alone, nor barren thoughts, unless your hearts be also employed in a course of duty, and holy breathings after God, or motion towards him, or in the sincere internal part of the duty which you perform to men: Justice and Love are graces which you must still exercise towards all that you have to deal with in the world. Love is called the fulfilling of the law, because the Love of God and man is the soul of every outward duty, and a cause that will bring forth these as its effects. Direct. XIII. Keep up a high esteem of time; and be every day more careful that you lose none of your time, than you are that you lose none of your gold or silver: and if vain recreations, dressings, feastings, idle talk, unprofitable company, or sleep, be any of them temptations to rob you of any of your time, accordingly heighten your watchfulness and firm resolutions against them.' Be not more careful to escape thieves and robbers, than to escape that person or action, or course of life, that would rob you of any of your time. And for the redeeming of time, especially see, not only that you be never idle, but also that you be doing the greatest good that you can do, and prefer not a less before a greater. Direct. XIV. Eat and drink with temperance, and thankfulness for health and not for unprofitable pleasure.' For quantity, most carefully avoid excess; for many exceed, for one that taketh too little. Never please your appetite in meat or drink, when it tendeth to the detriment of your health. "It is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink. Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy hearts." "Woe to thee, O land when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning. Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness." Then must poorer men also take heed of intemperance and excess. Let your diet incline rather to the coarser than the finer sort, and to the cheaper than the costly sort, and to sparing abstinence than to fulness. I would advise rich men especially, to write in great letters on the walls of their dining rooms or parlours these two sentences: BEHOLD THIS e Eccles. x. 16, 17. WAS THE INIQUITY OF SODOM; PRIDE, FULNESS OF BREAD, AND ABUNDANCE OF IDLENESS WAS IN HER, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy f." "There was a certain rich man which was CLOTHED IN PURPLE AND SILK AND FARED SUMPTUOUSLY every day. Son remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things "." Paul wept when he mentioned them, "whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things, being enemies to the cross h." O live not after the flesh, lest ye die i." Direct. xv. If any temptation prevail against you, and you fall into any sins besides common infirmities, presently lament it, and confess not only to God, but to men, when confession conduceth more to good than harm; and rise by a true and thorough repentance, immediately without delay.' Spare not the flesh, and daub not over the breach, and do not by excuses palliate the sore, but speedily rise whatever it cost for it will certainly cost you more to go on or to remain impenitent. And for your ordinary infirmities, make not too light of them, but confess them, and daily strive against them; and examine what strength you get against them, and do not aggravate them by impenitence and contempt. Direct. xvI. Every day look to the special duties of your several relations: whether you are husbands, wives, parents, children, masters, servants, pastors, people, magistrates, subjects, remember that every relation hath its special duty, and its advantage for the doing of some good; and that God requireth your faithfulness in these, as well as in any other duty. And that in these a man's sincerity. or hypocrisy is usually more tried, than in any other parts of our lives. Direct. XVII. In the evening return to the worshipping of God, in the family and in secret as was directed for the morning.' And do all with seriousness as in the sight of God, and in the sense of your necessities; and make it your delight to receive instructions from the holy Scripture, and praise God, and call upon his name through Christ. Direct. XVIII. If you have any extraordinary impediments one day to hinder you in your duty to God and man, make it up by diligence the next; and if you have any extraordinary helps, make use of them, and let them not overslip you.' As, if it be a lecture-day, or a funeral sermon, or you have opportunity of converse with men of extraordinary worth; or if it be a day of humiliation or thanksgiving; it may be expected that you get a double measure of strength by such extraordinary helps. Direct. xIx. Before you betake yourselves to sleep, it is ordinarily a safe and needful course, to take a review of the actions and mercies of the past day; that you may be specially thankful for all special mercies, and humbled for your sins, and may renew your repentance and resolutions for obedience, and may examine yourselves, whether your souls grow better or worse, and whether sin go down, and grace increase, and whether you are any better prepared for sufferings and death.' But yet waste not too much time in the ordinary accounts of your life, as those that neglect their duty while they are examining themselves how they perform it, and perplexing themselves with the long perusal of their