_Direct._ XXV. Understand how much you are beholden to God, (and not he to you,) in that he will employ you in doing any good; and how it is the way of your own receiving; and know the excellency of your work and end, that you may do it all with love and pleasure.--Unacquaintedness with our Master, and with the nature and tendency of our work, is it that maketh it seem tedious and unpleasant to us: and we shall never do it well, when we do it with an ill will, as merely forced. God loveth a cheerful servant, that loveth his Master and his work. It is the main policy of the devil to make our duty seem grievous, unprofitable, undesirable, and wearisome to us: for a little thing will stop him that goeth unwillingly and in continual pain.
_Direct._ XXVI. Expect your reward from God alone, and look for unthankfulness and abuse from men, or wonder not if it befall you.--If you are not the servants of men, but of God, expect your recompence from him you serve. You serve not God indeed, if his reward alone will not content you, unless you have also man's reward. "Verily you have your reward," if, with the hypocrite, you work for man's approbation, Matt. vi. 2, 5. Expect, especially if you are ministers or others that labour directly for the good of souls, that many prove your enemies for your telling them the truth; and that if you were as good as Paul, and as unwearied in seeking men's salvation, yet the more you love, the less you will (by many) be loved: and those that he could have wished himself accursed from Christ to save, did hate him, and persecute him, as if he had been the most accursed wretch: a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among the people, and one that turned the world upside down, were the names they gave him; and wherever he came, "bonds and imprisonment did attend him;" and slandering, and reviling, and whipping, and stocks, and vowing his death, are the thanks and requital which he hath from those, for whose salvation he spared no pains, but did spend and was spent. If you cannot do good upon such terms as these, and for those that will thus requite you, and be contented to expect a reward in heaven, you are not fit to follow Christ, who was worse used than all this, by those to whom he showed more love than any of his servants have to show. "Take up your cross, and do good to the unthankful, and bless them that curse you, and love them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, if you will be the children of God," Matt. v.
_Direct._ XXVII. Make not your own judgments or consciences your law, or the maker of your duty; which is but the discerner of the law of God, and of the duty which he maketh you, and of your own obedience or disobedience to him.--There is a dangerous error grown too common in the world, that a man is bound to do every thing which his conscience telleth him is the will of God; and that every man must obey his conscience, as if it were the lawgiver of the world; whereas, indeed, it is not ourselves, but God, that is our lawgiver. And conscience is not appointed or authorized to make us any duty, which God hath not made us; but only to discern the law of God, and call upon us to observe it: and an erring conscience is not to be obeyed, but to be better informed, and brought to a righter performance of its office.
In prosecution of this direction, I shall here answer several cases about doubting.
_Quest._ I. What if I doubt whether a thing be a duty and good work or not? must I do it while I doubt? Nay, what if I am uncertain whether it be duty or sin?