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

and an excellent knowledge which the spirits illumination causeth them to attain, Phil. 3. 18. Ephes. 3. 18, 19. You have Gods judgement of the case, if that will satisfy you, who it is that is the Best and Honestest man, the Holy or the unholy.

and an excellent knowledge which the spirits illumination causeth them to attain, Phil. 3. 18. Ephes. 3. 18, 19. You have Gods judgement of the case, if that will satisfie you, who it is that is the Best and Honestest man, the Holy or the unholy.

2. Do you think that man is an Honest man, that will deny you your due, and rob you of all that is your own? Or rather is not the Just man the Honest man, that will give every man his own? I know you will give your voices for the latter. O then take heed lest you condemn your selves! If you be not Holy, your own testimony doth condemn you. For it is only the Godly that give God his own, when the ungodly rob him of it: Hast thou not thy Life, and Time, and Maintenance from God? Hast thou not thy Reason, and thy Affections, and all thy faculties from him? And should not all thou hast be employed for him? Thou art a dishonest man that grudgest, yea denyest him one day in seven, when thou owest him all. Thou art a dishonest man that givest away thy Makers due unto his vilest enemies. That wastest thy means or strength on sin: that spendest thy precious time on vanity: that abusest his creatures to the satisfying of thy lusts! and that livest to thy flesh, when thou shouldst live to God. Thou robbest him of all which thou givest to his enemies; and of all which thou dost not use for his service. It is less dishonesty to rob thy Master that trusteth thee with his goods, then to rob the Lord that trusteth thee with thy time, and parts, and all things. O blind unworthy sinners! What makes you think him an honest man that robbeth his Maker, or denieth him his own, when you call him a dishonest man that robbeth but such silly worms as you, that in respect of God have nothing of your own! Art thou better then God, that it should be called dishonesty to wrong thee, and no dishonesty to wrong him, or deny him that which is his own? God hath an absolute Title to you, and that on more accounts then one. You are his own, as you are his creatures. All souls are mine, saith the Lord,