A94156:855
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature…
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature and necessity of it is discovered. : As also the Christian directed how he may perform it in [brace] religious duties, natural actions, his particular vocation, his family directions, and his own recreations. / By George Swinnock ...
London: printed for T.P., 1662
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.
Reader, if God have dealt thee a considerable portion of outward good things; consider that thou art but Gods Factor, he is the Merchant. The Factor knoweth that the goods transported to him are his Masters goods, and he must dispose them according to directions from his Master. All thine estate is Gods; thou art but his servant, his Factor; he gives thee order in his word to dispose it thus and thus to such poor members of Christ, so much to one, and so much to another, and he will shortly reckon with thee how thou obeyest his directions; and if thou forbearest charity now, thou wilt then be counted and found as real a thief, before the whole world, as ever servant was that put hundreds into his own purse which his Master appointed him ⟨p. 415⟩to pay to other persons. Withhold not thy goods from the owners thereof, Pro. 3.27. from them to whom it is due, either by the law of justice, or by the law of love, Rom. 13.8. And truly Charity is the best way to plenty; He gets most that gives most; He that soweth liberally, shall reap liberally.
Reader, if God have dealt thee a considerable portion of outward good things; consider that thou art but Gods Factor, he is the Merchant. The Factor knoweth that the goods transported to him are his Masters goods, and he must dispose them according to directions from his Master. All thine estate is Gods; thou art but his servant, his Factor; he gives thee order in his word to dispose it thus and thus to such poor members of Christ, so much to one, and so much to another, and he will shortly reckon with thee how thou obeyest his directions; and if thou forbearest charity now, thou wilt then be counted and found as real a theif, before the whole world, as ever servant was that put hundreds into his own purse which his Master appointed him ⟨p. 415⟩to pay to other persons. Withhold not thy goods from the owners thereof, Pro. 3.27. from them to whom it is due, either by the law of justice, or by the law of love, Rom. 13.8