wicked and naughty heart that are apt to contemn their neighbours and neglect offices of love to them, and there is nothing so bad but they will do and say against them.
[2.] Because there are none living whom God alloweth only to live to themselves. We are all bound to promote the common good. Now because the duties of inferiors are burdensome, God hath required, by way of recompense, and in a kind of equity, that others should live to us as we live to them. As the apostle saith, 2 Cor. viii. 3, ' For I mean not that other men be eased and you burdened.' So that duties of inferiors are better performed, and superiority and authority is sweetened to tliem when it is beneficial.
[3.] Submitting ourselves to one another is required for a supply of mutual necessities. We lack something that the meanest have ; if they have strength for labour, others have wisdom and conduct for government. There must be a contemperation ; if some are fitted to serve, those that have wealth should bless God that he hath put them into such an able condition to hire their service ; if some have wisdom to contrive, others have elocution to recommend a good design ; both must serve one another in love. Traffic and commerce is maintained in the world by several commodities of each country's growth. So society and communion among mankind is kept up by variety of gifts; one is for labour and service, another hath wisdom, another wealth, another courage and valour, and all for the good of the whole,
[4.] Because of equality ; the equity of this mutual submission is built upon a double equality — (1.) The actual equality of all men by nature ; (2.) The possible equality in the course of God's providence.
(1.) The actual equality of all men by nature. All are made by the same God : Acts xvii. 26, ' And hath made of one blood all nations of men ; ' Neh. v. 5, ' Our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, and their children as our children ;' Mai. ii. 10, ' Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us ? ' If some be superiors, and otherC inferiors, yet all are equal by nature : Job xxxi. 15, ' Did not he that made me in the womb make him ? and did not one fashion us in tlie
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womb ? God is the framer of all mankind, the small as well as the great, and that equally in the same kind and in the same way, what- ever difFerence of state there he afterward. Now when God exalts men, they should be mindful of this, if set afar above others by the Lord's grace ; therefoie they should not bear it high against the meanest ; they are their own flesh.
(2.) A possible equality in the course of God's providence : Heb. xiii. 3, * Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them ; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.' Before we go out of the body there may be strange changes. As the Shuna- mite, who told the prophet, 2 Kings iv. 13, ' She dwelt among her own people,' and therefore thought she had no need of the prophet ; yet within a while she had need of the prophet's man, when she came and cried to the king for her house and for her land, 2 Kings viii. 5. Well, then, this mutual submission is necessary for us ; not only as we are christians, but as we are men.