A Christian Directory
Quest. 11. Is not the case of Sodomy or Buggery a ground for warrantable divorce, as well as Adultery?
Answ. Yes, and seemeth to be included in the very word itself in the Text, Matth. 5. 31, 32. which signifieth uncleanness: or at least is fully implied in the reason of it. See Grotius ibid. also of this.
Quest. 12. What if both parties commit Adultery? may either of them put away the other, or depart; or rather must they forgive each other?
Answ. If they do it both at once, they do both forfeit the liberty of seeking any compensation for the injury; because the injury is equal (however some would give the advantage to the man): But if one commit Adultery first and the other after: Then either the last offender knew of the first or not? If not, then it seemeth all one as if it had been done at once. But if, yea, then they did it either on a supposition of the dissolution of the matrimonial obligation, as being loosed from the first Adulterer, or else upon a purpose of continuing in the first relation: In the later case, it is still all one as if it had been done by them at once, and it is a forfeiture of any satisfaction: But in the former case, though the last adulterer did sin, yet being before set at liberty, it doth not renew the Matrimonial obligation: But yet, if the first offender desire the continuance of it, and the return of the first-injured party; shame and conscience of their own sin, will much rebuke them, if they plead that injury for continuance of the separation.
Quest. 13. But what if one do purposely commit adultery, to be separated from the other?
Answ. It is in the others power and choice, whether to be divorced and depart, or not, as they find the good or evil consequents preponderate.
Quest. 14. Doth not Infidelity dissolve the Relation or obligation; seeing there is no communion between light and darkness, a believer and an Infidel?
Answ. It maketh it unlawful for a Believer to marry an Infidel (except in case of true necessity); Because they can have no Communion in Religion. But it nullifieth not a marriage already made, nor maketh it lawful to depart or divorce: Because they may have mere conjugal Communion still. As the Apostle purposely determineth the case, in 1 Cor. 7.
Quest. 15. Doth not the Desertion of one party, disoblige the other?
Answ. 1. It must be considered what is true Desertion: 2. Whether it be a Desertion of th • Relation itself for continuance, or only a temporary desertion of co-habitation, or congress. 3. What the temper and state of the deserted party is. 1. It is sometimes easy, and sometimes hard to discern which is the deserting party. If the Wife go away from the Husband unwarrantably, though she require him to follow her, and say that she doth not desert him, yet it may be taken for a desertion, because it is the man who is to rule and choose the habitation. But if the man go away, and the woman refuse to follow him, it is not he that is therefore the deserter.
Quest. But what if the man have not sufficient cause to go away, and the woman hath great and urgent reasons not to go? As suppose that the man will go away in hatred of an able Preacher, and good company, and the woman if she follow him, must leave all those helps, and go among ignorant, profane, heretical persons, or Infidels, which is the deserter then?
Answ. If she be one that is either like to do good to the Infidels, Heretics, or bad persons whom they must converse with, she may suppose that God calleth her to receive good by doing good: or if she be a confirmed wellsetled Christian, and not very like, either by infection, or by want of helps, to be unsettled and miscarry, it seemeth to me the safest way to follow her Husband. She must lose indeed God's public Ordinances by following him: But it is not imputable to her, as being out of her choice: and she must lose the benefits, and neglect the duties of the Conjugal Ordinance, if she do not follow him. But if she be a person under such weaknesses, as make her remove apparently dangerous as to her perseverance and salvation, and her Husband will by no means be prevailed with to change his mind, the case then is very difficult what is her duty, and who is the deserter? Nay, if he did but lead her into a Country where her life were like to be taken away, (as under the Spanish Inquisition), unless her suffering were like to be as serviceable to Christ as her life. Indeed these cases are so difficult, that I will not decide them: The inconveniencies, (or mischiefs rather) are great which way soever she take: But I most incline to judge as followeth: viz. It is considerable first, what Marriage obligeth her to, simply of its own nature; and what it may do next, by any superadded Contract, or by the Law or Custom of the Land, or any other accident. As to the first, it seemeth to me, that every ones obligation is so much first to God, and then to their own souls and lives; that marriage as such, which is for Mutual help, as a Means to higher Ends, doth not oblige her to forsake all the Communion of Saints, and the place or Country where God is lawfully worshipped, and to lose all the helps of public Worship, and to expose her soul both to spiritual famine and infection, to the apparent hazard of her salvation (and perhaps bring her children into the same misery;) nor hath God given her Husband any power to do her so much wrong, nor is the Marriage-Covenant to be interpreted to intend it. But what any human Law or Contract, or other accident which is of greater public consequence, may do more than Marriage of itself, is a distinct Case, which must have a particular discussion.
Quest. But what if the Husband would only have her follow him, to the forsaking of her estate, and undoing herself and children in the world (as in the case of Galeacius Caracciolus Marquess of Vicum; ) yea, and if it were without just cause?
Answ. If it be for greater spiritual gain (as in his case) she is bound to follow him: But if it be apparently foolish, to the undoing of her and her children without any cause, I see not that Marriage simply obligeth a Woman so to follow a fool in beggary, or out of a Calling, or to her ruin: But if it be at all a controvertible Case, whether the Cause be just or not, then the Husband being Governor must be Judge. The Laws of the Land are supposed to be just, which allow a Woman by Trustees to secure some part of her former Estate from her Husbands disposal: Much more may she before hand secure herself and children from being ruined by his willful folly: But she can by no Contract, except herself from his true Government.
Yet still she must consider, whether she can live continently in his absence: otherwise the greatest sufferings must be endured, to avoid incontinency.
2. Moreover, in all these cases, a temporary removal may be further followed, than a perpetual transmigration, because it hath fewer evil consequents.
And if either party renounce the Relation itself, it is a fuller desertion, and clearer discharge of the other party, than a mere removal is.
Quest. 16. What if a Man or Wife know that the other in hatred doth really intend by poison or other murder, to take away their life? May they not depart?
Answ. They may not do it upon a groundless or rash surmise; nor upon a danger which by other lawful means may be avoided (As by Vigilancy, or the Magistrate, or especially by love and duty). But in plain danger, which is not otherwise like to be avoided, I doubt not, but it may be done and ought. For it is a duty to preserve our own lives as well as our neighbors: And when Marriage is contracted for mutual help, it is naturally implied, that they shall have no power to deprive one another of life: (However some barbarous Nations have given men power of the lives of their Wives.) And killing is the grossest kind of Desertion, and a greater injury and violation of the Marriage-Covenant than Adultery; and may be prevented by avoiding the murderers presence; if that way be necessary. None of the Ends of Marriage can be attained, where the hatred is so great.
Quest. 17. If there be but a fixed hatred of each other, is it inconsistent with the Ends of Marriage? And is parting lawful in such a case?
Answ. The injuring party is bound to Love and not to separate: and can have no liberty by his or her sin. And to say, I cannot love, or my Wife or Husband is not amiable, is no sufficient excuse: Because every person hath somewhat that is amiable, if it be but human nature: And that should have been foreseen before your choice. And as it is no excuse to a drunkard to say, I cannot leave my drink; so it is none to an adulterer or hater of another, to say, I cannot love them: For that is but to say, I am so wicked, that my heart or will is against my duty. But the innocent parties case is harder (though commonly both parties are faulty, and therefore both are obliged to return to Love, and not to separate.) But if hatred proceed not to adultery, or murder, or intolerable injuries, you must remember that Marriage is not a Contract for years, but for life, and that it is possible that hatred may be cured (how unlikely soever it may be): And therefore you must do your duty, and wait, and pray, and strive by Love and Goodness to recover Love, and then stay to see what God will do: For mistakes in your choice will not warrant a separation.
Quest. 18. What if a Woman have a Husband that will not suffer her to read the Scriptures, nor go to God's Worship public or private, or that so beateth or abuseth her, as that it cannot be expected that human nature should be in such a case kept fit for any holy action: or if a man have a Wife that will scold at him when he is praying or instructing his family, and make it impossible to him to serve God with freedom, or peace and comfort?
Answ. The Woman must (at necessary seasons, though not when she would) both read the Scriptures, and Worship God, and suffer patiently what is inflicted on her: Martyrdom may be as comfortably suffered from a Husband, as from a Prince. But yet if neither her own Love, and duty, and patience, nor friends persuasion, nor the Magistrates justice, can free her from such inhumane cruelty, as quite disableth her for her duty to God and man, I see not but she may depart from such a Tyrant. But the man hath more means to restrain his Wife from beating him, or doing such intolerable things: Either by the Magistrate, or by denying her what else she might have, or by his own violent restraining her, as belongeth to a Conjugal Ruler, and as circumstances shall direct a prudent man. But yet in case that unsuitableness or sin be so great, that after long trial, there is no likelihood of any other co-habitation, but what will tend to their spiritual hurt and calamity, it is their lesser sin to live asunder by mutual consent.
Quest. 19. May one part from a Husband or Wife that hath the Leprosy, or that hath the French Pox by their adulterous practices; when the innocent persons life is endangered by it.
Answ. If it be an innocent persons disease, the other must co-habit, and tenderly cherish and comfort the diseased; yea, so as somewhat to hazard their own lives; but not so as apparently to cast them away, upon a danger not like to be avoided, unless the others life, or some greater good be like to be purchased by it.
But if it be the Pox of an Adulterer, the innocent party is at liberty by the others adultery: and the saving of their own lives, doth add thereto. But without Adultery, the disease alone will not excuse them from co-habitation, though it may from Congress.
Quest. 20. Who be they that may or may not marry again when they are parted?
Answ. 1. They that are released by divorce upon the others Adultery, Sodomy, &c. may marry again. 2. The case of all the rest is harder. They that part by consent, to avoid mutual hurt, may not marry again: Nor the party that departeth for self-preservation, or for the preservation of estate, or children, or comforts, or for liberty of Worship, as aforesaid: Because it is but an intermission of Conjugal fruition, and not a total dissolution of the Relation: And the innocent party must wait to see whether there be any hope of a return. Yea, Christ seemeth to resolve it, Matth. 5. 31, 32. that he is an Adulterer that marrieth the innocent party that is put away: because the other living in adultery, their first contracted Relation seemeth to be still in being. But Grotius and some others think, that Christ meaneth this only of the man that over-hastily marrieth the innocent divorced Woman, before it be seen whether he will repent and reassume her: But how can that hold, if the Husband after Adultery free her? May it not therefore be meant, that the Woman must stay unmarried in hope of his reconciliation, till such time as his adultery with his next married Wife doth disoblige her. But then it must be taken as a Law for Christians: For the Jew that might have many Wives, disobligeth not one by taking another.
A short desertion must be endured in hope: But in case of a very long, or total desertion or rejection, if the injured party should have an untameable lust, the case is difficult. I think there are few but by just means may abstain. But if there be any that cannot (after all means) without such trouble as overthroweth their peace, and plainly hazardeth their continence, I dare not say that Marriage in that case is unlawful to the innocent.
Quest. 1. IS it lawful to suffer or tolerate, yea, or contribute to the matter of known sin in a family, ordinarily, in Wife, Child or Servant: And consequently in any other Relations.
Answ. In this some lukewarm men are apt to run into the extreme of Remissness; and some inexperienced young men, that never had families, into the extreme of censorious rigor, as not knowing what they talk of.
1. It is not Lawful either in Family, Commonwealth, Church, or anywhere, to allow of sin, nor to tolerate it, or leave it uncured, when it is truly in our power to cure it. 2. So that all the question is, When it is, or is not in our power? Concerning which, I shall answer by some instances.
I. It is not in our Power to do that which we are Naturally unable to do. No Law of God bindeth us to Impossibilities. And Natural Impotency here is found in these several cases. 1. When we are overmatcht in strength; when Wife, Children or Servants are too strong for the Master of the house, so that he cannot correct them, nor remove them. A King is not bound to punish rebellious or offending Subjects, when they are too strong for him, and he is unable; either by their Numbers or other advantages. If a Pastor censure an offender, and all the Church be against the censure, he cannot procure it executed, but must acquiesce in having done his part, and leave their guilt upon themselves.
2. When the thing to be done is an Impossibility; at least Moral. As to hinder all the persons of a Family, Church or Kingdom from ever sinning: It is not in their own power so far to reform themselves: Much less in a Ruler so far to reform them: Even as to ourselves, Perfection is but desired in this life, but not attained: Much less for others.
3. When the principal causes co-operate not with us, and we are but subservient Moral Causes: We can but persuade men to Repent, Believe, and Love God and goodness. We cannot save men without and against themselves. Their hearts are out of our reach: Therefore in all these cases we are naturally unable to hinder sin?
II. It is not in our power to do anything which God forbiddeth us. That which is sinful is to be accounted out of our power in this sense. To cure the sin of a Wife, by such cruelty or harshness as is contrary to our Conjugal Relation, and to the office of necessary Love, is out of our power, because forbidden, as contrary to our duty; and so of other.
III. Those actions are out of our power, which are acts of higher authority than we have. A subject cannot reform by such actions as are proper to the Sovereign, nor a Lay-man by actions proper to the Pastor, for want of Authority. So a Schoolmaster cannot do that which is proper to a Patient: Nor the Master of a family that which is proper to the Magistrate (as to punish with death, &c. )
IV. We have not power to do that which a Superior power forbiddeth us (unless it be that which God indisponsibly commandeth us) The Wife may not correct a Child or Servant, or turn him away, when the Husband forbiddeth it. Nor the Master of a family so punish a sin, as the King and Laws forbid on the account of the public interest.
V. We have not Power to do that for the cure of sin, which is like to do more hurt than good; yea, perhaps to prove a perni • ious mischief. If my correcting a servant, would make him kill me, or set my house on fire, I may not do it. If my sharp reproof is like to do more hurt, or less good than milder dealing. If I have reason to believe that correction will make a servant worse, I am not to use it; because we have our power to edification, and not to destruction. God hath not tied us just to speak such and such words, or to use this or that correction, but to use reproofs and corrections only in that time, measure and manner as true reason telleth us, is likest to attain their end. To do it i • it would do never so much hurt, with a fiat Iustitia etsi pereat Mundus, is to be Right • ous overmuch.
Yea, great and heinous sins may be endured in families sometimes, to avoid a greater hurt, and because there is no other means to cure them. For instance, A Wife may be guilty of notorious Pride, and of malignant d • riding the exercises of Religion, and of railing, lying, slandering, back-biting, covetousness, swearing, cursing, &c. and the Husband be necessitated to bear it; not so far as not to reprove it, but so far as not to correct her, much less cure her; Divines use to say, that it is unlawful for a man to beat his Wife. But the reason is not, that he wanteth Authority to do it: But, 1. Because he is by his relation obliged to a Life of Love with her; and therefore must so Rule, as tendeth not to destroy Love: And 2. Because it may often do otherwise more hurt to herself and the family than good. It may make her furious and desperate, and make her contemptible in the family, and diminish the reverence of inferiors, both to Wife and Husband, for living so uncomely a life.
Quest. But is there any case in which a man may silently bear the sins of a Wife, or other inferior without reproof, or urging them to amend?
Answ. Yes: In case, 1. That Reproof hath been tried to the utmost: 2. And it is most evident by full experience, that it is like to do a great deal more hurt than good.
The Rule given by Christ, extendeth as well to families, as to others; not to cast Pearls before Swine, nor to give that which is holy to dogs: because it is more to the discomposure of a man's own p • ace, to have a Wife turn again, and all to rend him, than a stranger. As the Church may cease admonishing a sinner after a certain time of obstinacy, when experience hath ended their present hopes of bringing the person to Repentance, and thereupon may excommunicate him: so a Husband may be brought to the same despair with a Wife, and may be disobliged from ordinary reproof, though the nearness of the Relation forbid him to eject her. And in such a case where the family and neighbourhood knoweth the intractableness and obstinacy of the Wife, it is no scandal, nor sign of approbation or neglect of duty, for a man to be silent at her sin; Because they look upon her as at present incorrigible by that means: And it is the sharpest Reproof to such a one, to be unreproved, and to be let alone in her sin; as it is God's greatest judgment on a sinner, to leave him to himself, and say, Be filthy still.
