useless to the public; and every notorious vice is infinitely against the spirit of government, and depresses the man to an evenness' with common persons: 66 Facinus quos inqui

nat æquat." To reprove belongs to a superior; and as innocence gives a man advantage over his brother, giving him an artificial and adventitious authority; so the follies and scandals of a public and governing man, destroy the efficacy of that authority that is just and natural. Now this is directly an office of Christian prudence, that good offices and great authority become not ineffective by ill conduct.

Hither also it appertains, that in public or private reproofs we observe circumstances of time,- of place,—of person,of disposition. The vices of a king are not to be opened publicly, and princes must not be reprehended as a man reproves his servant; but by categorical propositions, by abstracted declamations, by reprehensions of a crime in its single nature, in private, with humility and arts of insinuation; and it is against Christian prudence, not only to use a prince or great personage with common language, but it is as great an imprudence to pretend, for such a rudeness, the examples of the prophets in the Old Testament. For their case was extraordinary, their calling peculiar, their commission special, their spirit miraculous, their authority great as to that single mission; they were like thunder or the trump of God, sent to do that office plainly, for the doing of which in that manner, God had given no commission to any ordinary minister. And, therefore, we never find, that the priests did use that freedom, which the prophets were commanded to use, whose very words being put into their mouths, it was not to be esteemed a human act, or a lawful manner of doing an ordinary office; neither could it become a precedent to them, whose authority is precarious and without coercion, whose spirit is allayed with Christian graces and duties of humility, whose words are not prescribed, but left to the conduct of prudence, as it is to be advised by public necessities and private circumstances, in ages where all things are so ordered, that what was fit and pious amongst the old Jews, would be uncivil and intolerable to the latter Christians. He also that reproves a vice, should also treat the persons with honour and civilities, and by fair opinions and sweet addresses place the man in the regions of

modesty, and the confines of grace, and the fringes of repentance. For some men are more restrained by an imperfect feared shame, so long as they think there is a reserve of reputation which they may secure, than they can be with all the furious declamations of the world, when themselves are represented ugly and odious, full of shame, and actually punished with the worst of temporal evils, beyond which he fears not here to suffer, and from whence, because he knows it will be hard for him to be redeemed by an after-game of reputation, it makes him desperate and incorrigible by fraternal correption.

A zealous man hath not done his duty, when he calls his brother drunkard' and 'beast;' and he may better do it by telling him he is a man, and sealed with God's Spirit, and honoured with the title of a Christian, and is, or ought to be, reputed as a discreet person by his friends, and a governor of a family, or a guide in his country, or an example to many, and that it is huge pity so many excellent things should be sullied and allayed with what is so much below all this. Then a reprover does his duty, when he is severe against the vice, and charitable to the man, and careful of his reputation, and sorry for his real dishonour, and observant of his circumstances, and watchful to surprise his affections and resolutions there, where they are most tender and most tenable and men will not be in love with virtue, whither they are forced with rudeness and incivilities; but they love to dwell there whither they are invited friendly, and where they are treated civilly, and feasted liberally, and led by the hand and the eye to honour and felicity.

6. It is a duty of Christian prudence not to suffer our souls to walk alone, unguarded, unguided, and more single than in other actions and interests of our lives, which are of less concernment. "Væ soli et singulari," said the wise man: "Wo to him that is alone." And if we consider, how much God hath done to secure our souls, and after all that, how many ways there are for a man's soul to miscarry, we should think it very necessary to call to a spiritual man to take us by the hand to walk in the ways of God, and to lead us in all the regions of duty, and through the labyrinths of danger. For God, who best loves and best knows how to value our soul, set a price no less upon it than the life-blood

of his holy Son; he hath treated it with variety of usages, according as the world had new guises and new necessities; he abates it with punishment, to make us avoid greater; he shortened our life, that we might live for ever; he turns sickness into virtue; he brings good out of evil, he turns enmities to advantages, our very sins into repentances and stricter walking; he defeats all the follies of men and all the arts of the devil, and lays snares and uses violence to secure obedience; he sends prophets and priests to invite us and to threaten us to felicities; he restrains us with laws, and he bridles us with honour and shame, reputation and society, friends and foes; he lays hold on us by the instruments of all the passions; he is enough to fill our love; he satisfies our hope; he affrights us with fear; he gives us part of our reward in hand, and entertains all our faculties with the promises of an infinite and glorious portion; he curbs our affections; he directs our wills; he instructs our understandings with scriptures, with perpetual sermons, with good books, with frequent discourses, with particular observations and great experience, with accidents and judgments, with rare events of providence and miracles; he sends his angels to be our guard, and to place us in opportunities of virtue, and to take us off from ill company and places of danger, to set us near to good examples; he gives us his Holy Spirit, and he becomes to us a principle of a mighty grace, descending upon us in great variety and undiscerned events, besides all those parts of it which men have reduced to a method and an art: and, after all this, he forgives us infinite irregularities, and spares us every day, and still expects, and passes by, and waits all our days, still watching to do ust good, and to save that soul which he knows is so precious, one of the chiefest of the works of God, and an image of Divinity. Now from all these arts and mercies of God, besides that we have infinite reason to adore his goodness, we have also a demonstration that we ought to do all that possibly we can, and extend all our faculties, and watch all our opportunities, and take in all assistances, to secure the interest of our soul, for which God is pleased to take such care, and use so many arts for its security. If it were not highly worth it, God would not do it: if it were not all of it necessary, God would not do it. But if it be worth it, and

