A27053:504
A treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at KidderminsterA treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at Kederminster
London: printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons, 1675
Treatise › Chapter 27: Ease, Quietness and worldly Peace to be denied.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
5. And by this you rob others as well as your selves: You owe the world the fruit of your labours: You rob the souls of men to whom you should do good. You rob the Church that should be bettered by you: You rob the Commonwealth of which you are a member, and should have benefit by you. You owe your labours to Church and Commonwealth and the souls of men, and will you not pay so great a debt? You deserve no room in the Church or Commonwealth, but to be cut off as an unprofitable member, if you bring no advantage to them. They say the Bees will not suffer a drone ⟨p. 186⟩in the Hive. Nay, if you be hired servants, you plainly rob your Masters if you are slothful, as much as if you stole their money or goods. If you buy an hundred sheep of a man, and he let you have but fourscore, doth he not rob or cheat you? And if a man buy a years or a days labour of you, and you let him have but half a years labour, or half a days labour, because of your sloth, do you not defraud or rob him of the other half? So that the idle are thieves to themselves, to the Church and the souls of men, to the Commonwealth and those that they are related to; even to their wives and children, for whom they should provide due maintenance by their labour.
6. And you are injurious to the honest poor, in that you disable your selves from relieving them: when God commandeth you to work with your hands, not only for your selves, but that you may have to give to them that need, Eph. 4. 28. What if all men should do as you do, how would the poor be maintained, and the Church and Commonwealth served?
7. Yea worst of all, you are guilty of robbing God himself. It is him that you owe your labours to, and the improvement of all the talents which he lendeth you: And idleness is unfaithfulness to the God of Heaven that setteth you on work: Even in working for men, you must do it ultimately for God,