And there are some Women whose Phantasies and Passions are naturally so strong, as that it seemeth to me that in many cases they have not so much as Natural Free-will or power to restrain them: but if in all other cases they acted as in some, I should take them for mere Bruites that had no true reason: They seem naturally necessitated to do as they do. I have known the long professi • n of pi • ty, which in other respects hath seemed sincere, to consist in a Wife, with such unmastered furious passion, that she could not before strangers forbear throwing what was in her hand in her Husbands face, or thrusting the burning Candle into his face; and slandering him of the filthiest sins; and when the passion was over, confess all to be false, and her rage to be the reason of her speech and actions: And the man though a Minister, of more than ordinary wit and strength, yet fain to endure all without returns of violence till her death. They that never knew such a case by trial, can tell how all might be cured easily: but so cannot they that are put upon the Cure.
And there are some other women of the same uncurable strength of Imagination and Passion, who in other respects are very pious and prudent too, and too wise and conscionable to wrong their Husbands with their hands or tongues, who yet are utterly unable to forbear an injury of the highest nature to themselves; but are so utterly impatient of being crossed of their wills, that it would in all likelihood cast them into Melancholy or Madness, or some mortal sickness: And no reason signifieth anything to abate such passions. In case of Pride, or some sinful custom, they are not able to bear reproof, and to be hindered in the sin, without apparent danger of distraction or death. I suppose th • se cases are but few: but what to do in such cases when they come, is the present question.
Nay, the Question is yet harder, Whether to avoid such inconvenience, one may contribute towards another's sin, by affording them the means of committing it?
Answ. 1. No man may contribute to sin as sin, formally considered. 2. No man may contribute to another's sin, for sinful ends, nor in a manner forbidden and sinful in himself. 3. No man may contribute to another's sin, when he is not naturally or morally necessitated to it, but might forbear it.
But as it is consistent with the holiness of God to contribute those Natural and providential mercies, which he knoweth men will abuse to sin, so is it in some cases with us his creatures to one another. God giveth all men their lives and time, their Reason and Free-will, which he knoweth they will abuse to sin: He giveth them that meat, and drink, and riches, and health, and vigor of senses, which are the usual means of the sin and undoing of the world.
Object. But God is not under any Law or obligation as we are.
Answ. His own perfection is above all Law, and will not consist with a consent or acting of anything that is contrary to holiness and perfection. But this I confess, that many things are contrary to the order and duty of the creature, which are not contrary to the place and perfection of the Creator.
1. When man doth generate man, he knowingly contributeth to a sinful nature and life: For he knoweth that it is unavoidable, and that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And yet he sinneth not by so doing, because he is not bound to prevent sin by the forbearance of Generation.
2. When one advanceth another to the office of Magistracy, Ministry, &c. knowing that he will sin in it, he contributeth accidentally to his sin: But so as he is not culpable for so doing.
3. A Physician hath to do with a froward and intemperate Patient, who will please his appetite, or else if he be denied his passion will increase his disease and kill him. In this case he may lawfully say, Let him take a little, rather than kill him; though by so doing he contribute to his sin. Because it is but a not-hindering that which he cannot hinder without a greater evil. The sin is only his that chooseth it.
And it is specially to be noted, that that which Physically is a positive act and contributing to the Matter of the sin, yet Morally is but a not-hindering the sin by such a withholding of materials as we are not obliged to withhold (which is the case also of God's contributing to the matter of sin). If the Physician in such a case, or the Parent of a sick and froward Child, do actually give them that which they sin in desiring, that Giving is indeed such a furthering of the sin as cannot be lawfully forborne lest we do hurt, and therefore is morally but a not hindering it, when we cannot hinder it.
4. If a man have a Wife so proud that she will go mad, or disturb him and his family by rage, if her pride be not gratified by some sinful fashions, curiosities or excesses, if he give her money or materials to do it with, to prevent her distraction, it is but like the foresaid case, of the Physician or Parents of a sick Child.
In these cases I will give you a Rule to walk by for yourselves, and a caution how to judge of others.
1. Be sure that you leave nothing undone that you can lawfully do, for the cure and prevention of others sins; And that it be not for want of zeal against sin, through indifference or slothfulness, that you forbear to hinder it, but merely through disability. 2. See that in comparing the evil that is like to follow the Impedition, you do not mistake, but be sure that it be indeed a greater evil which you avoid by not hindering that particular sin. 3. See therefore that your own caanal interest weigh not with you more than there is cause; and that you account not mere fleshly suffering a greater evil than sin. 4. But yet that dishonor which may be cast upon Religion, and the Good of souls which may be hindered by a bodily suffering, may come into the comparison. 5. And your own duties to men's bodies (as to save men's lives or health or peace) is to be numbered with spiritual things, and the materials of a sin may in some cases be administered for the discharge of such a duty. If you knew a man would die if you give him not hot water, and he will be drunk if you do give it him, In this case, you do but your duty, and he commits the sin: You do that which is good and are not bound to forbear it, because he will turn it to sin, unless you see that the hurt by that sin is like to be so great (besides the sin itself) as to discharge you from the duty of doing good.
2. As to others, 1. Put them on to their duty and spare not. 2. But censure them not for the sins of their families, till you are acquainted with all the case. It's usual with rash and carnal censurers, to cry out of some godly Ministers or Gentlemen, that their Wives are as proud, and their Children and Servants as bad as others. But are you sure that it is in their power to remedy it? Malice and rashness judge at a distance of things which men understand not, and sin in speaking against sin.
Quest. 2. IF a Gentleman, e. g. of 500. or 1000. or 2000. or 3000. li. per annum, could spare honestly half his yearly rents, for his Children and for charitable uses, and his wife be so proud and prodigal that she will waste it all in house-keeping and excesses, and will rage, be unquiet or go mad if she be hindered, what is a man's duty in such a case?
Answ. It is but an instance of the fore-mentioned case, and must thence be answered. 1. It is supposed that she is uncurable by all wise and rational means of persuasion. 2. He is wisely to compare the greatness of the cvil that will come by crossing her, with the good th •• may come by the improvement of his estate, and the forbearance of those excesses. If her rage or distraction or unquietness were like by any accident to do more hurt, than his estate may do good, he might take himself disabled from hindering the sin: And though he give her the money which she mis-spendeth, it is not sinning, but only not hindering sin when he is unable. 3. Ordinarily some small or tolerable degree of sinful waste and excess may be tolerated to avoid such mischiefs as else would follow: but not too much. And though no just measure can be assigned, at what rate a man may lawfully purchase his own peace, and consequently his liberty to serve God, or at what rate he may save his Wife from madness, or some mortal mischiefs of her discontent, yet the case must be resolved by such considerations; And a prudent man that knoweth what is like to be the consequent on both sides may and must accordingly determine it. 4. But ordinarily the life, health or preservation of so proud, luxurious, and passionate a woman, is not worth the saving at so dear a rate, as the wasting of a considerable estate, which might be used to relieve a multitude of the poor, and perhaps to save the lives of many that are worthier to live. And, 1. A man's duty to relieve the poor and provide for his family is so great. 2. And the account that all men must give of the use of their Talents is so strict, that it must be a great reason indeed, that must allow him to give way to very great wastefulness. And unless there be somewhat extraordinary in the case, it were better deal with such a Woman as a Bedlam, and if she will be mad, to use her as the mad are used, than for a steward of God to suffer the Devil to be served with his masters goods.
Lastly, I must charge the Reader to remember, that both these cases are very rare; and it is but few Women that are so liable to so great mischiefs, which may not be prevented at cheaper rates; And therefore that the Indulgence given in these decisions, is nothing to the greater part of men, nor is to be extended to ordinary Cases. But commonly men everywhere sin by omission of a stricter Government of their families, and by Eli's sinful indulgence and remissness: And though a Wife must be Governed as a Wife, and a Child as a Child, yet all must be governed as well as servants. And though it may be truly said, that a man cannot hinder that sin, which he cannot hinder but by sin, or by contributing to a greater hurt, yet it is to be concluded, that every man is bound to hinder sin whenever he is able lawfully to hinder it.
And by the same measures Tolerations, or not-hindering Errors and sins about Religion in Church and Common-wealth is to be judged of: None must commit them or approve them; nor forbear any duty of their own to cure them: But that is not a duty which is destructive, which would be a duty when it were a means of edifying.
CHAP. X. The Duties of Parents for their Children.
OF how great importance the wise and holy Education of Children is, to the saving of their souls, and the comfort of the Parents, and the good of Church and State, and the happiness of the World, I have partly told you before; but no man is able fully to express: And how great that calamity is which the World is fallen into through the neglect of that duty, no heart can conceive; But they that think what a case the Heathen, Infidel, and ungodly Nations are in, and how rare true piety is grown, and how many millions must lie in Hell forever, will know so much of this inhumane negligence, as to abhor it.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Understand and lament the corrupted and miserable state of your Children, which they have derived from you: and thank fully accept the offers of a Savior for yourselves and them, and • bsolutely resign, and dedicate them to God in Christ in the sacred Covenant, and solemnize this Dedication and Covenant by their Baptism: And to this end understand the command of God for entering your Children solemnly into Covenant with him, and the Covenant-mercies belonging to them thereupon. Rom. 5. 12, 16, 17, 18. Ephes. 2. 1, 3. Gen. 17. 4, 13, 14. Deut. 29. 10, 11, 12. Rom. 11. 17, 20. Joh. 3. 3, 5. Mat. 19. 13, 14.
You cannot sincerely dedicate yourselves to God, but you must dedicate to him all that is yours, and in your power: and therefore your Children as far as they are in your power: And as Nature hath taught you your Power and your duty to enter them in their infancy into any Covenant with man, which is certainly for their good (and if they refuse the conditions when they come to age they forfeir the benefit) so nature teacheth you much more to oblige them to God for their far greater good, in case he will admit them into Covenant with him: And that he will admit them into his Covenant, (and that you ought to enter them into it ) is past doubt, in the evidence which the Scripture giveth us, that from Abraham's time till Christ it was so with all the Children of his people: Nay no man can prove that before Abraham's Time or since God had ever a Church on Earth, of which the Infants of his servants (if they had any) were not members dedicated in Covenant to God, till of late times that a few began to scruple the lawfulness of this. As it is a comfort to you, if the King would bestow upon your Infant-Children, (who were tainted by their Fathers treason) not only a full discharge from the blot of that offense, but also the titles and estates of Lord's, though they understand none of this till they come to age; so is it much more matter of comfort to you, on their behalf, that God in Christ will pardon their Original sin, and take them as his Children, and give them title to everlasting life; which are the mercies of his Covenant.
§. 2. Direct. 2. As soon as they are capable, teach them what a Covenant they are in, and what are the benefits and what the conditions, that their souls may gladly consent to it when they understand it; and you may bring them seriously to renew their Covenant with God in their own persons. But the whole order of Teaching both Children and Servants, I shall give you after by itself; and therefore shall here pass by all that, except that which is to be done more by your familiar converse, than by more solemn teaching.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Train them up in exact obedience to yourselves; and break them of their own wills. To that end, suffer them not to carry themselves unreverently or contemptuously towards you; but to keep their distance. For too much Familiarity breedeth contempt, and emboldeneth to disobedience. The common course of Parents is to please their Children so long, by letting them have what they crave, and what they will, till their wills are so used to be fulfilled, that they cannot endure to have them denied; and so can endure no Government, because they endure no crossing of their wills. To be Obedient is to renounce their own wills and be ruled by their Parents or Governors wills: To use them therefore to have their own wills, is to teach them disobedience, and harden and use them to a kind of impossibility of obeying. Tell them oft familiarly and lovingly of the excellency of obedience, and how it pleaseth God, and what need they have of Government, and how unfit they are to govern themselves; and how dangerous it is to Children to have their own wills: speak often with great disgrace of self-willedness, and stubbornness, and tell others in their hearing what hath bef • ln self-willed Children.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Make them neither too bold with you, nor too strange or fearful: and govern them no as servants, but as Children, making them perceive that you dearly love them, and that all your commands, restraints and corrections are for their good, and not merely because you will have it so. They must be ruled as Rational Creatures, that Love themselves, and those that Love them: If they perceive that you dearly love them, they will obey you the more willingly, and the easilier be brought to repent of their disobedience, and they will as well obey you in heart as in outward actions, and behind your back as before your face: And the Love of you (which must be caused by your Love to them ) must be one of the chiefest means to bring them to the Love of all that good which you commend to them: and so to form their wills sincerely to the will of God, and make them holy. For if you are too strange to them and too terrible, they will fear you only, and not much love you: And then they will love no Books, no practices, that you commend to them. But like hypocrites they will seek to please you to your face, and care not what they are in secret and behind your back • : Nay it will tempt them to loath your government, and all that good which you persuade them to, and make them like birds in a Cage, that watch for an opportunity to get away and get their liberty. They will be the more in the company of servants and idle Children, because your terror and strangeness maketh them take no delight in yours. And fear will make them liars, as oft as a lie seemeth necessary to their escape. Parents that show much love to their Children, may safely show severity when they commit a fault. For then they will see that it is their fault only that displeaseth you, and not their persons; and your Love reconcileth them to you when they are corrected: When less correction from Parents that are allway strange or angry, and show no tender love to their Children, will alienate them, and do no good. Too much boldness of Children leadeth them before you are aware, to contempt of Parents and all disobedience: And too much fear and stra • geness depriveth them of most of the benefits of your care and government: But tender love, with severity only when they do amiss, and this at a reverend convenient distance, is the only way to do them good.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Labor much to possess their hearts with the Fear of God, and a reverence of the holy Scriptures: and then whatsoever duty you command them, or whatever sin you forbid them, show them s • me plain and urgent Texts of Scripture for it: and cause them to learn them and oft repeat them; that so they may find reason and Divine authority in your commands: Till their obedience begin to be Rational and Divine, it will be but formal and hypocritical: It is Conscience that must watch them in private, when you see them not: And Conscience is God's officer and not yours; and will say nothing to them, till it speak in the name of God. This is the way to bring the Heart itself into subjection; and also to reconcile them to all your commands, when they see that they are first the commands of God: (of which more anon).
§. 6. Direct. 6. In all your speech of God and of Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Scripture, or the life to come, or of any holy duty, speak always with gravity, seriousness and reverence, as of the most great and dreadful and most sacred things: For before Children come to have any distinct und • rstanding of particulars, it is a hopeful beginning to have their hearts possessed with a general reverence and high esteem of holy matters: For that will continually awe their Consciences, and help their judgments, and settle them against prejudice and profane contempt, and be as a seed of holiness in them. For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, Psal. 111▪ 10. Prov. 9. 10. & 1. 7. And the very manner of the Parents speech and carriage, expressing great reverence to the things of God, hath a very great power to leave the like impression on a Child: Most Children of Godly Parents that ever came to good, I am persuaded can tell you this by experience, (if their Parents did their duty in this point;) that the first good that ever they felt upon their hearts, was a reverence to holy things, which the speech and carriage of their Parents taught them.
§. 7. Direct. 7. Speak always before them with great honor and praise of Holy Ministers and people, and with dispraise and loathing of every sin and of ungodly men. For this also is a thing that Children will quickly and easily receive from their Parents: Before they can understand particular doctrines, they can learn in general what kind of persons are most happy or most miserable: and they are very apt to receive such a liking or d • sl • king from their Parents judgment, which hath a great hand in all the following good or evil of their lives. If you possess them with good and honorable thoughts, of them that fear God, they will ever after be inclined to think well of them, and to dislike those that speak evil of them, and to hear such Preachers, and to w • sh themselves such Christians: so that in this and the foregoing point, it is that the first stirrings of grace in Children are ordinarily felt. And therefore on the other side, it is a most pernicious thing to Children, when they hear their Parents speak contemptuously or lightly of holy things and persons, and irreverently talk of God and Scripture and the life to come, or speak dispraisingly or scornfully of Godly Ministers, or people, or make a jest of the particular duties of a religious life: These Children are like to receive that prejudice or profane contempt into their hearts b • times, which may bolt the doors against the love of God and holiness, and make their salvation a work of much greater difficulty, and much smaller hope. And therefore still I say, that wicked Parents are the most notable servants of the Devil in all the world, and the bloodiest enemies to their Children's souls: More souls are damned by ungodly Parents (and next them by ungodly Ministers and Magistrates) than by any instruments in the world besides. And hence it is also that whole Nations are so generally carried away with enmity against the ways of God: The Heathen Nations against the true God, and the Infidel Nations against Christ, and the Papist Nations against Reformation and spiritual Worshippers: Because the Parents speak evil to the Children of all that they themselves dislike; and so possess them with the same dislike from generation to generation. Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter, Isa. 5. 20.
