2. Get loving hearts. Love is fuU of invention, how shall I glorify God ? how shall I do good to others ? how shall I bring to heaven as many as I can ? Love is a sweet and boundless affection, full of holy devices.
3. Labour to have sufficiencij in our 2>laces, that you may have ability to do good. Oh, when these meet together, ability and sufficiency ; and a willing, a large, and gracious heart and a fit object to do good to, what a deal of good is done then !
4. And when we find oj^portunity of doing any good, let us resolve upon it, resolve to honour God, and serve him in spite of flesh and blood ; for we must get every good work that we do out of the fixe, as it were ; we must get it out with travail, and pains. We carry that about us that will hinder us. Let us therefore labour to have sincere aims in that we do to please God, and then resolve to do all the good we can.
To stir us up to be more and more fruitful in our places, let us consider we live for others, and not for ourselves, vfhen we are good Christians once. It was a good speech of that godly Palsgrave, great grandfather to him that is (Frederick the godly they called him), when he was to die, Satis vobis, saith he, I have lived hitherto for you, noiv let me live for myself. "We live here all our life for others, therefore let us think while we Uve, how we may do most good in the church of God.
For encouragement hereunto consider, God will undertake to recompense all the good we do, to a ' cup of cold water,' Mark ix. 41. We shall not lose a sigh, a groan, for the church. God would account himself dis- honoured if it should not be rewarded. He hath pawned his faithfulness upon it ; 'he is not unfaithful to be unmindful of your good works,' Heb. vi. 10.
Nay, we have a present reward and contentment of conscience : as light accompanies fire, so peace and joy accompany every good action. All is not reserved for heaven. A Christian hath some beginnings of happiness here. When he doth that that is contrary to flesh and blood, how fall of sweet joy is a fruitful soul ! Those that are fruitftil in their places never want arguments of good assurance of salvation. It is your lazy, lukewarm Christian that wants assurance. Therefore I beseech you be stirred up, to live desired in the world, and die lamented ; labour to be useful in your places all you can ; to be as the olive and fig-tree, delighting God and man, and not to cumber the ground of the church with barrenness. Sins of omission, — because men were not fruitful in their places, — was a ground of damnation ; ' cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness,' Mat. xxv. 30; put case he did no harm ; aye, but he was iinprofimble. Such was the cursed disposition of Ephraim ; he brought forth fruit to himself. Oh this looking to ourselves. When we make ourselves the beginning and the end of all the good we do, it is an argument of a barren person. None ever came to heaven but those that denied themselves.
I see I cannot proceed in this point. You may by the Spirit of God enlarge it in 3^our thoughts and bring home what hath been said, to your own souls. Labour that j^ou may be such as others may make use of you, and not be the burdens and calamities of the time, as many are, that live for nothing but to do good men good by vexing of them. That is all the good they do ; by vexing their patience they exercise their grace a contrary way.
CHRIST IS BEST. 347
Let us not be briars and unfi.-uitful plants, labouring to be great by the public miseries. As they say, great fishes grow big by devouring many little ones ; as a di-agon comes to be great by devouring many little serpents, so many grow great by the ruin of others. Oh beloved, it had been better for such that they had never been born. Therefore as we desire to have comfort when we die, let us labour to be fruitful while we Hve. St Paul, when the time came that he should die, v/hen he had done his work, you see he that was thus full of self-denial, how gloriously he ended his days. The second Epistle to Timothy was the last epistle that ever he wrote, and when he had done his work, saith he, ' I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished my course : from hencefoi'th there is a crown of righteousness reserved for me,' 2 Tim. iv. 7. What a glorious end is here ! and indeed those that are thus careful, and fruitful in their lives and conversations, end their days fiill of comfort, and resign their souls to God with full assurance of a blessed change, and only those. For you have many, when they come to' die, what hinders them ? Oh I have been unfruitful, I have not done that good that I might, I have not * wrought out my salvation with fear and trembling,' Philip, ii. 12. In such a thing I have done ill, such a thing I have omitted. So they are enemies to their own comfort. Enlarge this in your own meditations, and consider what will comfort you hereafter, when you shall need most comfort. So I leave the text, and come to the occasion.