ordinary infirmities. But by a general (yet sincere) repentance, bewail your unavoidable daily failings, and have recourse to Christ for a daily pardon and renewed grace; and in case of extraordinary sins or mercies, be sure to be extraordinarily humbled or thankful. Some think it best to keep a daily catalogue or diurnal of their sins and mercies. If you do so, be not too particular in the enumeration of those that are the matter of every day's return; for it will be but a temptation to waste your time, and neglect greater duty, and to make you grow customary and senseless of such sins and mercies, when the same come to be recited over and over from day to day. But let the common mercies be more generally recorded, and the common sins generally confessed (yet neither of them therefore slighted): and let the extraordinary mercies, and greater sins, have a more particular observation. And yet remember, that sins and mercies, which it is not fit that others be acquainted with, are more safely committed to memory than to writing : and methinks, a well humbled and a thankful heart, should not easily let the memory of them slip. Direct. xx. When you compose yourselves to sleep, again commit yourselves to God through Christ, and crave his protection, and close up the day with some holy exercise of faith and love.' And if you are persons that must needs lie waking in the night, let your meditations be holy, and exercised upon that subject that is most profitable to your souls. But I cannot give this as an ordinary direction, because that the body must have sleep, or else it will be unfit for labour, and all thoughts of holy things must be serious; and all serious thoughts will hinder sleep, and those that wake in the night, do wake unwillingly, and would not put themselves out of hopes of sleep, which such serious meditations would do. Nor can I advise you (ordinarily) to rise in the night to prayer, as the papists' votaries do. For this is but to serve God with irrational and hurtful ceremony: and it is a wonder how far such men will go in ceremony, that will not be drawn to a life of love and spiritual worship: unless men did irrationally place the service of God in praying this hour rather than another, they might see how improvidently and sinfully they lose their time, in twice dressing and undressing, and in the intervals of their sleep, when they might spare all that time, by sitting up the longer, or rising the earlier, for the same employment. Besides what tendency it hath to the destruction of health, by cold and interruption of necessary rest; when God approveth not of the disabling of the body, or destroying our health, or shortening life (no more than of murder or cruelty to others); but only calleth us to deny our unnecessary, sensual delights, and use the body so as it may be most serviceable to the soul and him. I have briefly laid together these twenty Directions for the right spending of every day, that those that need them, and cannot remember the larger more particular Directions, may at least get these few engraven on their minds, and make them the daily practice of their lives; which if you will sincerely do, you cannot conceive how much it will conduce to the holiness, fruitfulness, and quietness of your lives, and to your peaceful and comfortable death. CHAPTER XVIII. Tit. 1. Directions for the holy spending of the Lord's Day in Families. Direct. 1. BE well resolved against the cavils of those carnal men, that would make you believe that the holy spending of the Lord's day is a needless thinga. For the name whether it shall be called the Christian sabbath, is not much worth contending about: undoubtedly the name of The Lord's Day,' is that which was given it by the Spirit of God, and the ancient Christians, who sometimes called it, The Sabbath,' by allusion, as they used the names, Sacrifice and Altar: the question is not so much of the name as the thing; whether we ought to spend the day in holy exercises, without unnecessary divertisements? And to settle your consciences in this, you have all these evidences at hand. 1. By the confession of all, you have the law of nature to tell you, that God must be openly worshipped, and that some set time should be appointed for his worship. And, whether the fourth commandment be formally in force or abrogated, yet it is commonly agreed on that the parity of reason, and general equity of it, serveth to acquaint us, that it is the will of God that one day in seven be the least that we destinate to this use; this being then judged a meet proportion by God himself, (even from the creation, and on the account of commemorating the creation,) and Christians being no less obliged to take as large a space of time, who have both the creation and redemption to commemorate, and a more excellent manner of worship to perform. 2. It is confessed by all Christians that Christ rose on the first day of the week, and appeared to his congregated disciples on that day, and poured out the Holy Ghost on them on that day, and that the apostles appointed, and the Christian churches observed, their assemblies and communion ordinarily on that day; and that these apostles were filled with the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, that a Since the writing of this, I have published a Treatise of the Lord's Day. ́ |