§. Sect. 3 That wee may lawfully con∣ferre of morall and ciuill things.
And thus we are in cōpany to frame our speeches vpon all occasions, that they may tend to the spirituall edification of our brethren. But though such conference in companie is to bee performed as most excellent, yet may such speeches haue their due place, which concerne morall and ciuill things, about any subiect which may better and improue our knowledge for the seruice of the Church or common wealth, or mutuall good duties to bee performed towards one another; about the health and wel-fare of our bodies, or our common affaires and businesses which we haue in the world one with another, and such matters as concerne the good of our e∣states, of which wee may lawfully aduize and take counsell one of another, for the better directing and managing of all our actions and endeuours. Yea sometime our speeches and conferences may tend to honest delight, and to the mutuall comfort and refreshing of one another, that our spi∣rits being cheered and reuiued, wee may bee the better fitted for duties of an higher nature. For howsoeuer it be lawfull sometimes to vse speech∣es tending to our worldly profit and delight, yet let vs carefully take heede, that wee be not (like most men at their meetings) wholly taken vp with them, talking of nothing else but of carnall and earthly things; but seeing God is the Author and giuer of this excellent faculty of speech, let our tongues bee chiefely imployed (when wee are at our free choyse, and not straightened in our desired liberty by our earthly necessities that presse vpon vs) in such conferences as tend to Gods glory, and the mutuall edification one of another; that so it may appeare that wee are pilgrims on earth, and Citizens of heauen, when as our conuersation is about hea∣uenly matters; and that we are free Burgesses of the new Ierusalem, when as we speake the language of Canaan.