§. 8. Direct. 8. Let it be the principal part of your care and labor in all their education to make Holiness appear to them the most Necessary, Honorable, gainful, pleasant delightful amiable state of life; and to keep them from apprehending it either as needless, dishonorable, hurtful or uncomfortable. Especially draw them to the Love of it, by representing it as lovely. And therefore begin with that which is easiest and most grateful to them (as the History of the Scripture, and the lives of the Martyrs and other good men, and some short familiar lessons). For though in restraining them from sin, you must go to the highest step at first, and not think to draw them from it by allowing them the least degree (for every degree disposeth to more, and none is to be allowed, and a general reformation is the easiest as well as absolutely necessary). Yet in putting them upon the Practice of Religious duties, you must carry them on by degrees, and put them at first upon no more than they can bear; either upon the learning of doctrines too high and spiritual for them, or upon such duty for quality or quantity as is over-burdensome to them; For if you once turn their hearts against Religion, and make it seem a slavery and a tedious life to them, you take the course to harden them against it. And therefore all Children must not be used alike: as all stomachs must not be forced to • at alike: If you force some to take so much as to become a surfeit, they will loath that sort of meat as long as they live. I know that nature itself, as corrupt, hath already an enmity to Holiness, and I know that this enmity is not to be indulged in Children, at all: But withal I know that mis-representations of Religion, and imprudent Education is the way to increase it, and that the enmity being in the Heart, it is the change of the Mind and Love that is the overcoming of it, and not any such constraint as tendeth not to reconcile the Mind by Love. The whole skill of Parents for the Holy education of their Children, doth consist in this, to make them conceive of Holiness as the most amiable and desirable life; which is by representing it to them in words and practice, not only as most Necessary, but also as most Profitable, Honorable and Delightful. Prov. 3. 17. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace, &c.
§. 9. Direct. 9. Speak often to them of the brutish baseness and sinfulness of flesh-pleasing sensuality, and of the greater excellency of the Pleasures of the mind; which consist in wisdom and in doing good. For your chiefest care must be to save them from Flesh-pleasing; which is not only in general the sum of all iniquity whatsoever, but that which in special Children are most prone to. For their flesh and sense is as quick as others: and they want not only faith, but clear Reason to resist it: And so (besides their natural pravity) the custom of obeying sense (which is in strength) without Reason (which is in infancy and almost useless) doth much increase this pernicious sin. And therefore still labor to imprint in their minds an odious conceit of a fleshpleasing life: speak bitterly to them against Gluttony, and drunkenness and excess of sport; and let them often hear or read the parable of the Glutton and Lazarus in the 16 of Luke: And let them learn without book, Rom. 8. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13. & Rom. 13. 13, 14. and oft repeat them.
§. 10. Direct. 10. To this end, and also for the health of their bodies, keep a strict guard upon their appetites (which they are not able to guard themselves:) Keep them as exactly as you can to the rules of reason, both in the quantity and quality of their food. Yet tell them the Reason of your restraint, or else they will secretly strive the more to break their bounds. Most Parents that ever I knew, or had any good account of in that point, are guilty of the great hurt and danger of their Children's health and souls, by pleasing and glutting them with meat and drink: If I should call them Devils and Murderers to their own Children, they would think I spake too harshly; But I would not have them give so great occasion for it, as by destroying (as far as lieth in them) the souls and bodies of their Children. They destroy their souls by accustoming them to gluttony, and to be ruled by their appetites; which all the teaching in the world will hardly ever after overcome, without the special grace of God. What is all the vice and villainy in the world but the pleasing of the desires of the flesh? And when they are habituated to this, they are rooted in their sin and misery. And they destroy their Bodies, by suffering them to please their appetites, with raw fruits and other hurtful things; but especially by drowning and overwhelming nature by excess: And all this is through that beastly ignorance joined with self conceitedness, which maketh them also overthrow themselves. They think that their appetite is the measure of their eating and drinking, and that if they drink but when they are thirsty (as some Drunkards are continually) and eat but when they are hungry, it is no excess: And because they are not presently sick, or vomit it not up again, the Beasts think it doth them no harm but good: You shall hear them like mad people say, [ I warrant them, it will do them no harm to eat and drink when they have list, it will make them strong and healthful: I see not that those that are dyeted so strictly are any healthfuller than others. ] When as all this while they are burdening nature, and destroying digestion, and vitiating all the humors of the body, and turning them into a dunghill of flegm and filth: which is the fuel that breedeth and feedeth almost all the diseases that after seize upon them while they live; and usually bringeth them to an untimely end: (as I have fullier opened before, Tom. 1. in the Directions against Gluttony ) If therefore you love either the souls or Bodies of your Children, use them to temperance from their infancy▪ and let not their appetites or craving wills, but your own reason be the chooser and the measure of their diet. Use them to eat sparingly, and (so it moderately please their appetite, or be not such as nature loatheth) let it be rather of the courser than the finer sort of diet: see it measured to them yourselves, and suffer no servant to give them more; nor to let them eat or drink between meals and out of season: And so you will help to overcome their sensual inclinations, and give reason the mastery of their lives; and you will under God do as much as any one thing can do to help them to a healthful temper of body, which will be a very great mercy to them, and fit them for their duty, all their lives.
§. 11. Direct. 11. For sports and recreations let them be such and so much as may be needful to their health and cheerfulness: but not so much as may carry away their minds from better things, and draw them from their Books or other duties; nor such as may tempt them to gaming or covetousness. Children must have convenient sp • rt for the health of the body and alacrity of the mind: such as well exerciseth their bodies is best, and not such as little stirreth them: Cards and Dice, and such idle spor • s are every way most unfit, as tending to hurt both body and mind. Their time also must be limited them, that their play may not be their work: As soon as ever they have the use of any reason and speech, they should be taught some better things, and not left till they are five or six years of age to do nothing, but get a custom of wasting all their time in play. Children are very early capable of learning something which may prepare them for more.
§. 12. Direct. 12. Use all your wisdom and diligence to root out the sin of Pride: And to that end, d • not (as is usual with foolish Parents,) that please them with making them fine, and then by telling them how fine they are: But use to commend humility and plainness to them, and speak disgracefully of Pride and fineness, to breed an averseness to it in their minds. Cause them to learn such Texts of Scripture as speak of God's abhorring and resisting the proud, and of his loving and honoring the humble: When they see other Children that are finely clothed, speak of it to them as their shame, that they may not desire to be like them. Speak against boasting, and every other way of Pride, which they are liable to. And yet give them the Praise of all thats well: for that is but their due encouragement.
§. 13. Direct. 13. Speak to them disgracefully of the Gallantry and pomp and Riches of the world, and of the sin of selfishness and cov • tousness: and diligently watch against it, and all that may tempt them t • it. When they see great houses, and attendance and gallantry, tell them that these are the Devils baits, to • ice poor sinners to love this world, that they may lose their souls and the world to come: Tell them how much Heaven excelleth all this: and that the lovers of the world must never come thither, but the humble and meek and poor in spirit. Tell them of the Rich Glutton in Luk. 16. that was thus clothed in purple and silk and fared deliciously every day; but when he came to H • ll, could not get a drop of Water to cool his tongue, when Lazarus was in the joys of Paradise. Do not as the wicked, that entice their Children to worldliness and covetousness, by giving them money, and letting them game and play for money, and promising them to make them fine or rich, and speaking highly of all that are rich and great in the world: But tell them how much happier a poor believer is; and withdraw all that may tempt their minds to Covetousness. Teach them how good it is to love their brethren as themselves, and to give them part of what they have; and praise them for it: and dispraise them when they are greedy to keep or heap up all to themselves. And all will be little enough to cure this pernicious sin. Teach them such Texts as Psal. 10. 3. They bless the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth.
§. 14. Direct. 14. Narrowly watch their tongues, especially against Lying, railing, ribbald talk, and taking the name of God in vain. And pardon them many lighter faults about common matters, sooner than one such sin against God. Tell them of the odiousness of all these sins, and teach them such Texts as most expressly condemn them: and never pass it by or make light of it when you find them guilty.
§. 15. Direct. 15. Keep them as much as may be from ill company, especially of ungodly play-fellows. It is one of the greatest dangers for the undoing of Children in the world: especially when they are sent to common Schools: For there is scarce any of those schools so good, but hath many rude and ungodly ill-taught Children in it; that will speak profanely, and filthily, and make their ribbald and railing speeches a matter of boasting; besides fighting and gaming and scorning and neglecting their lessons: and they will make a scorn of him that will not do as they; if not beat and abuse him: And there is such tinder in nature for these sparks to catch upon, that there are very few Children but when they hear others take God's name in vain, or sing wanton songs, or talk filthy words, or call one another by reproachful names, do quickly imitate them: And when you have watched over them at home as narrowly as you can, they are infected abroad with such beastly vices as they are hardly ever after cured of. Therefore let those that are able, either educate their Children most at home, or in private and well ordered Schools; and those that cannot do so, must be the more exceeding watchful over them, and charge them to associate with the best; and speak to them of the odiousness of these practices, and the wickedness of those that use them: and speak very disgracefully of such ungodly Children: and when all's done, it's a great mercy of God if they be not undone, by the force of the contagion, notwithstanding all your antidotes: Those therefore that venture their Children into the rudest Schools and company, and after that to Rome and other profane or Popish Countries, to learn the fashions and customs of the world, upon pretence that else they will be ignorant of the course of the world, and ill bred, and not like others of their rank, may think of themselves, and their own reasonings as well as they please: for my part I had rather make a Chimney Sweeper of my Son (if I had any) than be guilty of doing so much to sell or betray him to the Devil.
Quest. But is it not lawful for a man to send his son to travel?
Answ. Yes, in these cases: 1. In case he be a ripe confirmed Christian, that is not in danger of being perverted, but able to resist the enemies of the truth, and to Preach the Gospel or do good to others, and withal have sufficient business to invite him: 2. Or if he go in the company of wise and godly persons, and such be his companions, and the probability of his gain be greater, than of his loss and danger. 3. Or if he go only into Religious Countries, among more wise and learned men, than he converseth with at home, and have sufficient motives for his course. But to send young, raw, unsettled persons, among Papists, and profane licentious people (though perhaps some sober person be in company with them,) and this only to see the Countries and fashions of the World, is an action unbeseeming any Christian, that knoweth the pravity of human nature, and the mutability of young unfurnished heads, and the subtlety of deceivers, and the contagiousness of sin and error, and the worth of a soul, and will not do as some Conjurers or Witches, even sell a soul to the Devil, on condition he may see and know the fashions of the world: (which alas, I can quickly know enough of to grieve my heart, without travelling so far to see them) If another Country have more of Christ, and be nearer Heaven, the invitation is great: but if it have more of sin and Hell, I had rather know Hell, and the Suburbs of it too, by the Map of the Word of God, than by going thither. And if such children return not the confirmed children of the Devil, and prove not the calamity of their Country, and the Church, let them thank special grace, and not their Parents or themselves. They overvalue that vanity which they call Breeding who will hazard the substance (even Heavenly Wisdom, Holiness and Salvation) to go so far for so vain a shadow.
§. 16. Direct. 16. Teach your children to know the preciousness of Time, and suffer them not to misspend an hour. Be often speaking to them how precious a thing Time is, and how short man's life is, and how great his work, and how our endless life of joy or misery dependeth on this little Time: Speak odiously to them of the sin of those that play and idle away their time: And keep account of all their hours, and suffer them not to lose any by excess of sleep, or excess of play, or any other way: but engage them still in some employment that is worth their Time.
Train up your children in a life of diligence and labor, and use them not to ease and idleness when they are young. Our wandering Beggars, and too many of the Gentry utterly undo their children by this means: Especially the female Sex. They are taught no Calling, nor exercised in any employment, but only such as is meet for nothing but ornament and recreation (at the best): and therefore should have but recreation-hours, which is but a small proportion of their time. So that by the sin of their Parents, they are betimes engaged in a life of Idleness, which afterward it is wondrous hard for them to overcome; And they are taught to live, like Swine or Vermin, that live only to live, and do small good in the world by living: To rise, and dress, and adorn themselves, and take a walk, and so to dinner, and thence to Cards or Dice, or chat and idle talk, or some play, or visit, or recreation, and so to Supper, and to chat again and to bed, is the lamentable life of too many that have great obligations to God, and greater matters to do, if they were acquainted with them: And if they do but interpose a few hypocritical heartless words of prayer, they think they have piously spent the day. Yea, the health of many is utterly ruined, by such idle fleshly education; so that disuse doth disable them from any considerable motion or exercise, which is necessary to preserve their health: It would move ones heart with pity, to see how the houses of some of the Higher sort are like Hospitals, and education hath made especially the females like the lame, or sick, or bedrid: so that one part of the day, that should be spent in some profitable employment, is spent in bed, and the rest in doing nothing, or worse than nothing; and most of their life is made miserable by diseases, so that if their legs be but used to carry them about, they are presently out of breath, and are a burden to themselves, and few of them live out little more than half their days: Whereas, poor creatures, if their own Parents had not betrayed them into the sins of Sodom, Pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of Idleness, they might have been in health, and lived like honest Christian people, and their legs and arms might have served them for Use, as well as for integrality and ornament.
§. 17. Direct. 17. Let necessary correction be used with discretion according to these following Rules. 1. Let it not be so seldom (if necessary) as to leave them fearless, and so make it ineffectual: and let it not be so frequent as to discourage them, or breed in them a hatred of their Parents. 2. Let it be different according to the different tempers of your children: Some are so tender and timorous and apt to be discouraged, that little or no correction may be best: And some are so hardened and obstistinate, that it must be much and sharp correction that must keep them from dissoluteness and contempt. 3. Let it be more for sin against God (as lying, railing, filthy speaking, profaneness, &c. ) than for faults about your worldly business. 4. Correct them not in passion, but stay till they perceive that you are calmed: For they will think else that your▪ anger rather than your reason is the cause. 5. Always show them the tenderness of your Love, and how unwilling you are to correct them, if they could be reformed any easier way: and convince them that you do it for their good. 6. Make them read those Texts of Scripture which condemn their sin, and then those which command you to correct them. As for example, if Lying be their sin, turn them first to Prov. 12. 22. Lying lips are abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truly are his delight: and 13. 5. A righteous man hateth lying: John 8. 44. Ye are of your Father the Devil,—when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the Father of it. Rom. 22. 15. For without are dogs—and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. And next turn him to Prov. 13. 24. He that spareth his rod hateth his Son, but be that loveth him, chasteneth him betimes. Prov. 29. 15. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his Mother to shame. Prov. 22. 15. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Prov. 23. 13, 14. Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die: Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from Hell, Prov. 19. 18. Chasten thy Son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. Ask him whether he would have you by sparing him, to disobey God, and hate him, and destroy his soul. And when his reason is convinced of the reasonableness of correcting him, it will be the more sucessful.
§. 18. Direct. 18. Let your own example teach your children that holiness, and heavenliness, and blamelessness of tongue and life, which you desire them to learn and practice. The example of Parents is most powerful with children both for good and evil. If they see you live in the fear of God, it will do much to persuade them that it is the most necessary and excellent course of life, and that they must do so too: And if they see you live a carnal, voluptuous and ungodly life, and hear you curse, or swear, or talk filthily or railingly, it will greatly embolden them to imitate you: If you speak never so well to them, they will sooner believe your bad lives, than your good words.
§. 19. Direct. 19. Choose such a Calling and course of life for your children, as tendeth most to the saving of their souls, and to their public usefulness for Church or State. Choose not a Calling that is most liable to temptations and hindrances to their salvation, though it may make them rich: but a Calling which alloweth them some leisure for the remembering the things of everlasting consequence, and fit opportunities to get good, and to do good: If you bind them Apprentices, or Servants, if it be possible place them with men fearing God; and not with such as will harden them in their sin.
