Three Sermons and Prayers | Page 3

in those countries that pretend to freedom, princes
are subject to those laws which their people have chosen; they are
bound to protect their subjects in liberty, property, and religion, to
receive their petitions and redress their grievances, so that the best
prince is, in the opinion of wise men, only the greatest servant of the
nation--not only a servant to the public in general, but in some sort to
every man in it. In the like manner a servant owes obedience, and

diligence, and faithfulness to his master, from whom, at the same time,
he hath a just demand for protection, and maintenance, and gentle
treatment. Nay, even the poor beggar hath a just demand of an alms
from the rich man, who is guilty of fraud, injustice, and oppression if
he does not afford relief according to his abilities.
But this subjection we all owe one another is nowhere more necessary
than in the common conversations of life, for without it there could be
no society among men. If the learned would not sometimes submit to
the ignorant, the wise to the simple, the gentle to the froward, the old to
the weaknesses of the young, there would be nothing but everlasting
variance in the world. This our Saviour Himself confirmed by His own
example; for He appeared in the form of a servant and washed His
disciples' feet, adding those memorable words, "Ye call me Lord and
Master, and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master,
wash your feet, how much more ought ye to wash one another's feet?"
Under which expression of washing the feet is included all that
subjection, assistance, love, and duty, which every good Christian
ought to pay his brother, in whatever station God hath placed him. For
the greatest prince and the meanest slave are not, by infinite degrees, so
distant as our Saviour and those disciples, whose feet He vouchsafed to
wash.
And although this doctrine of subjecting ourselves to one another may
seem to grate upon the pride and vanity of mankind, and may therefore
be hard to be digested by those who value themselves upon their
greatness or their wealth, yet it is really no more than what most men
practise upon other occasions. For if our neighbour, who is our inferior,
comes to see us, we rise to receive him; we place him above us, and
respect him as if he were better than ourselves; and this is thought both
decent and necessary, and is usually called good manners. Now the
duty required by the Apostle is only that we should enlarge our minds,
and that what we thus practise in the common course of life we should
imitate in all our actions and proceedings whatsoever; since our
Saviour tells us that every man is our neighbour, and since we are so
ready, in point of civility, to yield to others in our own houses, where
only we have any title to govern.

Having thus shown you what sort of subjection it is which all men owe
one another, and in what manner it ought to be paid, I shall now draw
some observations from what hath been said.
And first, a thorough practice of this duty of subjecting ourselves to the
wants and infirmities of each other would utterly extinguish in us the
vice of pride.
For if God has pleased to intrust me with a talent, not for my own sake,
but for the service of others, and at the same time hath left me full of
wants and necessities which others must supply, I can then have no
cause to set any extraordinary value upon myself, or to despise my
brother because he hath not the same talents which were lent to me. His
being may probably be as useful to the public as mine; and therefore,
by the rules of right reason, I am in no sort preferable to him.
Secondly, It is very manifest, from what has been said, that no man
ought to look upon the advantages of life, such as riches, honour,
power, and the like, as his property, but merely as a trust which God
hath deposited with him to be employed for the use of his brethren, and
God will certainly punish the breach of that trust, though the laws of
man will not, or rather indeed cannot; because the trust was conferred
only by God, who has not left it to any power on earth to decide
infallibly whether a man makes a good use of his talents or not, or to
punish him where he fails. And therefore God seems to have more
particularly taken this matter into His own hands, and will most
certainly reward or punish us in proportion to