He therefore must needs be rich that hath the ' blood of Christ,' which purchased the world. When all losses, either in goods or children, befall such a man, yet he hath enough besides. When man says all is gone, Christ says all is his. This should make him hold up his head, but not too high. It should make him cheerful, but not withal scornful.
Men are still apt to run into extremes. Tell men of the heinous nature of sin, and for the most part they either stop short and do not bewail it, or step beyond and quite despair. Obstinacy is the low extreme Hke the earth, hard also and rocky as it is. Despair is as much too high, as it were in the element of fire, which scorches up the spirit. The middle region of air and water, of sighs and tears, is the best. Thus when we treat of a godly man's privileges, some will overwcen them as fast as others undervalue them. Christian virtues are in medio as well as moral ; but generally men seem to promise to themselves, as Jonathan to David, 1 Sam. XX. 36, either to shoot short or beyond. Men will either overdo or do nothing. The Mediator teaches us a middle way. St Paul, when the viper hung upon his hand, was thought some notorious malefactor ; * Spelled ' ApoUo.'— G.
4 TO THE KEADEE.
when bo shook it oil' without harm, was a god, Acts xxviii. 3, seq. The first was too bad, and the hast too good. The middle had been best : if they had said, he is some good man.
This causes many diflerenccs in religion. Men run so far one from an- other, some to one side and others to the other side of the circumference, that whilst they stand e diainelro oppositi, they leave the truth behind them in the centre. Some will give too much to this or that ordinance, because others give too little ; and some will give too little, because others give too much. It is a spirit of opposition that causes divisions. Two spheres will but touch in a point ; and so when men arc swollen with pride and anger, they gather up one from another, and resolve not to adhere so much as in one point.
The apostles were given to the church to rejoice in, but neither to de- spise nor deify ; they might neither glory over them, nor glory in them. It is the sin of these times ; look it, reader, that it be not thine. Some men fall out with the whole tribe, and thereupon begin to lay aside the principles of sobriety. But should I tell thee what is said by Baronius (6) and some others, and what might be said of the honour of that calling, this discourse would rather want an epistle than be one, for the length. Indeed, some have gone too far, and made the priesthood more than it is. A Latin postiller upon that in Exod. xxx. 31, where it is said, ' Thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons,' &c., because it is said, ver. 32, 'upon man's flesh it shall not be poured,' thence infers, in an hyperbolical sense, that priests are angels, not having human flesh. Some kind of postils and glosses are like antique flourishings about a great capital letter, which is not so much adorned by them as darkened. Such is this. We have a dignity indeed, but no deity. Therefore in the words following the text here handled, chapter the fourth, verse the first, says the apostle, ' Let men so account of us, as the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mys- teries of God.' As the ministers of Christ, we are not to be abased, and as but ministers, not to be adored ; as stewards, not to be magnified, and as stewards of the mysteries of God, not to be vilified. Consider the Lord's messengers both as ' earthen vessels ' and as ha"sdng a treasure in them. But there are those that set some too high, and depress others too low. This partiality hath brought many miseries upon the church, and diverted many men from the church. It hath sent many a renegado bound for Rome. Discontent is a dangerous thing, when the occasion is just.
In a word, I desire thee to weigh well one passage, and not to misdeem it, which the worthy author hath, page 16, concerning the right of wdcked men to earthly things. He says it is a mistake to think they have no right to them. And so it is indeed, Ps. xvii. 14. They have their portion in this life. A man must needs have some right to his portion. What Ananias had, Acts v. 4, was his own, whilst he had it, as Peter tells him; and yet Satan had filled his heart. We are to do good to all, but especially the household of faith. Gal. vi. 10. Therefore we may do good, and dis- tribute to those that are not of the household of faith. But what needs this, if earthly things belong not to them ? If in giving them we shall make them usurpers, we had better not give to them. If a covetous man hath no title to his goods, when sentence of condemnation is passed upon him, he may say, Why am I condemned for not giving, when I had nothing to give ? Besides it will follow, that no man shall be condemned for want of liberality in not giving, but only for want of justice in not restoring. The earth was to bring forth to Adam fallen, or for Adam, though thorns