§. 20. Direct. 20. When they are marriageable, and you find it needful, look out such for them as are suitable betimes. When Parents stay too long, and do not their duties in this, their children often choose for themselves to their own undoing: For they choose not by judgment, but blind affection.
§. 21. Having thus told you the common duties of Parents for their children, I should next have told you what specially belongeth to each Parent; but to avoid prolixity, I shall only desire you to remember especially these two Directions: 1. That the Mother who is still present with children when they are young, be very diligent in teaching them, and minding them of good things. When the Fathers are abroad, the Mothers have more frequent opportunities to instruct them, and be still speaking to them of that which is most necessary, and watching over them. This is the greatest service that most women can do for God in the world: Many a Church that hath been blessed with a good Minister, may thank the pious education of Mothers: And many a thousand souls in Heaven may thank the holy care and diligence of Mothers, as the first effectual means. Good women this way (by the good education of their children) are ordinarily great blessings both to Church and State. (And so some understand 1 Tim. 2. 15. by Child-bearing, meaning bringing up children for God; but I rather think it is by Mary's bearing Christ the promised seed. )
2. By all means let children be taught to read, if you are never so poor, and what ever shift you make; or else you deprive them of a singular help to their instruction and salvation. It is a thousand pities that a Bible should signify no more than a Chip to a rational creature, as to their reading it themselves: and that so many excellent Books as be in the world, should be as sealed or insignificant to them.
§. 22. But if God deny you children, and save you all this care and labor, repine not, but be thankful, believing it is best for you: Remember what a deal of duty, and pains, and hearts grief he hath freed you from, and how few speed well when Parents have done their best: what a life of misery children must here pass through, and how sad the fear of their sin and damnation would have been to you.
CHAP. XI. The special Duties of Children towards their Parents.
THough Precepts to Children are not of so much force as to them of riper age, because of their natural incapacity, and their childish passions and pleasures which bear down their weak d • gree of Reason, yet somewhat is to be said to them, because that measure of Reason which they have is to be exercised, and by exercise to be improved: and because even those of riper years, while they have Parents, must know and do their duty to them: and because God useth to bless even children as they perform their duties.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Be sure that you dearly love your Parents: Delight to be in their company: Be not like those unnatural children, that love the company of their idle play-fellows, better than their Parents, and had rather be abroad about their sports, than in their Parents sight. Remember that you have your Being from them, and come out of their loins: Remember what sorrow you have cost them, and what care they are at for your education and provision; and remember how tenderly they have loved you, and what grief it will be to their hearts if you miscarry, and how much your happiness will make them glad: Remember what Love you owe them both by Nature and in Justice, for all their Love to you, and all that they have done for you: They take your Happiness or Misery to be one of the greatest parts of the Happiness or Misery of their own lives. Deprive them not then of their Happiness, b • depriving yourselves of your own: Make not their lives miserable, by undoing yourselves. Though they chide you, and restrain you, and correct you, do not therefore abate your Love to them. For this is their Duty, which God requireth of them, and they do it for your good. It is a sign of a wicked child that loveth his Parents the less, because they correct him, and will not let him have his own will. Yea, though your Parents have many faults themselves, yet you must love them as your Parents still.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Honor your Parents both in your Thoughts, and speeches, and behavior. Think not dishonourably or contemptuously of them in your hearts. Speak not dishonourably, rudely, unreverently, or saucily either to them or of them. Behave not yourselves rudely and unreverently before them. Yea, though your Parents be never so poor in the world, or weak of understanding, yea, though they were ungodly, you must honor them notwithstanding all this: Though you cannot honor them as Rich, or Wise, or Godly, you must honor them as your Parents. Remember that the fifth Commandment hath a special promise of temporal blessing: Honor thy Father and Mother that thy days may be long in the land, &c. And consequently the dishonourers of Parents have a special curse even in this life: And the Justice of God is ordinarily seen in the execution of it: The despisers and dishonourers of their Parents seldom prosper in the world. There are five sorts of sinners that God useth to overtake with vengeance even in this life: 1. Perjured persons and false witnesses. 2. Murderers. 3. Persecutors. 4. Sacrilegious persons: and 5. The abusers and dishonourers of their Parents. Remember the curse on Cham, Gen. 9. 22, 25. It is a fearful thing to see and hear how some ill-bred ungodly children will talk contemptuously and rudely to their Parents, and wrangle and contend with them, and contradict them, and speak to them as if they were their equals: (And its commonly long of the Parents themselves that breed them to it.) And at last they will grow even to abuse and vilify them. Read Prov. 30. 17. The eye that mocketh at his Father, and despiseth to obey his Mother, the Ravens of the Valley shall pick it out, and the young Eagles shall eat it.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Obey your Parents in all things (which God forbiddeth not.) Remember that as Nature hath made you unfit to govern yourselves, so God in Nature hath mercifully provided Governors for you. Here I shall first tell you what obedience is, and then tell you why you must be thus obedient. I. To obey your Parents is to do that which they command you, and forbear that which they forbid you, because it is their Will you should do so: You must 1. Have in your minds a desire to please them, and be glad when you can please them, and sorry when you offend them: and then 2. You must not set your wit or your will against theirs, but readily obey their commands without unwillingness, murmuring or disputing. Though you think your own way is best, and your own desires are but reasonable, yet your own wit and will must be subjected unto theirs, or else how do you obey them? II. And for the Reasons of your obedience, 1. Consider it is the will of God that it should be so, and he hath made them as his Officers to govern you; and in disobeying them, you disobey him. Read Ephes. 6. 1, 2, 3. Children obey your Parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy Father and Mother, (which is the first Commandment with promise) that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. Col. 3. 20. Children obey your Parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Prov. 23. 22. Hearken to thy Father that begat thee, and despise not thy Mother when she is old. Prov. 13. 1. A wise Son heareth his Fathers instruction. Prov. 1. 8, 9. My Son, hear the instruction of thy Father, and forsake not the Law of thy Mother: for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck. 2. Consider also, that your Parents Government is necessary to your own good: and it is a Government of Love: As your bodies would have perished if your Parents or some others had not taken care for you, when you could not help yourselves; so your minds would be untaught and ignorant, even like to Bruits, if you had not others to teach and govern you. Nature teacheth the Chickens to follow the Hen, and all things when they are young, to be led and guided by their Dams, or else what would become of them. 3. Consider also, that they must be accountable to God for you; and if they leave you to yourselves, it may be their destruction as well as yours, as the sad example of Eli telleth you. Rebell not therefore against those that God by Nature and Scripture hath set over you. Though the fifth Commandment require obedience to Princ • s, and Masters, and Pastors, and other Superiors, yet it nameth your Father and Mother only, because they are the first of all your Governors, to whom by Nature you are most obliged.
But perhaps you will say, that though little Children must be ruled by their Parents, yet you are grown up to a riper age, and are wise enough to rule yourselves. I answer, God doth not think so; or else he would not have set Governors over you: And are you wiser than he? It is but few in the world that are wise enough to rule themselves: Else God would not have set Princes, and Magistrates, and Pastors, and Teachers over them, as he hath done. The Servants of the family are as old as you, and yet are unfit to be the Rulers of themselves. God loveth you better than to leave you Masterless, as knowing that youth is rash and inexperienced.
Quest. But how long are Children under the Command and Government of their Parents?
Answ. There are several acts and degrees of Parents Government, according to the several ends and uses of it. Some acts of their Government are but to teach you to go and speak, and some to teach you your labor and Calling, and some to teach you good manners, and the fear of God, or the knowledge of the Scriptures, and some are to settle you in such a course of living, in which you shall need their nearer over-sight no more: When any one of these ends are fully attained, and you have all that your Parents Government can help you to, than you are past that part of their Government. But still you owe them not only Love, and honor, and reverence, but obedience also in all things in which they are still appointed for your help and guidance: Even when you are married from them, though you have a propriety in your own estates, and they have not so strict a charge of you as before, yet if they command you your duty to God or them, you are still obliged to obey them.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Be contented with your Parents provision for you, and disposal of you: Do not rebelliously murmur against them, and complain of their usage of you; much less take anything against their wills. It is the part of a fleshly Rebel, and not of an obedient child, to be discontent and murmur because they fare not better, or because they are kept from sports and play, or because they have not better clothes, or because they have not money allowed them, to spend or use at their own discretion. Are not you under Government? and the Government of Parents, and not of enemies? Are your lusts and pleasures fitter to govern you, than your Parents discretion? Be thankful for what you have, and remember that you deserve it not, but have it freely: It is your Pride or your fleshly sensuality that maketh you thus to murmur, and not any wisdom or virtue that is in you. Get down that Pride and fleshly mind, and then you will not be so eager to have your wills. What if your Parents did deal too hardly with you, in your food, or raiment, or expenses? What harm doth it do you? Nothing but a selfish sensual mind would make so great a matter of it. Its a hundred times more dangerous to your souls and bodies to be bred too high, and fed too full and daintily, than to be bred too low, and fed too hardly: One tendeth to pride, and gluttony, and wantonness, and the overthrow of health and life: and the other tendeth to a humble, mortified, self-denying life, and to the health and soundness of the body. Remember how the earth opened and swallowed all those rebellious murmurers that grudged against Moses and Aaron, Num. 16. Read it and apply it to your case. And remember the story of rebellious Abs • lom, and the folly of the Prodigal, Luke 15. and desire not to be at your own dispose; nor be not eager to have the vain desires of your hearts fulfilled. While you contented • y submit to your Parents, you are in God's way, and may expect his blessing; but when you will needs be Carvers for yourselves, you may expect the punishment of Rebels.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Humble yourselves and submit to any labor that your Parents shall appoint you to. Take heed as you love your souls, lest either a proud heart make you murmur and say, This work is too low and base a drudgery for me? Or lest a lazy mind and body make you say▪ This work is too hard and toilsome for me? Or lest a foolish playful mind do make you weary of your Book or labor, that you may be at your sports, and say, This is too tedious for me: It is little or no hurt that is like to befall you by your labor and diligence: but it is a dangerous thing to get a habit or custom of idl • ness and voluptuousness in your youth.
§. 6 Direct. 6. Be willing and thankful to be instructed by your Parents, or any of your Teachers, but especially about the fear of God, and the matters of your salvation. These are the matters that you are born and live for: These are the things that your Parents have first in charge to teach you. Without knowledge and h • liness all the riches and honors of the world are nothing worth: and all your pleasures will but undo you. O what a comfort is it to understanding Parents to see their children willing to learn, and to love the Word of God, and lay it up in their hearts, and talk of it, and obey it, and prepare betime for everlasting life? If such children die before their Parents, how joyfully may they part with them as into the arms of Christ, who hath said, that of such is the Kingdom of Heaven, Matth. 19. 14. And if the Parents die first, how joyfully may they leave behind them a holy seed, that is like to serve God in their generation, and to follow them to Heaven and live with them forever. But, whether they live or die, what a hear-breaking to the Parents are ungodly children; that love not the word and way of God, and love not to be taught or restrained from their own licentious courses.
§. 7. Direct. 7. Patiently submit to the correction which your Parents lay upon you. Consider, that God hath commanded them to do it, and that to save your souls from Hell; and that they hate you if they correct you not when there is cause, and that they must not spare for your crying, Prov 13. 24. & 22. 15. & 29. 15. & 23. 13, 14. & 19. 18▪ It is not their delight; but for your own necessity. Avoid the fault, and you may escape the correction. How much rather had your Parents see you obedient, than hear you cry. It is not long of them, but of yourselves that you are corrected. Be angry with yourselves, and not with them. It is a wicked child that instead of being better by correction, will hate his Parents for it, and so grow worse. Correction is a means of God's own appointment, and therefore go to God on your knees in prayer, and entreat him to bless and sanctify it to you, that it may do you good.
§. 8. Direct. 8. Choose not your own company, but use such company as by your Parents is appointed you. Bad company is the first undoing of a Child. When for the love of sport you choose such play-fellows, as are idle, and licentious, and disobedient, and will teach you to curse, and swear, and lie, and talk filthily, and draw you from your Book or duty, this is the Devils Highway to Hell. Your Parents are fittest to choose your company.
§ 9. Direct. 9. Choose not your own Calling or Trade of life without the choice or consent of your Parents. You may tell them what you are most inclined to, but it belongeth more to them than to you to make the choice: And it is your part to bring your wills to theirs. Unless your Parents choose a Calling for you that is unlawful: and then you may (with humble submissiveness) refuse it. But if it be only inconvenient, you have liberty afterward to change it for a better, if you can, when you are from under their dispose and government.
§. 10. Direct. 10. Marry not without your Parents consent: Nay, if it may be, let their choice determine first of the person, and not your own: Unexperienced youth doth choose by fancy and passion, when your experienced Parents will choose by judgment. But if they would force you to join yourselves to such as are ungodly, and like to make your lives either sinful or miserable, you may humbly refuse them. But you must remain unmarried, while by the use of right means you can live in chastity, till your Parents are in a better mind. But if indeed you have a flat necessity of marrying, and your Parents will consent to none but one of a false Religion, or one that is utterly unfit for you, in such a case they forfeit their authority in that point, which is given them for your edification, and not for your destruction: And then you should advise, with other friends that are more wise and faithful: But if you suffer your fond affections to contradict your Parents wills, and pretend a necessity (that you cannot change your affections) as if your folly were uncurable, this is but to enter sinfully into that state of life, which should have been sanctified to God, that he might have blest it to you.
§. 11. Direct. 11. If your Parents be in want, it is your duty to relieve them according to your ability: yea, and wholly to maintain them if there be need. For it is not possible by all that you can do, that ever you can be on even terms with them; or even requite them for what you have received of them. It is base inhumanity when Parents come to poverty; for children to put them off with some short allowance; and to make them live almost like their servants, when you have riches and plenty for yourselves. Your Parents should still be maintained by you as your superiors, and not as your inferiors. See that they fare as well as yourselves: yea, though you got not your riches by their means, yet even for your being you are their debtors for more than that.
§. 12. Direct. 12. Imitate your Parents in all that is good, both when they are living, and when they are dead. If they were lovers of God, and of his word and service, and of those that fear him, let their example provoke you, and let the love that you have to them engage you in this imitation. A wicked child of godly Parents is one of the most miserable wretches in the world. With what horror do I look on such a person? How near is such a wretch to Hell? When Father or Mother were eminent for Godliness, and daily instructed them in the matters of their salvation, and prayed with them, and warned them, and prayed for them, and after all this the children shall prove covetous, or drunkards, or whoremongers, or profane, and enemies to the servants of God, and deride or neglect the way of their religious Parents, it would make one tremble to look such wretches in the face. For though yet there is some hope of them, alas, it is so little, that they are next to desperate: when they are hardened under the most excellent means, and the light hath blinded them, and their acquaintance with the ways of God hath but turned their hearts more against them, what means is left to do good to such resisters of the grace of God as these? The likeliest is some heavy dreadful judgment: O what a woeful day will it be to them, when all the prayers, and tears, and teachings, and good examples of their religious Parents shall witness against them? How will they be confounded before the Lord! And how sad a thought is it to the heart of holy diligent Parents, to think that all their prayers and pains must witness against their graceless children, and sink them deeper into Hell? And yet alas, how many such woeful spectacles are there before our eyes? and how deeply doth the Church of G • d 〈…〉 by the malice and wickedness of the children of those Parents that taught them better, and walked before them in a holy ex • mplary life? But if Parents be ignorant, superstitious, idolatrous, P • pish or profane, their children are forward enough to imitate them. Then they can say, Our f • r f •• hers were of this mind; and we hope they are saved, and we will rather imitate them, than such in 〈…〉 ting reformers a • you: As they said to Jeremiah, (Chap. 44. 16, 17, 18.) As for the word that 〈…〉 hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken to thee: But we will—burn incense to the Queen of Heaven—as we have done, we and our Fathers, our Kings and our Princes in the Cities of Judah, and in the Streets of Jerusalem: for then we had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil: But since we left off to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven,—we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and famine. Thus they walk after the imagination of their hearts, and after Baalim (the false Worship) which their Fathers taught them. J • r. 9. 14. And they forget God's name as their Fathers did forget it, J • r. 23. 27. They and their Fathers have transgressed to this day, Ezek. 2. 3. Yea, they harden their necks and do worse than their Fathers, Jer. 7. 26. Thus in error and sin they can imitate their forefathers, when they should rather remember, 1 Pet. 1. 18, 19. that it cost Christ his blood to redeem men from their vain conversation received by tradition from their Fathers. And they should penitently confess, as Dan. 9. 8. O Lord to us belongeth confusion of face, to our Kings, to our Princes, and to our Fathers, because we have sinned against thee. v. 16. And as Psal. 106. 6. We have sinned with our Fathers, &c. Saith God, Jer. 16. 11, 12, 13. Behold your Fathers have forsaken me—and have not kept my Law: and ye have done worse than your Fathers: thereof • re I will cast you out, &c. Jer. 43. 9. Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your Fathers, and the wickedness of the Kings of Judah, and your own wickedness? they are not humbled even unto this day, v. 21. Z • ch. 1. 4. Be not as your Fathers, to whom the former Prophets have cried, saying, Turn ye now from your evil ways, but they did not hear. Mal. 3. 7. Even from the days of your Fathers ye are gone away from mine Ordinances, and have not kept them: Return unto me, and I will return unto you. Ezek. 20. 18. Walk ye not in the Statutes of your Fathers. So v. 27. 30, 36. Follow not your Fathers in their sin and error, but follow them where they follow Christ, 1 Cor. 11. 1.
