© 1994-2017, Scott Sperling
  True and False Service “There be many things that move, and yet their motion is not an argument of life.  A windmill when the wind serveth, moveth, and moveth very nimbly too; yet this cannot be said to be a living creature. No, it moveth only by an external cause, by an artificial contrivance.  So it is also if a man see another man move, and move very fast, in those things which of themselves are the ways of God:  you shall see him move as fast to hear a sermon as his neighbor doth; is as forward and hasty to thrust himself a guest to the Lord's table (when God hath not bid him) as any.  Now, the question is, what principle sets him a-work?  If it be an inward principle of life, out of a sincere affection and love to God and His ordinances, it argueth that man hath some life of grace; but if it be some wind that bloweth on him—the wind of state, the wind of law, the wind of danger, of penalty, the wind of fashion or custom—to do as his neighbors do; if these or the like be the things that draw him thither, this is no argument of life at all: it is a cheap thing, it is a counterfeit and dead piece of service.” -- Martin Day (ca. 1660)            
Made with Xara © 1994-2017, Scott Sperling
  True and False Service “There be many things that move, and yet their motion is not an argument of life.  A windmill when the wind serveth, moveth, and moveth very nimbly too; yet this cannot be said to be a living creature. No, it moveth only by an external cause, by an artificial contrivance.  So it is also if a man see another man move, and move very fast, in those things which of themselves are the ways of God:  you shall see him move as fast to hear a sermon as his neighbor doth; is as forward and hasty to thrust himself a guest to the Lord's table (when God hath not bid him) as any.  Now, the question is, what principle sets him a- work?  If it be an inward principle of life, out of a sincere affection and love to God and His ordinances, it argueth that man hath some life of grace; but if it be some wind that bloweth on him—the wind of state, the wind of law, the wind of danger, of penalty, the wind of fashion or custom—to do as his neighbors do; if these or the like be the things that draw him thither, this is no argument of life at all: it is a cheap thing, it is a counterfeit and dead piece of service.” -- Martin Day (ca. 1660)