not received? What an unreasonable thing is it then not to use for his
honour be before your eyes; trample on your own credit and reputation, and sacrifice it, if need be, to God's honour. And to help you to this, consider,
1. That all you have is given you of God. What have you that you have not received? What an unreasonable thing is it then not to use for his glory what he gives thee; yea, what ingratitude is it? and do you not hate the character of an ungrateful person?
2. Consider that what you have is a talent' given you by your great Master to improve till he comes again. If you improve it for him, then you shall get your reward. If you will make your own gain thereby, and what you should improve for him, you improve for yourself, what can you look for then but that God shall take your talent from you, and command to cast you as an unprofitable and unfaithful servant into utter darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth? God has given some great talents; if they improve them for vain-glory to themselves to gain the popular applause, or the Hosannas of the learned, and so sacrifice all to their own net; what a sad meeting will such have at the great day with Christ? What master would endure that servant, to whom he has given money wherewith to buy a suit of good clothes to his master, if he should take that money, and buy therewith a suit to himself, which his master should have had? How can it be thought that God will suffer to go unpunished such a preacher as he has given a talent of gifts to, if he shall use these merely to gain a stipend or applause to himself therewith, not respecting the glory of his Master? Woe to you, O my soul, if you take this path wherein destroyers of men's souls and of their own go.
3. Consider that the applause of the world is nothing worth. It is hard to be gotten; for readily the applause of the unlearned is given to him whom the learned despise, and the learned applaud him whom the common people care not for. And when it is got, what have you? A vain empty puff of wind. They think much of you, you think much of yourself, and in the meantime God thinks nothing of you. Remember, O my soul, what Christ said to the Pharisees, Luke 16:15, "You are