Direct. III. Be contented to stand to God's disposal; and suffer not any carking, discontented thoughts to feed upon your hearts. When you suffer your minds to run all day long upon your necessities and straits, the devil next tempteth you to think of unlawful courses to supply them. He will show you your neighbour's money, or goods, or estates, and tell you how well it would be with you if this were yours; he showed Achan the golden wedge; he told Gehazi how unreasonable it was that Naaman's money and raiment should be refused: he told Balaam of the hopes of preferment which he might have with Balak; he told Judas how to get his thirty pieces; he persuaded Ananias and Sapphira, that it was but reasonable to retain part of that which was their own. Nay, commonly it is discontents and cares which prepare poor wretches for those appearances of the devil, which draweth them to witchcraft for the supplying of their wants. If you took God for your God, you would take him for the sufficient disposer of the world, and one that is fitter to measure out your part of earthly things than you yourselves: and then you would rest in his wisdom, will, and fatherly providence; and not shift for yourselves by sinful means. Discontentedness of mind, and distrust of God, are the cause of all such frauds and injuries. Trust God, and you will have no need of these.
Direct. IV. Remember what promises God hath made for the competent supply of all your wants. Godliness hath the promise of this life and of that to come: all other things shall be added to you, if you seek first God's kingdom and the righteousness thereof, Matt. vi. 33. They that fear the Lord shall want nothing that is good, Psal. xxxvii. "All things shall work together for good to them that love God," Rom. viii. 28. "Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," Heb. xiii. 5. Live by faith on these sufficient promises, and you need not steal.
Direct. V. Overvalue not the accommodation and pleasure of the flesh, and live not in the sins of gluttony, drunkenness, pride, gaming, or riotous courses, which may bring you into want, and so to seek unlawful maintenance. He that is a servant to his flesh cannot endure to displease it, nor can bear the want of any thing which it needeth. But he that hath mastered and mortified his flesh, can endure its labour and hunger, yea, and death too if God will have it so. Large revenues will be too little for a fleshly-minded person; but a little will serve him that hath brought it under the power of reason. Magna pars libertatis est bene moratus venter, saith Seneca: a well-nurtured, fair-conditioned belly is a great part of a man's liberty, because an ill-taught and ill-conditioned belly is one of the basest slaveries in the world. As a philosopher said to Diogenes, If thou couldst flatter Dionysius, thou needest not eat herbs; but saith Diogenes, If thou couldst eat herbs, thou needest not flatter Dionysius: he took this for the harder task: so the thief and deceiver will say to the poor, If you could do as we do, you need not fare so hardly; but a contented poor man may better answer him and say, If you could fare hardly as I do, you need not deceive or steal as you do. A proud person, that cannot endure to dwell in a cottage, or to be seen in poor or patched apparel, will be easily tempted to any unlawful way of getting, to keep him from disgrace, and serve his pride. A glutton whose heaven is in his throat, must needs fare well, however he come by it: a tippler must needs have provision for his guggle, by right or by wrong. But a humble man and a temperate man can spare all this, and when he looketh on all the proud man's furniture, he can bless himself as Socrates did in a fair, with, Quam multa sunt quibus ipse non egeo! How many things be there which I have no need of! And he can pity the sensual desires which others must needs fulfil; even as a sound man pitieth another that hath the itch, or the thirst of a sick man in a fever, that crieth out for drink. As Seneca saith, "It is vice and not nature which needeth much:" nature, and necessity, and duty are contented with a little. But he that must have the pleasure of his sin, must have provision to maintain that pleasure. Quench the fire of pride, sensuality, and lust, and you may spare the cost of fuel, Rom. xiii. 13, 14; viii. 13.
Direct. VI. Live not in idleness or sloth; but be laborious in your callings, that you may escape that need or poverty which is the temptation to this sin of theft. Idleness is a crime which is not to be tolerated in christian societies. 2 Thess. ii. 6, 8, 10, 12, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us: for ye know how ye ought to follow us; for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you, neither did we eat any man's bread for nought; but worked with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you; not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample to you to follow us; for when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat: for we hear that there are some among you that walk disorderly, working not at all, but are busy-bodies; now them that are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread." Eph. iv. 28, "Let him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." He that stealeth to maintain his idleness, sinneth that he may sin; and by one sin getteth provision for another: you see here that you are bound not only to work to maintain yourselves, but to have to give to others in their need.
Direct. VII. Keep a tender conscience, which will do its office, and not suffer you to sin without remorse. A seared, senseless conscience will permit you to lie, and steal, and deceive, and will make no great matter of it, till God awaken it by his grace or vengeance. Hence it is that servants can deceive their masters, or take that which is not allowed them, and buyers and sellers over-reach one another, because they have not tender consciences to reprove them.
Direct. VIII. Remember always that God is present, and none of your secrets can be hid from him. What the better are you to deceive your neighbour or your master, and to hide it from their knowledge, as long as your Maker and Judge seeth all? when it is he that you most wrong, and with him that you have most to do, and he that will be the most terrible avenger! What blinded atheists are you, who dare do that in the presence of the most righteous God, which you durst not do if men beheld you!
Direct. IX. Forget not how dear all that must cost you, which you gain unlawfully. The reckoning time is yet to come. Either you will truly repent or not; if you do, it must cost you remorse and sorrow, and shameful confession, and restitution of all that you have got amiss; and is it not better to forbear to swallow that morsel, which must come up again with heartbreaking grief and shame? But if you repent not unfeignedly, it will be your damnation; it will be opened in judgment to your perpetual confusion, and you must pay dear for all your gain in hell. Never look upon the gain therefore, without the shame and damnation which must follow. If Achan had foreseen the stones, and Gehazi the leprosy, and Ahab the mortal arrow, and Jezebel the licking of her blood by dogs, and Judas the hanging or precipitation, and Ananias and Sapphira the sudden death, or any of them the after misery, it might have kept them from their pernicious gain. Usually even in this life, a curse attendeth that which is ill gotten, and bringeth fire among all the rest.
Direct. X. If you are poor, consider well of the mercy which that condition may bring you, and let it be your study how to get it sanctified to your good. If men understood and believed that God doth dispose of all for the best, and make them poor to do them good, and considered what that good is which poverty may do them, and made it their chief care to turn it thus to their gain, they would not find it so intolerable a thing, as to seek to cure it by fraud or thievery. Think what a mercy it is, that you are saved from those temptations to over-love the world, which the rich are undone by. And that you are not under those temptations to intemperance, and excess, and pride as they are: and that you have such powerful helps for the mortification of the flesh, and victory over the deceiving world. Improve your poverty, and you will escape these sins.
Direct. XI. If you are but willing to escape this sin, you may easily do it by a free confession to those whom you have wronged or are tempted to wrong. He that is not willing to forbear his sin, is guilty before God, though he do forbear it. But if you are truly willing, it is easy to abstain. Do not say, that you are willing till necessity pincheth you or you see the bait; for if you are so, you may easily prevent it at that time when you are willing. If ever you are willing indeed, take that opportunity, and if you have wronged any man, go and confess it to him (in the manner I shall afterwards direct). And this will easily prevent it; for shame will engage you, and self-preservation will engage him to take more heed of you. Or, if you have not yet wronged any, but are strongly tempted to it, if you have no other sufficient remedy, go tell him, or some other fit person, that you are tempted to steal and to deceive in such or such a manner, and desire them not to trust you. If you think the shame of such a confession too dear a price to save you from the sin, pretend no more that you are truly willing to forbear it, or that ever you did unfeignedly repent of it.