CHAP. XII. The special Duties of Children and Youth towards God.
THough I put your duty to your Parents first, because it is first learned, yet your Duty to God immediately is your greatest and most necessary duty: Learn these following Precepts well.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Learn to understand the Covenant and Vow which in your Baptism you made with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, your Creator, Redeemer and Regenerater: and when you well understand it, renew that Covenant with God in your own persons, and absolutely deliver up yourselves to God, as your Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, your Owner, your Ruler, and your Father and felicity. Baptism is not an idle Ceremony, but the solemn entering into Covenant with God, in which you receive the greatest mercies, and bind yourselves to the greatest duties: It is but the entering into that way which you must walk in all your lives, and a vowing that to God which you must be still performing. And though your Parents had authority to promise for you, it is you that must perform it; for it was you that they obliged: If you ask by what authority they obliged you in Covenant to God, I answer, by the authority which God had given them in Nature and in Scripture; as they oblige you to be Subjects of the King, or as they enter your names into any Covenant, by lease or other contract which is for your benefit: And they do it for your good, that you may have part in the blessings of the Covenant: And if you grudge at it, and refuse your own consent when you come to age, you lose the benefits. If you think they did you wrong, you may be out of Covenant when you will, if you will renounce the Kingdom of Heaven. But it is much wiser to be thankful to God that your Parents were the means of so great a blessing to you, and to do that again more expressly by yourselves which they did for you; and openly with thankfulness to own the Covenant in which you are engaged; and live in the performance and in the comforts of it all your days.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Remember that you are entering into the way to everlasting life, and not into a place of happiness or continuance: Presently therefore set your hearts on Heaven, and make it the design of all your lives, to live in Heaven with Christ forever. O happy you, if God betimes will thoroughly teach you, to know what it is that must make you happy; and if at your first setting out, your End be right, and your faces be Heavenward! Remember that as soon as you begin to live, you are hasting toward the end of your lives: Even as a Candle as soon as it beginneth to burn, and the Hourglass as soon as it is turned, is wasting, and hasting to its end: So as soon as you begin to live, your lives are in a Consumption, and posting towards your final hour. As a runner as soon as he beginneth his race is hasting to the end of it; so are your lives even in your youngest time. It is another kind of life that you must live forever, than this trifling pitiful fleshly life: Prepare therefore speedily for that which God sent you hither to prepare for. O happy you, if you begin betime, and go on with cheerful resolution to the end! It is blessed wisdom to be wise betime, and to know the worth of Time in childhood, before any of it be wasted and lost upon the fooleries of the world. Then you may grow wise indeed, and be treasuring up understanding, and growing up in sweet acquaintance with the Lord, when others are going backwards, and daily making work, for sad repentance or final desperation. Eccles. 12. 1. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say (of all things here below) I have no pleasure in them.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Remember that you have corrupted Natures to be cured, and that Christ is the Physician that must cure them, and the Spirit of Christ must dwell within you, and make you holy, and give you a new heart and nature, which shall Love God and Heaven above all the honor and pleasures of the world: Rest not therefore till you find that you are born anew, and that the Holy Ghost hath made you h • lie and quickened your hearts with the Love of God and of your dear Redeemer. The old nature loveth the things of this world, and the pleasures of the flesh: but the New Nature loveth the Lord that made you, and Redeemed and Renewed you, and the endless joys of the world to come, and that holy life which is the way thereto.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Take heed of loving the pleasures of the flesh, in overmuch eating, or drinking or play: Set not your hearts upon your b • lly or your sport: Let your meat, and sleep, and play be moderate. Meddle not with Cards or Dice, or any bewitching or riotous sports: Play not for money▪ lest it stir up covetous desires, and tempt you to be over eager in it, and to lie, and wrangle, and fall out with others. Use neither food or sports which are not for your health: A greedy appetite enticeeth children to devour raw fruits, and to rob their neighbors Orchards, and at once to undo soul and body. And an excessive love of play, doth cause them to run among bad companions, and lose their time, and destroyeth the love of their Books, and their duty, and their Parents themselves, and all thats good. You must eat, and sleep, and play for health, and not for useless hurtful pleasure.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Subdue your own wills and desires to the will of God and your superiors, and be not eagerly set upon anything which God or your Parents do deny you. Be not like those self-willed fleshly children, that are importunate for anything which their fancy or appetite would have, and cry or are discontent if they have it not. Say not that I must have this or that. But be contented with anything which is the will of God and your Superiors. It is the greatest misery and danger in the world, to have all your own wills, and to be given up to your hearts desire.
§. 6. Direct. 6. Take heed of a custom of foolish, filthy, railing, lying, or any other sinful words. You think it is a small matter, but God thinketh not so: It is not a jesting matter to sin against the God that made you: It is fools that make a sport with sin, Prov. 14. 9. & 10. 23. & 26. 19. One lie, one curse, one oath, one ribbald, or railing, or deriding word, is worse than all the pain that ever your flesh endured.
§. 7. Take heed of such company and playfellows as would entice and tempt you to any of these sins: and choose such company as will help you in the fear of God. And if others mock at you, care no more for it than for the shaking of a leaf, or the barking of a Dog. Take heed of lewd and wicked company as ever you care for the saving of your souls. If you hear them rail, or lie, or swear, or talk filthily, be not ashamed to tell them that God forbiddeth you to keep company with such as they. Psal. 119. 63. Prov. 13. 20. & 18. 7. 1 Cor. 5. 12. Eph. 5. 11. 4.
§. 8. Direct. 8. Take heed of Pride and Covetousness: Desire not to be fine; nor to get all to yourselves; but be humble, and meek, and love one another, and be as glad that others are pleased as yourselves.
§. 9. Direct. 9. Love the Word of God, and all good Books which would make you wiser and better: and read not Play-books, nor Tale-books, nor Love-books, or any idle stories. When idle Children are at play and fooleries, let it be your pleasure to read and learn the mysteries of your salvation.
§. 10. Direct. 10. Remember that you keep holy the Lord's Day: Spend not any of it in play or idleness: Reverence the Ministers of Christ; and mark what they teach you, and remember it is a message from God about the saving of your souls. Ask your Parents when you come home, to help your understandings and memories in anything which you understood not or forgot. Love all the holy exercises of the Lord's Day, and let them be pleasanter to you than your meat or play.
§. 11. Direct. 11. Be as careful to practice all, as to hear and read it. Remember all is but to make you holy, to love God, and obey him: Take heed of sinning against your knowledge, and against the warnings that are given you.
§. 12. Direct. 12. When you grow up, by the direction of your Parents, choose such a Trade or Calling, as alloweth you the greatest helps for Heaven, and hath the fewest hindrances, and in which you may be most serviceable to God before you die. If you will but practice these few Directions (which your own hearts must say have no harm in any of them) what happy persons will you be forever!
CHAP. XIII. The Duties of Servants to their Masters.
IF Servants would have comfortable lives, they must approve themselves and their service unto God, because from him they must have their comforts: which may be done by following these Directions.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Reverence the providence of God which calleth you to a servants life, and murmur not at your labor, or your low condition; but know your mercies, and be thankful for them. Though perhaps you have more labor than your Masters, yet have you not less care than they? Most servants may have quieter lives, if it were not for their unthankful discontented hearts. You are not troubled with the care of providing your Landlords rent, or meat, and drink, and wages for your servants, nor with the wants and desires of Wives and children, nor with the faults and naughtiness of such as you must use or trust; nor with the losses and crosses which your Masters are liable to. Be thankful to God, who for a little bodily labor, doth free you from the burden of all these cares.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Take your condition as chosen for you by God, and take yourselves as his servants, and your work as his, and do all as to the Lord, and not only for man; and expect from God your chief reward. You will be else but eye-servants and hypocrites, if the fear of God do not awe your consciences: And if you were the best servants to your Masters in the world, and did not all in obedience to God, it were but a low unprofitable service: If you believe that there is an infinite distance between God and man, you may conceive what a difference there is between serving God and man: Your wages is all your reward from man: but eternal life is God's reward: And the very same work and labor which one man hath but his years wages for, another hath everlasting life for, (though not of Merit, yet of the bounty of our Lord) Rom. 6. 23. Because he doth it in love and obedience to that God who hath promised this reward. Col. 3. 22, 23, 24, 25. Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh: not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God: And whatsoever thing ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men: Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ: But he that doth wrong, shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons. The like is in Ephes. 6. 5, 6, 7, 8. So much doth God respect the heart, that the very same action hath such different successes and rewards, as it is done to different ends, and from different principles: your lowest service may be thus sanctified and acceptable to God.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Be cons • ionable and faithful in performing all the labor and duty of a servant. Neglect not such business as you are to do: nor do it not lazily, and deceitfully, and by the halves. As it is thi • very or deceit for a man in the Market to sell another the whole of his commodity, and when he hath done, to keep back and defraud him of a part: So is it no less for a servant that selleth his time and labor to another, to defraud him of part of that time and service which you sold him. Think not therefore that it is no sin, to idle away an hour which is not your own, or to slabber over the work which you undertake to do. Slothfulness and unconscionableness make servants deceitful: Such care not how they do their work, if they can but make their Masters believe that it is done well: They are hypocrites in their service, that take more care to seem painful trusty servants, than to be so; and to hide their faults and slothfulness than to avoid them. As if it were as easy to hide them also from God, who hath resolved to punish all the wrong they do their Masters, Col. • 25. If they can but loiter and take their • ase and their Masters know it not, they are never troubled at it as a sin against God: Laziness and fleshly mindedness doth so blind them, that they think it is no sin to take as much ease as they can, so they carry it fair and smoothly with their Masters, and to slubber over their business any how, so that it will but serve the turn: Whereas if their Masters should keep back any of their wages, or put more work upon them than is meet, they would easily be persuaded that this were a sin. If your labor be such as would hurt your health (as by wet or cold, &c. ) you may foresee it, and avoid it in your choice of places: but if it be only the Labor that you grudge at, it is a sign of a fleshly and unfaithful person; as long as it is not excessive to wrong your health, nor hurt your souls, by denying you leisure for your duty to God. The Lord himself commandeth you to be obedient in singleness of heart, as unto Christ, not as eye-servants; and whatever you do, to do it heartily, knowing that what ever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, Eph. 6. 5, 6, 8. Col. 3. 23.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Be more careful about your duty to your Masters, than about their duty or carriage to you. Be much more careful what to do, than what to receive; and to be good servants, than to be used as good servants: Not but you may modestly expect your due, and to be used as servants should be used: but your Duty is much more to be regarded: For if your Master wrong you, that is his sin, and none of yours: God will not be offended with you for another's faults, but for your own; nor for being wronged, but for doing wrong: And its better suffer the greatest wrong, than offend God by committing the smallest sin.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Be true and faithful in all that is committed to your trust: Dispose not of anything that is your Masters without his consent: Though you may think it never so reasonable, or well done, yet remember that it is none of your own; If you would relieve the poor, or please a fellow-servant, or do a kindness to a neighbor, do it of your own, and not of another's, unless you have his allowance. Be as thristy for your Masters, as you would be for yourselves. Waste no more of his goods, than you would do if it were your own. Say not as false servants do, my Master is rich enough, and it will do him no harm, and therefore we may make bold, and not be so sparing and niggardly. The question is not, What he should do, but what you should do. If you take any of your rich neighbors goods or money, to give to the poor, you may be hanged as Thieves, as well as if you stole it for yourselves. To take anything of another's against his will, is to rob or steal: Let the value be never so small, if it be but the worth of a penny, that you steal or defraud another of, the sin is not small: Nay, it aggravateth the sin that you will presume to break God's Law for such a trifle, and venture your soul for so small a thing: Though it be taken from one that may never so well spare it, thats no excuse to you: it is none of yours. Specially let those servants think of this, that are trusted with buying and selling, or with provisions. If you defraud your Masters because you can conceal it; believe it, God that knoweth it will reveal it: And if you repent of it, you must make restitution of all that ever you thus robbed them of, if you have anything to do it with: And if you have nothing, you must with sorrow and shame confess it to them, and ask forgiveness: But if you Repent not, you must pay dearer for it in Hell, than this comes to. Object. But did not the Lord commend the unjust Steward? Luke 16. 8. Answ. Yes, for his wit in providing for himself, but not for his unjustness. He only teacheth you there, that if the wicked worldlings have wit to provide for this life, much more should you have the wit to make provision for the life to come. It is faithfulness that is a Stewards duty. 1 Cor. 4. 2.
§. 6. Direct. 6. Honor your Masters, and behave yourselves towards them with that respect and reverence as your place requireth. Behave not yourselves rudely or contemptuously towards them, in word or deed. Be not so proud as to disdain to keep the distance and reverence which is due. You should scorn to be servants, if you scorn to behave yourselves as servants. Give them not saucy, provoking or contemptuous language: not wording it out with them in bold contending, and justifying yourselves when your faults are reprehended. Mark the Apostles words, Tit. 2. 9, 10. Exhort servants to be obedient to their own Masters, and to please them well in all things, not answering again: not purloining, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. And 1 Tim. 6. 1, 2, 3, 4. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own Masters worthy of all honor (yea, though they were Infidels or poor) that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed (For wicked men will say, Is this your Religion? when servants professing Religion, are disobedient, irreverent, and unfaithful.) And they that have believing Masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service because they are faithful and beloved partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort: if any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words—he is proud, knowing nothing —
§. 7. Direct. 7. Go not unwillingly or murmuringly about your business, but take it as your delight. An unwilling mind doth lose God's reward, and man's acceptance. Grudging and unwillingness maketh your work of little value, be it never so well done. Do service heartily, and with good will as to the Lord, Eph. 6 7. Col. 3 23.
§. 8. Direct. 8. Obey your Masters in all things (which God forbiddeth not, and which their place enableth them to command you:) and set not your own conceits and wills against their commands. It is not obedience, if you will do no more of their commands, than what agreeth with your own opinions and wills. What if you think another way best, or another work best, or another time best? Are you to govern or obey? If the work be not yours but another's, let his will and not yours be fulfilled, and do his service in his own way. It is God's command, Col. 3. 22. Servants obey your Masters in all things.
§▪ 9. Direct. 9. Reveal not any of the secrets of your Masters, or of the family. Talk not to others of what is said or done at home: Be not over familiar at other men's houses, where you may be tempted to talk of your Masters businesses: Many words may have mischievous effects, which were well intended. That servant is unfit for a wise man's family, that hath some familiar abroad, to whom he must tell all that he heareth or seeth at home: For his familiar hath another familiar, and so a man shall be betrayed by those of his own household, Mich. 7. 6. as Christ by Judas.
