A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

But you'll ask perhaps, [When a Sermon and other worldly business fall out at once, are we always bound to hear the Sermon?]

But you'l ask perhaps, [When a Sermon and other worldly business fall out at once, are we alwayes bound to hear the Sermon?]

I answer, No, not always: For else in great Cities that have frequent preaching, you should do nothing else but hear: We have a Body as well as a Soul; and must have meet employment for both; and must make due provision for both; and must be serviceable to the bodily welfare of others, and to the common good. Our bodily labour and temporal employment must be conscionably followed, as well as our spiritual; For God ⟨p. 6⟩hath determined that in the sweat of our faces we shall eat our bread, Gen. 3. 19. and even in innocency Adam was put into the garden to dress or till and keep it, Gen. 2. 15. with quietness we must labour and eat our own bread; and if any will not work, neither should he eat, 2 Thess. 3. 12. 10. See Pauls example, v. 8. [Neither did we eat any mans bread for nought: but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you] We must labour, working with our hands, that we may have to give to him that needeth, Eph. 4. 28. And if our bodies have not competent employment; they will grow such rusty unfit instruments for the soul to work by, that when Melancholy, or other diseases have disabled them, the soul it self will have the loss; and he that will do nothing but hear, and pray, and meditate, is likely shortly to be scarce able to pray and meditate at all, (unless it be one of a very strong and healthful constitution.)