IF servants would have comfortable lives, they must approve themselves and their service unto God, because from him they must have their comforts; which may be done by following these directions.
_Direct._ I. Reverence the providence of God which calleth you to a servant's life, and murmur not at your labour, or your low condition; but know your mercies, and be thankful for them. Though perhaps you have more labour than your masters, yet, have you not less care than they? Most servants may have quieter lives, if it were not for their unthankful, discontented hearts. You are not troubled with the care of providing your landlord's rent, or meat, and drink, and wages for your servants, nor with the wants and desires of wives and children, nor with the faults and naughtiness of such as you must use or trust; nor with the losses and crosses which your masters are liable to. Be thankful to God, who for a little bodily labour, doth free you from the burden of all these cares.
_Direct._ II. Take your condition as chosen for you by God, and take yourselves as his servants, and your work as his, and do all as to the Lord, and not only for man; and expect from God your chief reward. You will be else but eye-servants and hypocrites, if the fear of God do not awe your consciences: and if you were the best servants to your masters in the world, and did not all in obedience to God, it were but a low, unprofitable service; if you believe that there is an infinite distance between God and man, you may conceive what a difference there is between serving God and man: your wages is all your reward from man, but eternal life is God's reward: and the very same work and labour which one man hath but his year's wages for, another hath everlasting life for, (though not of merit, yet of the bounty of our Lord,) Rom. vi. 23; because he doth it in love and obedience to that God who hath promised this reward. "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh: not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God: and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance; for ye serve the Lord Christ: but he that doeth wrong, shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons," Col. iii. 22-25. The like is in Eph. vi. 5-8. So much doth God respect the heart, that the very same action hath such different successes and rewards, as it is done to different ends, and from different principles: your lowest service may be thus sanctified and acceptable to God.
_Direct._ III. Be conscionable and faithful in performing all the labour and duty of a servant. Neglect not such business as you are to do; nor do it lazily, and deceitfully, and by the halves. As it is thievery or deceit for a man in the market to sell another the whole of his commodity, and when he hath done, to keep back and defraud him of a part; so is it no less for a servant that selleth his time and labour to another, to defraud him of part of that time and service which you sold him. Think not therefore that it is no sin, to idle away an hour which is not your own, or to slubber over the work which you undertake to do. Slothfulness and unconscionableness make servants deceitful: such care not how they do their work, if they can but make their masters believe that it is done well: they are hypocrites in their service, that take more care to seem painful, trusty servants, than to be so; and to hide their faults and slothfulness, than to avoid them; as if it were as easy to hide them also from God, who hath resolved to punish all the wrong they do their masters, Col. iii. 25. If they can but loiter and take their ease, and their masters know it not, they are never troubled at it as a sin against God: laziness and fleshly-mindedness doth so blind them, that they think it is no sin to take as much ease as they can, so they carry it fair and smoothly with their masters, and to slubber over their business any how, so that it will but serve the turn: whereas if their masters should keep back any of their wages, or put more work upon them than is meet, they would easily be persuaded that this were a sin. If your labour be such as would hurt your health, (as by wet or cold, &c.) you may foresee it, and avoid it in your choice of places: but if it be only the labour that you grudge at, it is a sign of a fleshly and unfaithful person; as long as it is not excessive to wrong your health, nor hurt your souls, by denying you leisure for your duty to God. The Lord himself commandeth you to be obedient in singleness of heart, as unto Christ, not as eye-servants; and whatever you do, to do it heartily, knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, Eph. vi. 5, 6, 8; Col. iii. 23.