Whether it be not better to Glorify God by a 1Prison (if that you fear should come upon you) than to be an Offence and Stumbling-Block by sitting still? Consider we beseech you, what are we for, but our Maker's Ends? what are we good for, for what do we serve, but only for his Pleasure? better we had no being, than not to be for Him. Better we were without liberty, than that it should not serve Him. What a small thing is Riches or Poverty; Sickness or Health; Liberty ⟨p. 16⟩or Bonds, unless in order to his Glory? Let us but live in the power of this acknowledged Principle, That it is our business and our blessedness to glorify God, and all will be set at rights. If that be true, then that is the best condition, wherein we may best glorify God, and the happiness of every estate, is to be esteemed, according to the order and reference that it hath to this end. Now then, let God glorify himself in us, and it cannot but be well. What should you then do but set to the Work? For either God will preserve your Liberties, and then you will wonderfully glorify him by your acting and venturing your selves for him; or else he will send you to Prison, and then you will more glorify him by suffering, lying there as the Public Hostages of the Churches, and Witnesses of God's Truth; Besides that it may render you the more serviceable in your Generation all your days after. But how little is God glorified by you either way, while you sit still? Or, are you not rather an Offence, and a grief to the spirits of the Godly, weakening the hands of your Active Brethren, and wounding the spirits of your dear People? Who can see others at work, and partake of strangers labours, when you their Shepherds give over your care for their souls?
Whether it be not better to Glorify God by a 1Prison (if that you fear should come upon you) than to be an Offence and Stumbling-Block by sitting still? Consider we beseech you, what are we for, but our Maker's Ends? what are we good for, for what do we serve, but only for his Pleasure? better we had no being, than not to be for Him. Better we were without liberty, than that it should not serve Him. What a small thing is Riches or Poverty; Sickness or Health; Liberty ⟨p. 16⟩or Bonds, unless in order to his Glory? Let us but live in the power of this acknowledged Principle, That it is our business and our blessedness to glorifie God, and all will be set at rights. If that be true, then that is the best condition, wherein we may best glorifie God, and the happiness of every estate, is to be esteemed, according to the order and reference that it hath to this end. Now then, let God glorifie himself in us, and it cannot but be well. What should you then do but set to the Work? For either God will preserve your Liberties, and then you will wonderfully glorifie him by your acting and venturing your selves for him; or else he will send you to Prison, and then you will more glorifie him by suffering, lying there as the Publick Hostages of the Churches, and Witnesses of God's Truth; Besides that it may render you the more serviceable in your Generation all your dayes after. But how little is God glorified by you either way, while you sit still? Or, are you not rather an Offence, and a grief to the spirits of the Godly, weakning the hands of your Active Brethren, and wounding the spirits of your dear People? Who can see others at work, and partake of strangers labours, when you their Shepherds give over your care for their souls?
- 1Quest. 13.