all of it be necessary, why should we not labour in order to this great end? If it be worth so much to God, it is so much more to us: for if we perish, his felicity is undisturbed; but we are undone, infinitely undone. It is, therefore, worth taking in a spiritual guide; so far we are gone.

But because we are in the question of prudence, we must consider whether it be necessary to do so: for every man thinks himself wise enough as to the conduct of his soul, and managing of his eternal interest; and divinity is every man's trade, and the Scriptures speak our own language, and the commandments are few and plain, and the laws are the measure of justice; and if I say my prayers, and pay my debts, my duty is soon summed up: and thus we usually make our accounts for eternity, and at this rate only take care for heaven. But let a man be questioned for a portion of his estate, or have his life shaken with diseases; then it will not be enough to employ one agent, or to send for a good woman to minister a potion of the juices of her country-garden; but the ablest lawyers, and the skilfullest physicians, and the advice of friends, and huge caution, and diligent attendances, and a curious watching concerning all the accidents and little passages of our disease. And truly a man's life and health is worth all that and much more, and, in many cases, it needs it all.

But then is the soul the only safe and the only trifling thing about us? Are there not a thousand dangers, and ten thousand difficulties, and innumerable possibilities of a misadventure? Are not all the congregations in the world divided in their doctrines, and all of them call their own way necessary, and most of them call all the rest damnable? We had need of a wise instructor and a prudent choice, at our first entrance and election of our side; and when we are well in the matter of faith for its object and institution, all the evils of myself, and all the evils of the church, and all the good that happens to evil men, every day of danger, the periods of sickness, and the day of death, are days of tempest and storm, and our faith will suffer shipwreck, unless it be strong, and supported and directed. But who shall guide the vessel, when a stormy passion or a violent imagination transports the man? Who shall awaken his reason, and charm his passion into slumber and instruction? How shall

a man make his fears confident, and allay his confidence with fear, and make the allay with just proportions, and steer evenly between the extremes, or call upon his sleeping purposes, or actuate his choices, or bind him to reason in all his wanderings and ignorances, in his passions and mistakes? For suppose the man of great skill and great learning in the ways of religion; yet if he be abused by accident or by his own will, who shall then judge his cases of conscience, and awaken his duty, and renew his holy principle, and actuate his spiritual powers? for physicians, that prescribe to others, do not minister to themselves in cases of danger and violent sicknesses; and in matter of distemperature we shall not find that books alone will do all the work of a spiritual physician, more than of a natural. I will not go about to increase the dangers and difficulties of the soul, to represent the assistance of a spiritual man to be necessary. But of this I am sure, our not understanding and our not considering our soul, makes us first to neglect, and then many times to lose it. But is not every man an unequal judge in his own case? and, therefore, the wisdom of God and the laws hath appointed tribunals, and judges, and arbitrators. And that men are partial in the matter of souls, it is infinitely certain, because amongst those millions of souls that perish, not one in ten thousand but believes himself in a good condition; and all the sects of Christians think they are in the right, and few are patient to inquire whether they be or no. Then add to this, that the questions of souls, being clothed with circumstances of matter and particular contingency, are or may be infinite; and most men are so unfortunate, that they have so entangled their cases of conscience, that there where they have done something good, it may be they have mingled half a dozen evils: and, when interests are confounded, and governments altered, and power strives with right, and insensibly passes into right, and duty to God would fain be reconciled with duty to our relatives, will it not be more than necessary, that we should have some one that we may inquire of after the way to heaven, which is now made intricate by our follies and inevitable accidents? But by what instrument shall men alone, and in their own cases, be able to discern the spirit of truth from the spirit of illusion, just confidence from presumption, fear from