§. 10. Grudge not at the meanness of the provisions of the family. If you have not that which is needful to your health, remove to another place as soon as you can, without reproaching the place where you are. But if you have your daily bread, that is, your necessary wholesome food, how course soever, your murmuring for want of more delicious fare, is but your shame, and showeth that your hearts are sunk into your bellies, and that you are fleshly minded persons.
§. 11. Direct. 11. Pray daily for a blessing on your labors and on the family, both privately and with the rest. A praying servant may prevail with God, for more than all their labor cometh to. And their labors are liker to be blessed, than the labors of a prayerless ungodly person. You are not worthy to partake of the mercies of the family, if you will not join in prayers for those mercies.
§. 12. Direct. 12. Willingly submit to the teaching and government of your masters about the right worshipping of God, and for the good of your own souls. Bless God if you live with Religious Masters that will instruct you and Catechize you, and pray with you, and restrain you from breaking the Lord's day, and other sins, and will examine you of your profiting, and watch over your souls, and sharply rebuke you when you do that which is evil. Be glad of their instructions, and murmur not at them, as ignorant ungodly servants do. These few Directions carefully followed will make your service better to you, than Lordships and Kingdoms are to the ungodly.
CHAP. XIV. The Duties of Masters towards their Servants.
IF you would have good servants see that you be good masters, and do your own duty, and then either your servants will do theirs, or else all their failings shall turn to your greater good.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Remember that in Christ they are your brethren and fellow servants: and therefore rule them not tyrannically but in tenderness and love: and command them nothing that is against the Laws of God, or the good of their souls. Use not wrath and unmanlike fury with them; nor any over-severe or unnecessary rebukes or chastisements. Find fault in season, with prudence and sobriety, when your passions are down and when it is most likely to do good. If it be too little, it will embolden them in doing ill: If it be too much, or frequent or passionate it will make them sleight it and despise it, and utterly hinder their repentance: They will be taken up in blaming you for your rashness and violence, instead of blaming themselves for the fault.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Provide them work convenient for them, and such as they are fit for; Not such or so much as to wrong them in their health, or hinder them from the necessary means of their salvation; Nor yet so little as may cherish their idleness, or occasion them to lose their precious time. It is cruelty to lay more on your horse than he can carry; or to work your Oxen to skin and bones, Prov. 12. 10. A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast; much more of his servant. Especially put not your servants on any labor which hazardeth their health or life, without true necessity to some greater end. Pity and spare them more in their health than in their bare labor. Labor maketh the body sound, but to take deep colds, or go wet of their feet, do tend to their sickness and death. And should another man's Life be cast away for your commodity? Do as you would be done by if you were servants yourselves and in their case. And let not their labors be so great, as shall allow them no time to pray before they go about it, or as shall so tire them as to unfit them for Prayer or instruction or the Worship of the Lord's day, and shall lay them like blocks, as fitter to lie to sleep or rest themselves, than to pray or hear or mind anything that is good. And yet take heed that you suffer them not to be idle, as many great men use their Serving men to the undoing of their souls and bodies. Idleness is no small sin itself, and it breedeth and cherisheth many others: Their time is lost by it; and they are made unfit for any honest employment or course of life, to help themselves or any others.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Provide them such wholesome food and lodging, and such wages as their service doth deserve, or as you have promised them. Whether it be pleasant or unpleasant, let their food and lodging be healthful. It is so odious an oppression and injustice to defraud a servant or laborer of his wages (yea or to give him less than he deserveth) that methinks I should not need to speak much against it among Christians. Read I am. 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. and I hope it will be enough.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Use not your servants to be so bold and familiar with you, as may tempt them to despise you; nor yet so strange and distant as may deprive you of opportunity of speaking to them for their spiritual good, or justly lay you open to be censured as too magisterial and proud. Both these extremes have ill effects; but the first is commonest, and is the disquiet of many families.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Remember that you have a charge of the souls in your family, and are as a Priest and Teacher in your own house, and therefore see that you keep them to the constant worshipping of God, especially on the Lord's day, in public and private; and that you teach them the things that concern their salvation (as is afterward Directed.) And pray for them daily, as well as for yourselves.
§. 6. Direct. 6. Watch over them that they offend not God: Bear not with ungodliness or gross sin in your family. Read Psal. 101. Be not like those ungodly masters, that look only that their own work be done, and bid God look after his work himself, and care not for their servants souls because they care not for their own; and mind not whether God be served by others, because they serve him not (unless with hypocritical lip-service) themselves.
§. 7. Direct. 7. Keep your servants from evil company, and from being temptations to each other as far as you can. If you suffer them to frequent Alehouses, or riotous assemblies, or wanton or malignant company, when they are infected themselves, they will bring home the infection, and all the house may fare the worse for it: And when Judas groweth familiar with the Pharisees, he will be seduced by them to betray his Master. You cannot be accountable for your servants if you suffer them to be much abroad.
§. 8. Direct. 8. Go before them as examples of holiness and wisdom and all those virtues and duties which you would teach them. An ignorant or a swearing, cursing, railing, ungodly Master, doth actually teach his servants to be such: and if his words teach them the contrary, he can expect but little reverence or success.
§. 9. Direct. 9. Patiently bear with those tolerable f • ailties which their unskillfulness or bodily temperature or other infirmity make them lie • ble to against their wills. A willing mind is an excuse for many frailties: much must be put up, when it is not from willfulness or gross neglect: make not a greater matter of every infirmity or fault than there is cause. Look not that any should be perfect upon earth: Reckon upon it, that you must have servants of the progeny of Adam, that have corrupted natures, and bodily weaknesses; and many things that must be born with. Consider how faultily you serve your Heavenly Master; and how much he daily beareth with that which is amiss in you; and how many faults and oversights you are guilty of in your own employment, and how many you should be overtaken with if your were in their stead. Eph. 6. 9. And ye Masters, do the same things to them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in Heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him. Col. 4. 1. Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal, &c.
§. 10. Direct. 10. See that they behave themselves well to their fellow servants: of which I shall speak anon.
Tit. 2. Directions to those Masters in foreign Plantations who have Negro's and other Slaves; being a solution of several Cases about them.
Direct. 1. UNderstand well how far your Power over your slaves extendeth, and what limits God hath set thereto.
As, 1. Sufficiently difference between Men and Bruits. Remember that they are of as good a kind as you; that is, They are reasonable Creatures, as well as you; and born to as much natural liberty. If their sin have enslaved them to you, yet Nature made them your equals. Remember that they have immortal souls, and are equally capable of salvation with yourselves. And therefore you have no power to do anything which shall hinder their salvation. No pretence of your business, necessity, commodity or power, can warrant you to hold them so hard to work, as not to allow them due time and seasons for that which God hath made their duty.
2. Remember that God is their absolute Owner, and that you have none but a derived and limited Propriety in them. They can be no further yours, than you have God's consent, who is the Lord of them and you. And therefore God's Interest in them, and by them must be served first.
3. Remember that they and you are equally under the Government and Laws of God. And therefore all God's Laws must be first obeyed by them, and you have no power to command them to omit any duty which God commandeth them, nor to commit any sin which God forbiddeth them: Nor can you without Rebellion or Impiety expect, that your work or commands should be preferred before God's.
4. Remember that God is their Reconciled tender Father, and if they be as good, doth Love them as well as you: And therefore you must use the meanest of them no otherwise, than beseemeth the Beloved of God to be used; and no otherwise than may stand with the due signification of your Love to God by Loving those that are his.
5. Remember that they are the Redeemed ones of Christ; and that he hath not sold you his title to them: As he bought their souls at a price invaluable, so he hath given the purchase of his blood to be absolutely at your disposal. Therefore so use them, as to preserve Christ's right and interest in them.
Direct. 2. Remember that you are Christ's Trustees, or the Guardians of their souls; and that the greater your power is over them, the greater your charge is of them, and your duty for them. As you owe more to a Child than to a Day Labourer or a hired Servant, because being more your own, he is more entrusted to your care: so also by the same reason, you owe more to a slave, because he is more your own: And power and obligation go together. As Abraham was to Circumcise all his servants that were bought with money, and the fourth Commandment requireth Masters, to see that all within their gates observe the Sabbath day; so must you exercise both your Power and Love to bring them to the Knowledge and faith of Christ, and to the just obedience of God's commands.
Those therefore that keep their Negro's and slaves from hearing God's word, and from becoming Christians, because by the Law, they shall then be either made free, or they shall lose part of their service, do openly profess Rebellion against God, and contempt of Christ the Redeemer of souls, and a contempt of the souls of men, and indeed they declare that their worldly profit is their treasure and their God.
If this come to the hands of any of our Natives in Barbado's or other Islands or Plantations, who are said to be commonly guilty of this most heinous sin, yea and to live upon it, I entreat them further to consider as followeth, 1. How cursed a crime is it to equal Men and Beasts? Is not this your practice? Do you not buy them and use them merely to the same end, as you do your horses? to labor for your commodity! as if they were baser than you, and made to serve you?
2. Do you not see how you reproach and condemn yourselves, while you vilify them as Savages and barbarous wretches. Did they ever do anything more savage, than to use not only men's bodies as beasts, but their souls as if they were made for nothing, but to actuate their bodies in your worldly drudgery? Did the veriest Cannibals ever do anything more cruel or odious, than to sell so many souls to the Devil for a little worldly gain? Did ever the cursedst miscreants on earth, do anything more rebellious, and contrary to the will of the most merciful God, than to keep those souls from Christ and holiness and Heaven, for a little money, who were made and redeemed for the same ends, and at the same precious price as yours. Did your poor slaves ever commit such villainies as these? Is not he the basest wretch and the most barbarous savage, who committeth the greatest and most inhumane wickedness? And are theirs comparable to these of yours?
3. Doth not the very example of such cruelty, besides your keeping them from Christianity, directly tend to reach them and all others, to hate Christianity, as if it taught men to be so much worse than D • gs and Tigers.
4. Do you not mark how God hath followed you with Plagues? and may not Conscience tell you that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies of so many? Remember the late fire at the Bridge in Barbado's: Remember the drowning of your Governor and Ships at Sea, and the many judgments that have overtaken you? and at the present the terrible mortality that is among you?
5. Will not the example and warning of neighbor Countries rise up in judgment against you and condemn you. You cannot but hear how odious the Spanish name is made (and thereby alas the Christian name also, among the West Indians) for their most inhumane Cruelties in Hispaniola, Iamaica, Cuba, Peru, Mexico and other places, which is described by Iosep. a Costa a Jesuit of their own: And though I know that their cruelty who murdered millions exceedeth yours, who kill not men's bodies, yet yours is of the same kind, in the merchandize which you make with the Devil for their souls, whilst you that should help them with all your power, do hinder them from the means of their salvation. And on the contrary what an honor is it to those of New England, that they take not so much as the Natives Soyl from them, but by purchase? that they enslave none of them, nor use them cruelly, but show them mercy, and are at a great deal of care and cost and labor for their salvation? O how much difference between holy Master Eliot 's life and yours! His, who hath labored so many years to save them, and hath translated the whole Bible into their language, with other Books; and those good men's in London who are a Corporation for the furtherance of his work; and theirs that have contributed so largely towards it; And yours that sell men's souls for your commodity?
6. And what comfort are you like to have at last, in that money that is purchased at such a price? Will not your money and you perish together? will you not have worse than Gebezi 's Leprofie with it; yea worse than Achan 's death by Stoning; and as bad as Judas his hanging himself, unless repentance shall prevent it? Do you not remember the terrible words in Jude 11. Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and run greedily after the the errors of Balaam. And 2 Pet. 2. 3, 14, 15. Through Covetousness—they make mer handize of you—An heart they have exercised with covetous practices; Cursed Children (or Children of a Curse) which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the Son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity, the du • b Ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the Prophet. When you shall everyone hear, Thou fo • l this night shall thy soul be required of thee, and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided, Luke 12. 19, 20, 21. will it not then cut deep in your perpetual torments, to remember that you got that little pelf, by betraying so many souls to hell? What men in the World doth James speaks to, if not to you, Jam. 5. 1, 2, 3, 4. Go to now ye Rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you: your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten: your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire: ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold the hire of the laborers which have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, and the cries of them which have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath: How much more the cry of betrayed souls.
And here we may seasonably answer these cases. Quest. 1. Is it lawful for a Christian to buy and use a man as a slave? Quest. 2. Is it lawful to use a Christian as a slave? Quest. 3. What difference must we make between a free servant and a slave?
To Quest. 1. I answer, There is a slavery to which some men may be Lawfully put, and there is a slavery to which none may be put; And there is a slavery to which only the criminal may be put, by way of penalty.
1. No man may be put to such a slavery as under the first Direction is denied, that is, such as shall injure God's interest and service, or the man's salvation. 2. No man but as a just punishment for his crimes, may be so enslaved, as to be deprived of those liberties, benefits and comforts, which brotherly love obligeth every man to grant to another for his good, as far as is within our power, all things considered. That is, the same man is a servant and a brother, and therefore must at once be used as both. 3. Though poverty or necessity do make a man consent to sell himself to a life of lesser misery, to escape a greater, or death itself; yet is it not lawful for any other so to take advantage by his necessity, as to bring him into a condition, that shall make him miserable, or in which we sh •• not exercise so much love, as may tend to his sanctification, comfort and salvation. Because no Justice is beseeming a Christian or a Man, which is not conjoined with a due measure of Charity.
But 1. He that deserveth it by way of penalty may be penally used. 2. He that stole and cannot restore may be forced to work it out as a servant: And in both these cases more may be done against another's ease or liberty, than by mere contract or consent. He that may hang a flagitious offender; doth him no wrong if he put him to a slavery, which is less penal than death. 3. More also may be done against Enemies taken in a lawful War, than could be done against the innocent by necessitated consent. 4. A certain degree of servitude or slavery is lawful by the necessitated consent of the innocent. That is so much, 1. As wrongeth no interest of God, 2. Nor of mankind by breaking the Law of Nations, 3. Nor the person himself, by hindering his salvation, or the needful means thereof; nor those comforts of life, which nature giveth to man as man. 4. Nor the Common-wealth or society where we live.
Quest. 2. To the 2 Quest. I answer, 1. As men must be variously Loved according to the various degrees of amiableness in them; so various degrees of Love must be exercised towards them. Therefore good and real Christians must be used with more Love and brotherly tenderness than others. 2. It is meet also that infidels have so much mercy shown them in order to the saving of their souls, as that they should be invited to Christianity by fit encouragements: And so that they should know that if they will turn Christians they shall have more privileges and emoluments than the enemies of truth and piety shall have. It is therefore well done of Princes who make Laws that Infidel slaves shall be free men, when they are duly Christened. 3. But yet a nominal Christian who by wickedness forfeiteth his Life or freedom, may penally be made a slave as well as Infidels. 4. And a poor and needy Christian may sell himself into a harder state of servitude than he would choose or we could otherwise put him into. But 5. To go as Pirates and catch up poor Negro's or people of another Land, that never forfeited Life or Liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of Thievery in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind; And they that buy them and use them as beasts, for their mere commodity, and betray or destroy or neglect their souls, are fitter to be called incarnate Devils than Christians, though they be no Christians whom they so abuse.
Quest. 3. To the 3 Quest. I answer, That the solution of this case is to be gathered from what is said already. A Servant and a Voluntary slave were both free men till they sold or hired themselves: And a criminal person was a freeman till he forfeited his life or liberty: But afterward the difference is this; that 1. A free servant is my servant no further than his own Covenant made him so; Which is supposed to be, 1. To a certain kind, and measure of labor according to the meaning of his contract. 2. For a limited time, expressed in the contract, whether a year or two or three or seven.
2. A Slave by mere Contract is one that, 1. Usually selleth himself absolutely to the will of another as to his labor both for kind and measure; where yet the limitations of God and nature after (and before) named are supposed among Christians to take place. 2. He is one that selleth himself to such labor during life.
