_Direct._ III. If it be possible, live where there is a faithful, powerful, convincing minister, whose public teaching and private counsel you may make use of for your souls. Live not, if you can avoid it, under an ignorant, dead, unprofitable teacher, that will never afford you any considerable help to lift up your hearts to a heavenly conversation. But seeing you must spend the six days in your labour, live where you have the best helps to spend the Lord's day, for the quickening and comfort of your souls; that in the strength of that holy food, you may cheerfully perform your sanctified labours on the week days following. Be not like those brutish persons, that live as if there were no life but this; and therefore take care to get a place, where their bodies may be well fed and clothed, and may have ease, and pleasure, and preferment for the world; but care not much what teacher there is, to be their guide to heaven; nor whether ever they be seriously foretold of the world to come, or not.
_Direct._ IV. Live, if you can obtain so great a mercy, with superiors that fear God, and will have a care of your souls, as well as of your bodies, and will require you to do God's service as well as their own: and not with worldly, ungodly masters, that will use you as they do their beasts, to do their work, and never take care to further your salvation. For, 1. The curse of God is in the families of the ungodly; and who would willingly live in a house that God hath cursed, any more than in a house that is haunted with evil spirits? But God himself doth dwell with the godly, and by many promises hath assured them of his love and blessing. "The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked; but he blesseth the habitation of the just," Prov. iii. 33. "The wicked are overthrown, and are not; but the house of the righteous shall stand," Prov. xii. 7. "The house of the wicked shall be overthrown; but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish," Prov. xiv. 11; so Prov. xv. 25. "The righteous man wisely considereth the house of the wicked: God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness," Prov. xxi. 12. Go not into a falling house. 2. A master that feareth God, will help to save you from sin and hell, and help your souls to life eternal: he may do more for you, than if he made you kings and rulers of the earth. He will hinder you from sin: he will teach you to know God, and to prepare for your salvation. Whereas ungodly masters will rather discourage you, and by mocks or threatenings seek to drive you from a holy life, and use their wit, and work, and authority, to hinder your salvation: or at best will take little care of your souls, but think if they provide you food and wages, they have done their parts. 3. A master that feareth God will do you no wrong, but will love you as a christian, and his fellow-servant of Christ, while he commandeth and employeth you as his own servant, which cannot be expected from ignorant, ungodly, worldly men.
_Direct._ V. Yet choose such a service as you are fit to undergo, with the least hinderance of the service of God, and of your souls. Neither a life of idleness, nor of excess of business, should be chosen, if you have your choice. For when the mind is overwhelmed with the cares of your service, and your bodies tired with excessive labour, you will have little time, or heart, or power, to mind the matters of your souls with any seriousness. Yea, the Lord's day will be spent with little comfort, when the toil of the week days hath left the body fit for nothing but to sleep. A service which alloweth you no time at all to pray, or read the Scripture, or mind your everlasting state, is a life more fit for beasts than men.
_Direct._ VI. If you can attain it, live where your fellow-servants fear God, as well as the master of the family. For fellow-servants usually converse with one another more frequently and familiarly than their masters do with any of them. And therefore if a master give you the most heavenly instructions, the idle, frothy talk of fellow-servants may blot out all from your memories and hearts. And their derision of a holy life, or their bad examples, may do more hurt, than the precepts of the governors can do good. Whereas when a master's counsels are seconded by the good discourse and practice of fellow-servants, it is a great encouragement to good, and keepeth the heart in a continual warmth and resolution.
_Direct._ VII. If you want any one of these accommodations, be the more diligent in such an improvement of the rest, as may make up your want. If you have a good teacher and a bad master, improve the helps of your teacher the more diligently. If you have a bad master and good fellow-servants, or a good master and bad fellow-servants, thank God for that which you have, and make the best of it.