RESOLUTION I.

I am resolved, by the grace of God, to do every thing in obedience to the will of God.

IT is not sufficient, that what I do is the will of God, but I must therefore do it because it is the will of God. For, what saith my Father? ‘My son, 172give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.’¹⁸⁶¹⁸⁶   Prov. xxiii. 26. So that my Father will not only have my hand, but my heart too. And my feet must not walk in the ways of God, till my eyes have observed and discerned them to be so. I may do an action that is in itself good; and yet, at the same time, not do a good action, if I do not therefore do it, because it is so: for example, I may give an alms to the poor, feed the hungry, or clothe the naked; but let me examine and consider well, upon what principle these actions are founded, whether I therefore do them, because God hath commanded them; if not, my feeding the poor will be no more a good action, than the ravens feeding the prophet was.¹⁸⁷¹⁸⁷   1 Kings, xvii. 6. Their feeding of the prophet was commanded by God, as well as my feeding of the poor, but I cannot say they did a good action, because though they did do this, which was commanded by God, yet being irrational creatures, they could not reflect upon that command, and so could not do this in obedience to it.

There are some persons, to the very frame and disposition of whose spirits some sins are, in their nature, odious and abominable. Thus I have know some, whose very constitutions have curried them into an antipathy to lust and luxury; and others again, who could never endure to drink beyond their thirst, much less to unman and be-beast themselves, by drinking to excess. And the like may be observed of covetousness which Luther was such an enemy to, that it is said to be against his very nature. Now, I say, though the abstaining 173from these sins be highly commendable in all sorts of persons, yet, unless together with the streams of their natural disposition, there run likewise a spiritual desire to please God, and obey his commands, their abstaining from these vices, is no more than the brute beasts themselves do, who always act according to the temper of their bodies, and are never guilty of any excesses that are prejudicial to them,

Hence, servants are commanded to be ‘obedient to their masters, with good will doing service as to the Lord, and not to men,’¹⁸⁸¹⁸⁸   Eph. vi. 5, 6, 7. which clearly shows, that though a servant doth obey his master, yet if he doth not do it in obedience to God, he will not find acceptance with him. So that, whensoever I set my hand to any action that is good, I must still fix my eye upon God’s commanding of it, and do it, only in respect to that; as knowing, that if I give but a farthing to the poor in all my life, and do it in obedience to God’s commands, it shall be accepted sooner than theirs, who feed hundreds at their table every day, and have not respect to the same command.

Do I see a poor wretch ready to fall down to the earth for want of a little support, and my bowels begin to yearn towards him? Let me search into my heart, and see what it is that raises this compassion in me. If it flows only from a natural tenderness to a brother in misery, without regard to the love of God, who has commanded and enjoined it, the poor man may be succoured and relieved, but God will not be pleased or delighted with it. Again, do my friends stir me up to pray or hear, 174or do any other spiritual or civil action, and I therefore only do it because of their importunity? I may satisfy my friends’ desire, but cannot properly be said to obey the commands of God in such a performance; so that the great and only foundation that I must resolve to build all the actions of my life upon, is an uniform obedience to that God, by whom alone I am enabled to perform them.