(4.) Again, Experience may be added as another help. Experience is a great help in particulars, for indeed generals are raised out of experiments! in particular. Therefore) those that are wise politicians, statesmen, they are not so out of books altogether, but men of experience that can say, such a case hath been so at such a time. So that out of observation and particular experience they are able to say, upon the like case, it should be now at this time thus and thus. If therefore we would treasure up experience, it would be a good help to know what is to be done in particu- lars ; to consider how it hath been in former time, and consider the experience of others. You see then what the rule of our service is, God's will ; with these helps subordinate to it, how to direct ourselves in par- ticular actions to serve the will of God. So much for that point. ' He served.'
Now I come to the act of service. God must be served according to his own will. We must search and try what is the good, and holy, and accept- able will of God, Rom. xii. 2. I have shewed how we may search in par- ticular what the good and acceptable will of God is. Now when this is discovered, the next thing is to ' serve' God in the knowledge of his will ; for all the blessings are annexed to service, and not to knowledge. ' If ye know this will.' Is there all ? No. * Happy are ye if ye do it,' John xiii. 17. If we know the rule and do it, we are happy. What if we do it not V ' He that knows his master's will, and doth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes,' Luke xii. 47. It will but aggravate our damnation, to know the rule, to have directions what to do, and not to do them. Then * That is, ' naughty,' = wicked. — G. f That is, ' experiences.' — G.
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the rule that wo have hath another use. If we use it not for direction in what we do, it will be brought against us at the day of judgment, as a direction for God to damn us by : This you knew ; this counsel you had ; these motions of the Spirit you had ; this, conscience told you ; this, the ministry and your friends told you. Notwithstanding, you crossed and thwarted all. When it is not a direction for us to obedience, it will be a direction for God to give sentence. Therefore let us make conscience first to know the will of God, which is the rule of all our actions, by all the means we can, and then to give ' service to it.' David served the will of God. His life was not unfruitfully and wickedly spent; but ' he served' the counsel of God that had planted and placed him there in the world for that purpose. Why hath God planted us here in the paradise of the church ? That we should not be barren trees, or bring forth ill fruit ; but that we should ' serve' him, and be fruitful in our places.
This word ' ser^ice' is a harsh word, and such a thing as proud spirits could never digest. Why did the devils fall ? They would be in a state independent, and not under others ; they would have their own courses ; and therefore the Scripture saith, ' They kept not their own standing,' Jude 6. God set them in one course, and they swelled and would not keep it. The particular is not set down in Scripture, but ' they kept not their own standing.' Neither the devil, who is a proud creature, nor men led with the spirit of the devil, can endure service. Every man would be a god to himself, to be guided by his own lewd will and lusts ; and God knows, they are blind guides, and we shall know it to our cost if we have not a better guide. WTien the will of God is revealed, therefore, we must have a care to serve it.
Now, to ' serve,' implies two things especially : an action, and a refer- ence of that action to the will of another. That is service, as I said before, to do a thing, and to do in obedience. For if a man do never so many things, if it be not in obedience to the will of another, it is no ' service.' He serves himself. So to ' serve ' God is when we know the will of God, to do accordingly, and to do it because it is the will of God. Then it is service ; or else it is a work indeed done, but no service or obedience.
All obedience is with looking to the will and pleasure of another, that hath authority to direct us; and then we ' serve' the revealed will of God, when the whole inward and outward man is fashioned and framed to that ; when thei'e is a measuring of both together, as when we obey the direc- tions ; when we tremble at the threatenings ; when we imitate the examples of holy writ ; when we are raised up with the comforts ; when answerable to every divine truth there is an answerable disposition of soul ; when there is a sweet harmony between God's truth and our inward and outward man. Rom. vi. 17, ' We must be cast into the mould of the word.' As a thing when it is moulded in another frame, it carries the print of the frame or mould, so we 'serve' the will and word of God when we are moulded answerable to that will.