SHINE IN OUR WORKS. 473 go free, and that ye break every yoke ? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out, to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thy own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health, shall spring forth speedilyh, and,thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer ; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am." It is a point that our Lord Jesus layeth a great stress upon. He 'purposely healeth on the Sabbath day, and tells the censorious Pharisees "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath ; " that is, the end, which is man's good, is to be prefer- red before the means ; nay, it is no means, and so no duty, which is against it. He defendeth his disciples for getting themselves food as they passed in the corn-fields ; and he teacheth, them the lawfulnessof the priest's labor on.the Sabbath, and, of David's eat- ing the shew bread ; and at two several times doth tell them that God " will have mercy, and not sacrifice ; " and biddeth them "go learn what that meaneth ; " Matt. iv. 13. and xii. 7. And it is not only Pharisees, but many better men, who have need to go learn the meaning of that sentence. The meaning is this, that (cceteris paribus) the great duties of the law of nature, are to take place before the positive institutions. . God's institu- tions are for man's good: whatever is a duty is also a means to the happiness of man, and pleasing to God, which is the end of all. Love to God and man are greater than all the instituted means of them as such ; therefore that is no duty which is no .means, or is against the instituter's end. Preaching and prayer must be omit- ted for some works of love and human good. Discipline is a duty, when it is a means to the end for which it is ordained; but when it would hinder or destroy that end, (the reputation of religion, and the glory of God's holiness, and the church's good,) it is no duty, but a sin. To omit a sacrament, to break the rest of the Lord's day, to forbear the sacred assemblies, may be a duty when the good of men requireth them. Ordination is a duty when it is a theans to its proper end. But if it were pleaded against those ends, and order set against the thing ordered, even thework of the ministry, the case would be altered. -When men mistake, and mistime, and misplace. God's institutions, to,the excluding of the great moral duties, which are their end, and persuade men to that as a part of religion, which would cer- tainly do more hurt than good, they scandalouslydrive men away from their religion. Thus imprudent, scandalous professors can backbite and reproach others, and make them odious, and destroy VOL. II. 60
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