dangerous thing indeed to speak to, lest young tradesmen, treading on
the brink of duty on one side, and duty on the other side, should
pretend to neglect their duty to heaven, on pretence that I say they
must not neglect their shops. But let them do me justice, and they will
do themselves no injury; nor do I fear that my arguing on this point
should give them any just cause to go wrong; if they will go wrong, and
plead my argument for their excuse, it must be by their abusing my
directions, and taking them in pieces, misplacing the words, and
disjointing the sense, and by the same method they may make blasphemy
of the Scripture.

The duties of life, I say, must not interfere with one another, must not
jostle one another out of the place, or so break in as to be prejudicial
to one another. It is certainly the duty of every Christian to worship
God, to pay his homage morning and evening to his Maker, and at all
other proper seasons to behave as becomes a sincere worshipper of God;
nor must any avocation, either of business or nature, however necessary,
interfere with this duty, either in public or in private. This is
plainly asserting the necessity of the duty, so no man can pretend to
evade that.

But the duties of nature and religion also have such particular seasons,
and those seasons so proper to themselves, and so stated, as not to
break in or trench upon one another, that we are really without excuse,
if we let any one be pleaded for the neglect of the other. Food, sleep,
rest, and the necessities of nature, are either reserved for the night,
which is appointed for man to rest, or take up so little room in the
day, that they can never be pleaded in bar of either religion or
employment.

He, indeed, who will sleep when he should work, and perhaps drink when
he should sleep, turns nature bottom upwards, inverts the appointment of
providence, and must account to himself, and afterwards to a higher
judge, for the neglect.

The devil--if it be the devil that tempts, for I would not wrong Satan
himself--plays our duties often one against another; and to bring us, if
possible, into confusion in our conduct, subtly throws religion out of
its place, to put it in our way, and to urge us to a breach of what we
ought to do: besides this subtle tempter--for, as above, I won't charge
it all upon the devil--we have a great hand in it ourselves; but let it
be who it will, I say, this subtle tempter hurries the well-meaning
tr