Again, Our Saviour Christ in his ordinary speech delivered it as a gene- ral rule, ' It is better to give than to receive,' Acts xx. 35, which containeth a direction to men to be public and liberal. St Paul's ordinary course was so : * I^nowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we pei'suade men,' &c., 2 Cor. V. 11. What an influence hath this into our conversations, ' That I must do, as I must give account at the day of judgment.' And so what use made he of the glorious state to come, in that house ' and building of God not made with hands, not seen, but apprehended only by faith,' 2 Cor. V. 1. It enabled him to do and suffer all things that became a Christian to do and suffer. If a man have that principle and mindeth it, * that aU things work together for the best to them that love God,' Rom. viii. 28, what can discourage him ? He knoweth in the issue all shall be for the best, and God will not fail him nor forsake him in his way, ' but giveth his angels charge over him,' Ps. xci. 11. So Christ's direction. One thing is necessary, how may it rectify* us when we trouble ourselves about many impertinences ? If these generalistsf were always present upon solicita- tions to sin or discomfort, ' It shall go well with the righteous, and it shall not go well with the wicked ; if we take good courses it shall be well, if ill courses sin will be bitter :' it would be a marvellous help and advantage in all particulars of our lives.
The second general observation is this, that as we viust get good prin- ciples laid up in store upon all occasion, so ive must specially have gracious aims. Men are as their aims are. Noble spirits have noble aims (a). Christians are of an higher rank than ordinary men, and therefore they have higher aims. Religion giveth command to all other particulars, and pre- scribeth to them a general end. It taketh a man off from a false end, and pitcheth him upon a true end. It taketh him from himself, the great idol that man naturally setteth up above God and above Christ, and above heaven and happiness, and telleth him that the true end of all is to live to Christ ; and that on good grounds, ' for we are his,' and his by good title : ' he died for us, that he might be Lord both of quick and dead,' Acts x. 42. As in state policy, those that are governors in a state they prescribe ends of trades, and reduce them to a serviceableness of state — if they find anything hurtful, they look to it as it stands in reference to the common good — so religion considereth of all particulars as they have reference to Christ and the main end, taking us off from false ends, and prescribing the last and best end, and directing all particulars to that end. But we shall see this better in the unfolding of the words.
The first thing he begins in the general is, to take us off from false ends : ' None of us liveth to himself.'
(1.) First, To live to ourselves is not altogether to be taken in a civil sense. A man liveth to himself ivhen he liveth privately or retiredly : Ben^ vixit, qui hene latuit (b). So a man may do in some things, especially in times of persecution ; but this ordinarily is not good. A man is a creature for communion ; and God hath fitted him for commimion by speech and
* That is, = ' put us right.' — G.
t Qu. 'generals,' or * generalities' ?—G.
292 THE christun's end.
other endowments, that there may be preserved a communion of saints. But because a retired life is sometimes good, it is not hero mainly aimed at.
(2.) Again, secondly, wo live to ourselves when we mind ourselves altogether, and not one another ; when we have more respect to ourselves, than to God or to our Christian brother. And this is even contrary to nature. AVc sec in nature, that a particular nature will in some cases yield to a general, and thwart itself. The fire is a light body, and in the natural motion of it mountcth upward ; yet this body will go downwards to pre- serve whole the universal uatixre from a vacuum, from emptiness, that the fulness and solidity in nature may not be disturbed. And we see heavy bodies go upward for the same end. As a man will venture the hand to save his head, and to save his body, so it should be in society and govern- ment ; particular men should venture themselves for the prince or state, for the head or for the body.
(3.) But in a more large and religious sense. To live to a man's self is to make himself Jiis last end, his terminus redudivus, to reduce all to him- self, and make religion and everything serviceable to himself. When a man will serve himself of God for base ends, because his service will advance him ; as the Shechemites were circumcised for Dinah, Gen xxxiv. 1, seq.