3. A Slave by just penalty is liable to so much servitude as the Magistrate doth judge him to; which may be, 1. Not only such labor as aforesaid as pleaseth his master to impose, 2. And that for life, 3. But it may be also to stripes and severities which might not lawfully be inflicted on another.
1. The Limitations of a necessitated-slavery by Contract or Consent through poverty are these, 1. Such a ones soul must be cared for and preserved, though he should consent to the contrary. He must have time to learn the word of God, and time to pray, and he must re • t on the Lord's day, and employ it in God's service; He must be instructed and exhorted and kept from sin. 2. He may not be forced to commit any sin against God. 3. He may not (though he forcedly consent) be denied such comforts of this life, as are needful to his cheerful serving of God in Love and Thankfulness, according to the peace of the Gospel state; and which are called by the name of our Daily bread. No man may deny a Slave any of this, that is not a criminal punished Slave.
2. And the most criminal slave may not be forced to sin, nor denied necessary helps to his salvation. But he may penally be beaten and denied part of his daily bread; so it be not done more rigorously than true Justice doth require.
Quest. But what if men buy Negro's or other slaves of such as we have just cause to believe did steal them by Piracy, or buy them of those that have no power to sell them, and not hire or buy them by their own consent, or by the consent of those that had power to sell them, nor take them Captives in a lawful War, what must they do with them afterward?
Answ. 1. It is their heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them. 2. Having done it, undoubtedly they are presently bound to deliver them: Because by right the man is his own, and therefore no man else can have just title to him.
Quest. But may I not sell him again and make my money of him, seeing I leave him but as I found him?
Answ. No: because when you have taken possession of him, and a pretended propriety, then the injury that is done him is by you; which before was only by another: And though the wrong be no greater than the other did him, yet being now done by you, it is your sin.
Quest. But may I not return him to him that I bought him of?
Answ. No: for that is but injuring him by delivering him to another to continue the injury. To say as Pilate, [I am innocent of the blood of this just man] will be no proof of your innocence, yea God's Law bindeth you to Love and works of Love, and therefore you should do your best to free him: He that is bound to help to save a man, that is fallen into the hand of thieves by the high way, it he should buy that man as a slave of the thieves, may not after give him up to the thieves again. But to proceed in the Directions.
Direct. 3. So serve your own necessities by your slaves as to prefer God's interest, and their spiritual and everlasting happiness. Teach them the way to Heaven, and do all for their souls which I have before directed you to do for all your other servants. Though you may make some difference in their Lab • ur and diet and clothing, yet none as to the furthering of their salvation. If they be Infidels use them so as tendeth to win them to Christ, and the love of Religion, by showing them that Christians are less worldly, less cruel and passionate, and more wise and charitable and holy and meek, than any other persons are. Woe to them that by their cruelty and covetousness do scandalize even slaves, and hinder their conversion and salvation.
Direct. 4. By how much the hardness of their condition doth make their lives uncomfortable, and God hath cast them lower than yourselves, by so much the more let your charity pity them, and labor to abate their burden, and sweeten their lives to them, as much as your condition will allow. And remember that even a slave may be one of those Neighbors that you are bound to love as yourselves, and to do to as you would be done by if your case were his. Which if you do, you will need no more direction for his relief.
Direct. 5. Remember that you may require no more of an innocent slave, than you would or might do of an ordinary servant, if he were at your will, and did not by contract except something as to Labor or usage, which else you would think just and meet to have required of him.
Direct. 6. If they are Infidels, neither be too hasty in baptizing them, when they desire it, nor too slow. Not so hasty as to put them on it, before they understand what the Baptismal Covenant is; or before you see any likelihood that they should be serious in making such a Covenant. Nor yet so slow as to let them alone to linger out their lives in the state of those without the Church. But hasten them to Learn, and stir up their desires, and look after them as the ancient Churches did after their Catechumens: And when you see them fit by knowledge, belief, desire and resolution, to Vow themselves to God on the terms of the holy Covenant, then put them on to be baptized. But if you should feel an abatement of your desires of their Conversion, because you shall lose their service, (much more if ever you had a wish that they might not be converted, which is plain Devilism, ) let it be the matter of your deep humiliation, and repentance.
Direct. 7. Make it your chief end in buying and using slaves, to win them to Christ and save their souls. Do not only endeavor it on the buy, when you have first consulted your own commodity; but make this more of your end than your commodity itself; and let their salvation be far more valued by you than their service: And carry yourselves to them, as those that are sensible that they are Redeemed with them by Christ from the slavery of Satan, and may live with them in the liberty of the Saints in Glory.
CHAP. XV. The Duties of Children and Fellow-servants to one another.
IT is not easy to resolve, whether good Governors, or good fellow-servants in a family be the greater help and benefit, to each of the inferiors. For servants are so much together, and so free and familiar with each other, that they have the more opportunity to be useful to each other, if they have but abilities and hearts. It is needful therefore that you know your duty to one another, both for doing and getting that good which otherwise will be lost.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Love one another unfeignedly as yourselves: Avoid all contention and falling out with one another, or anything that would weaken your love to one another: especially differences about your personal interests, in point of profit, provision or reputation. Take heed of the Spirit of envy, which will make your hearts rise against those that are preferred before you, or that are used better than you: Remember the sin and misery of Cain, and take warning by him. Give place to others, and in honor prefer others, and seek not to be preferred before them, Rom. 12. 10, 16. God delighteth to exalt the humble that abase themselves, and to cast down those that exalt themselves. When the interest of your flesh can make you hate or fall out with each other, what a fearful sign is it of a fleshly mind? Rom. 8. 6, 13.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Take heed of using provoking words against each other. For these are the bellows to blow up that which the Apostle calleth the fire of Hell, Jam. 3. 6. A foul tongue setteth on fire the course of nature, and therefore it may set a family on fire, Jam. 3. 5, 6. Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work: V. 15, 16. If ye be angry, refrain your tongues and sin not, and let not the Sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the Devil, Ephes. 4. 26, 27. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you, Ephes. 4. 31, 32. Revilers shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6. 10.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Help one another with love and willingness in your labors: and do not grudge at one another, and say such a one doth less than I; but be as ready to help another, as you would be helped yourselves. It is very amiable to see a family of such children and servants, that all take one another's concernments as their own; and are not selfish against each other. Psal. 133. 1. Behold how good and how pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity! &c.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Take heed that you prove not Tempters to draw each other to sin and misery. Either by joining together in ryotousness, or wronging your Masters, or secret revelling, and then in lying to conceal it: Or lest immodest familiarity draw those of different sexes into a snare. Abundance of sin and misery hath followed such tempting familiarity of men and maids that were fellow servants. Their nearness giveth them opportunity, and the Devil provoketh them to take their opportunity; and from immodest wanton dalliance, and unchaste words, they proceed at last to more lasciviousness, to their own undoing: Bring not the straw to the fire, if you would not have it burn.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Watch over one another for mutual preservation against the sin and temptations which you are most in danger of Agree to tell each other of your faults, not proudly or passionately, but in love: and resolve to take it thankfully from each other. If any one talk foolishly and idly, or wantonly and immodestly, or tell a lie, or take God's name in vain, or neglect their duty to God or man, or deal unfaithfully in their trust or labor, let the other seriously tell him of his sin, and call him to repentance: And let not him that is guilty take it ill, and angrily snap at the reprover, or justify or excuse the fault, or hit him presently in the teeth with his own; but humbly thank him, and promise amendment. O how happy might servants be, if they would faithfully watch over one another?
§. 6. Direct. 6. When you are together and your work will allow it, let your discourse be such as tendeth to edification, and to the spiritual good of the speaker or the hearers. Some work there is that must be thought on, and talked of while it is doing, and will not allow you leisure to think or speak of other things, till it is done: But very much of the work of most servants may be as well done, though they think and speak together of heavenly things; besides all other times when their work is over. O take this time to be speaking of good to one another. It is like that someone of you hath more knowledge than the rest. Let the rest be asking his counsel and instructions, and let him bend himself to do them good: Or if you are equal in knowledge, yet stir up the grace that is in you if you have any; or stir up your desires after it, if you have none. Waste not your precious time in vanity: Multiply not the sin of idle words. O what a load doth lie on many a soul that feeleth it not, in the guilt of these two sins, L • ss of time, and idle words: To be guilty of the same sins over and over, every day, and make a constant practice of them, and this against your own knowledge and conscience, is a more grievous case than many think of. Whereas if you would live together as the heirs of Heaven, and provoke one another to the Love of God, and holy duty, and delightfully talk of the Word of God, and the life to come, what blessings might you be to one another? and your service and labor would be a sanctified and comfortable life to you all, Ephes. 4. 29, 30. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, and may minister grace to the hearers, and grieve not the holy Spirit of God —& 5. 3, 4. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness (or rather, inordinate fleshly desire ) let it not be once named among you, as becometh Saints: neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient; but rather giving of thanks. Of this more anon.
§. 7. Direct. 7. Patiently bear with the failings of one another towards yourselves, and hide those faults the opening of which will do no good, but stir up strife: But conceal not those faults which will be cherished by concealment, or whose concealment tendeth to the wrong of your Master, or any other. For it is in your power to forgive a fault against yourselves, but not against God or another: And to know when you should reveal it, and when not, you must wisely fore-know which way is like to do more good or harm. And if yet you be in doubt, open it first to some secret friend, that is wise to advise you whether it should be further opened or not.
§. 8. Direct. 8. If weakness, or sickness, or want afflict a Brother, or Sister, or fellow-servant, be kind and helpful to them according to your power. Love not in word only, but in dead and truth. 1 John 3. 18. Jam 2.
CHAP. XVI. Directions for holy Conference of Fellow-servants, or others.
BEcause this is a duty so frequently to be performed, and therefore the peace and edification of Christians is very much concerned in it, I shall give a few brief Directions about it.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Labor most for a full and lively heart which hath the feeling of those things which your tongues should speak of: For 1. Such a heart will be like a Spring which is always running, and will contiuually feed the streams: Forced and feigned things are of short continuance: The hypocrites affected forced speech, is exercised but among those where it may serve his pride and carnal ends: At other times, and in other company, he hath another tongue like other men. It is like a Land-flood that is quickly gone; or like the bending of a Bow, which returneth to its place, as soon as it is loosed. 2. And that which cometh from your hearts will be serious and hearty, and likeliest to do good to others: For words do their work upon us, not only by signifying the matter which is spoken, but also by signifying the affections of the speaker. And that which will work affections, must express affection ordinarily. If it come not from the heart of the speaker, it is not so like to go to the hearts of the hearers. A hearty Preacher, and a hearty feeling discourse of holy things, do pierce heart-deep, and do that good, which better composed words that are heartless do not.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Yet for all that, when your hearts are cold, and dull, and barren, do not think that your tongues must therefore neglect their duty, and be silent from all good, till your hearts be better: but force your tongues to do their duty, if they will not do them freely without constraint. For, 1. Duty is duty whether you be well disposed to it or not: If all duty should cease when men are ill disposed to it, no wicked man would be bound to anything that is truly holy. 2. And if Heart and Tongue be both obliged, it is worse to omit both than one. 3. And there may be sincerity in a duty, when the heart is cold and dull: 4. And beginning to do your duty as well as you can, is the way to overcome your dullness and unfitness: when you force your tongues at first to speak of that which is good, the words which you speak or hear, may help to bring you into a better frame: Many a man hath begun to pray with coldness, that hath got him heat before he had done: And many a man hath gone unwillingly to hear a Sermon, that hath come home a converted soul. 5. And when you set yourselves in the way of Duty, you are in the way of promised grace.
§. 3. Object. But is not this to play the Hypocrite, to let my tongue go before my heart? and speak the things which my heart is not affected with?
Answ. If you speak falsely and dissemblingly, you play the Hypocrites: But you may force your selves to speak of good, without any falsehood or hypocrisy. Words signify, as I told you, the matter spoken and the speakers mind. Now your speaking of the things of God doth tell no more of your mind but this, that you take them to be true, and that you desire those that you speak to, to regard them: And all this is so: and therefore there is no hypocrisy in it. Indeed, if you told the hearers, that you are deeply affected with these things yourselves, when it is not so, this were hypocrisy: But a man may exhort another to be good, without professing himself to be good: yea, though he confess himself to be bad. Therefore all the good discourses of a wicked man are not hypocrisy: Much less the good discourse of a sincere Christian, that is dull and cold in that discourse. And if a duty had some hypocrisy in it, it is not the duty but the hypocrisy that God disliketh, and you must forsake: As if there be coldness in a duty, it is the coldness, and not the duty that is to be blamed and forborne. And wholly to omit the duty, is worse than to do it with some coldness or hypocrisy, which is not the predominant complexion of the duty.
§. 4. Object. But if it be not the fruit of the Spirit, it is not acceptable to God: And that which I force my tongue to is none of the fruits of the Spirit: Therefore I must stay till the Spirit move me.
Answ. 1. There are many duties done by Reason and the common assistances of God, that are better than the total omission of them is. Else no unsanctified man should hear the Word, or pray▪ or relieve the poor, or obey his Prince or Governors, or do any duty towards children or neighbors, because whatsoever is not the fruit of the special grace of the Spirit is sin; and without faith it is impossible to please God; and all men have not faith, Heb. 11. 6. 2 Thess. 3. 2. 2. It is a distracted conceit of the Q • akers and other Fanatics, to think that Reason and the Spirit of God are not conjunct principles in the same act. Doth the Spirit work on a man as on a beast or a stone? and cause you to speak as a Clock that striketh it knoweth not what; or play on man's soul, as on an instrument of Music, that hath neither knowledge of the melody, nor any pleasure in it? No: the Spirit of God supposeth Nature, and worketh on man as man; by exciting your own Understanding and Will to do their parts. So that when, against all the remnant of dullness and backwardness that is in you, you can force yourselves to do your duty, it is because the Spirit of God assisteth you to take that resolution, and use that force: For thus the Spirit striveth against the flesh, Gal. 5. 17. Rom. 7. 16, 17, 18, &c. Though it is confessed, that there is more of the Spirit where there is no backwardness, or resistance, or need of forcing.
§. 5. Direct. 3. By all means labor to be furnished with understanding in the matters of God: For, 1. An understanding person hath a Mine of holy matter in himself, and never is quite void of matter for good discourse: He is the good Scribe, that is instructed to the Kingdom of God, that bringeth out of his treasury things new and old, Matth. 13. 52. 2. And an understanding person will speak discreetly, and so will much further the success of his discourse, and not make it ridiculous, contemptuous or ineffectual through his indiscretion. But yet if you are ignorant and wanting in understanding, do not therefore be silent: for though your ability is least, your necessity is greatest. Let necessity therefore constrain you to ask instruction, as it constraineth the needy to beg for what they want. But spare no pains to increase your knowledge.
§. 6. Direct. 4. If your own understandings and hearts do not furnish you with matter, have recourse to those manifold helps that God vouchsafeth you. As 1. You may discourse of the last Sermon that you heard, or someone lately preached that nearly touched you: 2. Or of something in the last Book you read. 3. Or of some Text of Scripture obvious to your thoughts. 4. Or of some notable (yea, or ordinary) providence which did lately occur. 5. Or of some examples of good or evil that are fresh before you: 6. Or of the right doing of the duty that you are about, or any such like helps.
§. 7. Direct. 5. Talk not of vain unprofitable controversies, nor often of small circumstantial matters that make but little to edification: For there may be idle talking about matters of Religion as well as about other smaller things. Especially see that the quarrels of the times, engage not your thoughts and speeches too far, into a course of unprofitableness or contention.
