394 DIRECTIONS FOR 'GETTING AND KEEPING both mind and body to a sad, dejected, mournful garb? The ser- vice that God requires, is, "To serve him with cheerfulness in the abundance that we possess;" Deut..xxviii. 47. Ifyou think that I here contradict what I said in the former Directions, for pinching the flesh, and denying its desires, you are mistaken. I onlyshow ypu the danger of the contrary extreme. God's way lieth be-. tween both. The truth is, (ifyou would be resolved how far you may please or displease the flesh,) the flesh, being ordained to be our servant and God's servant, must be used as a servant. You will give your servant food and raiment, and wholesome lodging, and good usage, or else you are unjust, andhe will be unfit to do your. work. But so far as he would master you, or disobey you, you will correct him, or keep him under. You will feed your horse, or else he will not carryyou ; but if he grow unruly,you must tame him. It is a delusory formality of Papists, to tie all the countries to one time and measure of fasting, as Lent, Fridays, Lc.; when men's states are so various that many (though not quite sick) have more need of a restoring diet; and those that need fasting, need it not all at once, not in one measure, but at the time, and in the measure, as the taming of their flesh requireth it. As if a physician should proclaim that all his patients should take physic such forty days every year, whether their disease be plethoric or consuming, from fullness or from abstinence, and whether the dis- ease take him at that time of the year, or another. And remem- ber that you must not, under pretenses of saving the body, disable it to serve God. You will not lay any such correction on your child or servant as shall disable them from their work, but such as shall excite them to it. And understand that all your afflicting your body must be either preventive, as keeping the fire from the thatch, or medicinal and corrective, and not strictly vindictive ; for that belongs to your Judge. Though in a subordination to the other ends, the smart or suffering for its fault, is one end, and so it is truly penal or vindictive, as all chastisementis. And so Paul saith, "Be- hold what revenge," &c., 2 Cor. vii. I I., but as not mere judicial revenge is. Remember, therefore,though you must so far tame your bodyas to bring it into subjection, that you perish not by pampering; yet not so far as to bring it to weakness, and sickness, and unfit- ness for its duty. Nor yet mustyou dare to conceit that you please God, or satisfy him for your sin, by such a wronging and hurting your own body. Such Popish religiousness shows, that'men have very low and carnal conceits of God. Was it not a base wicked- ness in them that offered their childrenin sacrifice, to think thatGod would be pleased with such cruelty? Yea, were it not to have di- rected us to Christ, he would not have acceptedof the blood of bulls and goats; it is not sacrifice that he desires. He never was
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