384 DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING AND KEEPING we are not freed from sin, yet we are enabled to combat with it, and to get the victory over it. Some degree of comfort follows every good action, as heat accompanies fire, and as beams and in- fluences issue from the sun. Which is so true, that veryheathens, upon the discharge of a good conscience, have found comfort and peace answerable; this is a reward before our reward." Again, In watchfulness and diligence,we sooner meet with comfort, than in idle complaining.' Again, pp. 44, 45. "An unemployed life is a burden to itself. God is a pure Act; always working; always doing. And the nearer our soul comes to God, the more it is in action, and the freer from disquiet. Men experimentally feel that comfort in doing that which belongs unto them, which before they longed for and went without." And in his preface to the " Bruis- ed Reed: " " There is no more comfort to be expected fromChrist than there is care to please him. Otherwise, to make him an abettor of a lawless and loose life, is to transform him into a fancy; nay, into the likeness of him whose works he came to destroy; which is the most detestable idolatry of all.. One way whereby the Spirit of Christ prevaileth in his, is to preserve them from such thoughts : yet we see people will frame a divinity to themselves, pleasing to the flesh, suitable to their own ends ; which, being vain in the substance, will prove likewise vain in the fruit, and a build- ing upon the sands." So far Dr. Sibbs. It seems there were libertines and Antinomians then, and will be as long as there are any carnal, unsanctifiedprofessors. Direct. XXVI. Havingled youthus far towards a settled pesee, my next Direction shall contain a necessary caution, lest you run as far into the contrary extreme, viz. '. Take heed that you neither trouble your own soul with needless scruples about matters of doc- trine, of duty, or of sin, or about your own condition. Nor yet that you do not make yourself more work than God bath made you, by feigning things unlawful, which God bath not forbidden ; or by placing your religion in will-worship, or in an over-curious insisting on çircumstantials, or an over-rigorous dealing with your body.' . This is but the expositionof Solomon ; " Be not over-wise, and be not righteous overmuch ; " Eccles. vii. 16. A man cannot serve God too much, formally and strictly considering his service; much less love him too much. But we may do too much mate- rially, intending thereby to serve God, which though it be not true righteousness, yet, being intended for righteousness, and done as a service of God, or obedience to him, is here called overmuch righteousness. I know it is stark madness in the profane, secure world, to think that the tlöing of no more than God hath command- ed us, is doing too much, or moré than needs ; as if God had bid
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