§. 8. Direct. 6. Furnish yourselves before hand with matter for the most edifying discourse; and never go abroad empty. And let the matter be usually, 1. Things of weight, and not small matters: 2. Things of certainty and not uncertain things. Particularly the fittest subjects for your ordinary discourse are these: 1. God himself, with his Attributes, Relations and Works. 2. The great mystery of man's Redemption by Christ: His person, office, sufferings, doctrine, example and work: His resurrection, ascension, glory, intercession, and all the privileges of his Saints. 3. The Covenant of Grace, the promises, the duties, the conditions and the threatenings. 4. The workings of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul, and every grace of the Spirit in us; with all the signs, and helps, and hindrances of it. 5. The ways and wiles of Satan and all our spiritual enemies; the particular temptations which we are in danger of; what they are, and how to avoid them, and what are the most powerful helps against them. 6. The corruption and deceitfulness of the heart: The nature and workings, effects and signs of ignorance, unbelief, hypocrisy, pride, sensuality, worldliness, impiety, injustice, intemperance, uncharitableness, and every other sin: with all the helps against them all. 7. The many duties to God and man which we have to perform: both internal and external, and how to do them, and what are the chiefest hindrances and helps. (As in reading, hearing, meditating, prayer, giving alms, &c. ) And the duties of our Relations, and several places, with the contrary sins. 8. The Vanity of the world, and deceitfulness of all earthly things. 9. The powerful Reasons used by Christ to draw us to holiness, and the unreasonable madness of all that is brought against it, by the Devil or by wicked men. 9. Of the sufferings which we must expect and be prepared for: 10. O • death, and the preparations that will then be found necessary; and how to make ready for so great a change. 11. Of the day of judgment, and who will be then justified, and who condemned. 12. Of the joys of Heaven, the employment, the company, the nature and duration. 13. Of the miseries of the damned, and the thoughts that then they will have of their former life on earth. 14. Of the state of the Church on earth, and what we ought to do in our places for its welfare. Is there not matter enough in all these great and weighty points, for your hourly meditation and conference?
§. 9. Direct. 7. Take heed of proud self-conceitedness in your conference. Speak not with supercilious censorious confidence. Let not the weak take on them to be wiser than they are. Be readier to speak by way of Question as Learners, than as Teachers of others, unless you are sure that they have much more need to be taught by you than you by them: It's ordinary for novices in Religion to cast all their discourse into a Teaching strain, or to make themselves Preachers before they understand. It is a most loathsome and pitiful hearing (and yet too ordinary) to hear a raw self-conceited ungrounded inexperienced person, to prate magisterially and censure confidently the doctrine or practices or persons of those that are much better and wiser than themselves. If you meet with this proud censorious spirit, rebuke it first, and read to them, I am. 3. and if they go on, turn away from them, and avoid them; for they know not what manner of spirit they are of: they serve not the Lord Jesus, whatever they pretend or think themselves, but are proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions, and making divisions in the Church of God, and ready to fall into the condemnation of the Devil, 1 Tim. 3. 6. & 6. 3, 4, 5, Rom. 16. 17. Luk. 9. 55.
§. 10. Direct. 8. Let the wisest in the company and not the weakest have most of the discourse: But yet if any one that is of an abler tongue than the rest, do make any determinations in doubtful controverted points, take heed of a hasty receiving his judgment, let his reasons seem never so plausible or probable; but put down all such opinions as doubts, and move them to your Teachers or some other impartial able men, before you entertain them. Otherwise he that hath most wit and tongue in the company might carry away all the rest, into what error or heresy he please, and subvert their faith when he stops their mouths.
§. 11. Direct. 9. Let the matter of your speech be suitable to your end, even to the good of your selves or others which you seek. The same subject that is fit for one company is very unfit for others. Learned men and ignorant men, pious men and profane men, are not fit for the same kind of discourse. The medicine must be carefully fitted to the disease.
§. 12. Direct. 10. Let your speech be seasonable, when prudence telleth you it is not like to do more harm than good. There is a season for the prudent to be silent, and refrain even from good talk: Amos 5. 17. Psal. 39. 1, 2. Cast not Pearls before Swine, and give not holy things to Dogs, that you know will turn again and rend you, Matth. 7. 6. Yea and among good people themselves, there is a time to speak and a time to be silent, Eccles. 3. 7. There may possibly be such excess as tendeth to the tiring of the hearers: and more may be crammed in than they can digest; and surfeiting may make them loath it afterwards: You must give none more than they can bear: And also the matters of your business and callings, must be talked of in their time and place.
§. 13. Direct. 11. Let all your speech of holy things be with the greatest seriousness and reverence that you are able: Let the words be never so good, yet levity and rudeness may make them to be profane. God and holy things should not be talked of in a common manner: But the gravity of your speech should tell the hearers; that you take them not for small or common matters. If servants and others that live near together would converse, and speak as the Oracles of God, how holy, and heavenly, and happy would such families or societies be?
CHAP. XVII. Directions for each particular member of the Family, how to spend every ordinary day of the week.
IT somewhat tendeth to make a holy life more easy to us, when we know the ordinary course and method of our duties, and everything falleth into its proper place. As it helpeth the Husbandman or Tradesman to know the ordinary course of his work, that he need not go out of it, unless in extraordinary cases. Therefore I shall here give you some brief Directions for the holy spending of every day.
§. 1. Direct. 1. Proportion the time of your sleep aright (if it be in your power) that you waste not your precious morning hours sluggishly in your bed. Let the time of your sleep be rationally fitted to your health and labor, and not sensually to your slothful pleasure. About six hours is meet for healthful people, and seven hours for the less healthful, and eight for the more weak and aged, ordinarily. The morning hours are to most the preitousest of all the day, for all our duties; especially servants that are scanted of time, must take it then for prayer if possible, le • t they have none at all.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Let God have your first awaking thoughts: Lift up your hearts to him reverently and thankfully for the rest of the night past, and briefly cast yourselves upon him for the following day: and use yourselves so constantly to this, that your consciences may check you, when common thoughts shall first intrude. And if you have a Bed-fellow to speak to, let your first speech be agreeable to your thoughts. It will be a great help against the temptations that may else surprise you, and a holy engagement of your hearts to God, for all the day.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Resolve that pride and the fashions of the times shall never tempt you into such a garb of attire, as will make you long in dressing you in the morning: but wear such clothing as is soon put on. It's dear-bought bravery (or decency as they will needs call it) which must cost every day an hours or a quarter of an hours time extraordinary: I had rather go as the wild Indians, than have those morning hours to answer for, as too many Ladies and other gallants have.
§. 4. Direct. 4. If you are persons of quality you may employ a child or servant to read a Chapter in the Bible while you are dressing you, and eating your breakfast (if you eat any): Else you may employ that time in some fruitful meditation, or conference with those about you, as far as your necessary occasions do give leave: As to think or speak of the mercy of a nights rest, and of your renewed time; and how many spent that night in hell, and how many in prison, and how many in a colder harder lodging, and how many in grievous pain and sickness, aweary of their beds and of their lives; and how many in distracting terrors of their minds? and how many souls that night were called from their bodies, to appear before the dreadful God? And think how fast days and nights • oul on? and how speedily your last night and day will come: And observe what is wanting in the readiness of your soul, for such a time, and seek it presently without delay.
§. 5. Direct. 5. If more necessary duties call you not away, let secret prayer by yourself alone or with your chamber-fellow or both, go before the common prayers of the family: and delay it not causelessly, but if it may be, let it be first, before any other work of the day. Yet be not formal and superstitious to your hours, as if God had absolutely tied you to such a time: nor think it not your duty to pray once in secret and once with your chamber-fellow and once with the family every morning, when more necessary duties call you off. That hour is best for one, which is worst for another: To most, private prayer is most seasonable as soon as they are up and clothed: To others some other hour may be more free and fit. And those persons that have not more necessary duties, may do well to pray at all the opportunities before-mentioned. But reading and meditation must be allowed their time also: And the labors of your callings must be painfully followed: And servants and poor people that are not at liberty, or that have a necessity of providing for their families, may not lawfully take so much time for prayer, as some others may: especially the aged and weak that cannot follow a calling may take longer time. And Ministers that have many souls to look after, and public work to do, must take heed of neglecting any of this, that they may be longer and oftener in private prayer. Allwayes remember that when two duties are at once before you, and one must be omitted, that you prefer that which all things considered, is the greatest: And understand what maketh a duty greatest. Usually that is greatest which tendeth to the greatest good: yet sometime that is greatest at that time, which cannot be done at another time, when others may. Praying in itself considered is better than Plowing, or Marketting or Conference: And yet these may be greater than it in their proper seasons; because prayer may be done at another time, when these cannot.
§. 6. Direct. 6. Let family-worship be performed constantly and seasonably, twice a day, at that hour which is freest in regard of interruptions; not delaying it without just cause: But whenever it is performed, be sure it be reverently, seriously and spiritually done. If greater duty hinder not, begin with a brief invocation of God's name, and craving of his help and blessing through Christ: and then read some part of the holy Scripture in order; and either help the hearers to understand it and apply it, or if you are unable for that, then read some profitable Book to them for such ends: and sing a Psalm (if there be enough to do it fitly), and earnestly pour out your souls in Prayer. But if unavoidable occasions will not give way to all this, do what you can, especially in prayer, and do the rest another time; but pretend not necessity against any duty, when it is but unwillingness or negligence. The lively performance of Family-duties, is a principal means to keep up the power and interest of Godliness in the world: which all decays when these grow dead and slight and formal.
§ 7. Direct. 7. Renew the actual intention and remembrance of your ultimate end, when you set your selves to your days work, or set upon any notable business in the world. Let HOLINESS TO THE LORD be written upon your hearts in all that you do. Do no work which you cannot entitle God to, and truly say he set you about; And do nothing in the world for any other ultimate end, than to Please and Glorify and Enjoy him. And remember that whatever you do, must be done as a means to these, and as by one that is that way going on to Heaven: All your labor must be as the labor of a traveler, which is all for his journeys end: And all your respect or affection to any place or thing in your way, must be in respect to your attainment of the end; as a Traveler loveth a good Way, a good Horse, a good Inn, a dry Cloak, or good Company: But nothing must be loved here as your end or home: Lift up your hearts to Heaven and say, If this work and way did not tend thither directly or indirectly, it were no work or way for me. Whatever you do, do all to the Glory of God, 1 Cor. 10. 31.
§. 8. Direct 8. Follow the labors of your calling painfully and diligently: From hence will follow many commodities. 1. You will show that you are not sluggish and servants to your flesh, as those that cannot deny its ease. And you will further the mortification of all fleshly lusts and desires, which are sed by • ase and idleness. 2. You will keep out idle thoughts from your mind, which swarm in the minds of idle persons. 3. You will scape the loss of precious Time, which idle persons are daily guilty of. 4. You will be in a course of obedience to God, when the slothful are in a constant sin of omission. 5. You may have the more time to spare for holy exercises, if you follow your labor close when you are at it; when idle persons can have no time for Prayer or Reading, because they lose it by loitering at their work, and leave their business still behind hand. 6. You may expect God's blessing for the comfortable provision for yourselves and families, and to have to give to them that need, when the slothful are in want themselves, and cast by their want into abundance of temptations, and have nothing to do good with. 7. And it will also tend to the health of your bodies, which will make them the fitter for the service of your souls. When flothfulness wasteth time, and health and estate and wit and grace and all.
§. 9. Direct. 9. Be thoroughly acquainted with your Corruptions and Temptations, and watch against them all the day: especially the most dangerous sort of your corruptions, and those Temptations which your company or business will unavoidably lay before you. Be still watching and working against the master radical sins of Unbelief, Hypocrisy, Selfishness, Pride, Sensuality, or flesh-pleasing, and the inordinate Love of earthly things. Take heed lest under pretence of diligence in your Calling, you be drawn to earthly mindedness, and excessive cares or covetous designs for rising in the World. If you are to trade or deal with others, take heed of selfishness, which desireth to draw or save from others, as much as you can for yourselves and your own advantage: Take heed of all that savoreth of Injustice or Uncharitableness in all your dealings with others. If you converse with vain talkers; be still provided against the temptation of Vanity of talk: If you converse with angry persons, be still fortified against their provocations. If you converse with wanton persons, or such as are tempting those of the other Sex, maintain that modesty and necessary distance and cleanness of speech which the laws of Chastity require. If you have servants that are still faulty be so provided against the temptation, that their faults may not make you faulty, and you may do nothing that is unseemly or unjust, but only that which tendeth to their amendment. If you are poor, be still provided against the Temptations of Poverty, that it bring not upon you, an evil far greater than itself: If you are Rich, be most diligent in fortifying your hearts against those more dangerous temptations of Riches, which very few escape. If you converse with flatterers or those that much admire you, be fortified against swelling Pride: If you converse with those that despise and injure you, be fortified against impatient revengeful Pride. These works at first will be very difficult, while sin is in any strength: But when you have got an habitual apprehension of the poisonous danger of everyone of these sins, and of the tendency of all Temptations, your hearts will readily and easily avoid them, without much tiring thoughtfulness and care: even as a man will pass by a house infected with the Plague, or go out of the way if he meet a Cart or anything that would hurt him.
§. 10. Direct. 10. When you are alone in your labors improve the time in practical fruitful (not speculative and barren) meditations: especially in Heart-work and Heaven-work: Let your chiefest meditations be on the Infinite Goodness and perfections of God, and the life of Glory which in the Love and praise of him, you must live forever: And next, let Christ and the mysteries of Grace in man's Redemption, be the matter of your thoughts; And next that your own hearts and lives; and the rest before expressed, Chap. 16. Dir. 6. § 8. If you are able to manage meditations methodically it will be best: But if you cannot do that without so much striving as will confound you and distract you and cast you into Melancholy, it is better let your Meditations be more short and easy, like ejaculatory prayers. But let them usually be operative to do some good upon your hearts.
§. 11. Direct. 11. If you labor in company with others, be provided with Matter, Skill, Resolution and Zeal, to improve the time in profitable conference, and to avoid diversions; as is Directed, Chap. 16.
§. 12. Direct. 12. Whatever you are doing, in company or alone, •• e • the day be spont • in the inward excitation and exercise of the Graces of the soul, as well as in external bodily duties. And to that end know, that there is no external duty, but must have some internal grace to animate it, or else it is but an image or carcass, and unacceptable to God. When you are praying and reading, there are the Graces of Faith, Desire, Love, Repentance; &c. to be exercised there: when you are alone, Meditation may help to actuate any Grace as you find-most needful: when you are conferring with others, you must exercise Love to them, and Love to that truth about which you do confer, and other Graces as the subject shall require. When you are provoked or under suffering you have patience to exercise. But especially it must be your principal daily business, by the exercise of faith to keep your hearts warm in the Love of God and your dear Redeem •• , and in th • •• ip • m and delightful thoughts of Heaven. As the means are various and admit of deliberation and ch • ice, because they are to be used but as means, and not all at once, but sometimes one and sometimes another, when the End is still the same and pa • t Deliberation or choice: so all those Graces which are but means must be used thus variously and with deliberation and choice; when the Love of God and of eternal life must be the constant tenor and: constitution of the mind, as being the final grace, which consisteth with the exercise of every other mediate grace. Never take • o with lip-labor or bodily exercise alone, nor b • rren thoughts, unless your Hear •• 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, Rom. 13. 10. 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.
§. 13. Direct. 13. 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, unpref • iable company, or sleep, be any of them Temptations to r •• yo • of any of your Time, accordingly heighten your watchfulness and for in resolutions against them. Be not more careful to escape Thieves and Robbers, than to escape • hat 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 l • ss before a Greater.
§. 14. Direct. 14. Eat and drink with temperance, and thankfulness: for health and not for unprofitable pleasure. For quantity most carefully avoid excess: For many ex • eed, for one that taketh too little. Never please your appetite in meat or drink, when it tendeth to the detriment of your health. Prov. 31. 4, 6. 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. Eccles. 10. 16. 17. Woe to thee O Land when thy King is a Child, and thy Princes eat in the worning. Blessed a • t thou O Land, when thy King is the Son of Noble • , and thy Princes eat in due season, for strength and not for drunkenness. Then must poorer men also take heed of in temperance and excess. Let your diet incline rather to the courser than the finer sort, and to the cheaper than the costly sort, and to sparing abstinence than to fullness. I would advise Rich men especially, to write in great letters on the walls of their Dining rooms or Parlors these two sentences. Ezek. 16. 49. BEHOLD THIS 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. Luk. 16. 19, 25. There was a certain Rich man which was CLOATHED IN PURPLE and SILK and FARED SUMPTUOUSLY every day—Son remember that thou in thy life time * 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, Phil. 3. 18, 19. O live not after the flesh lest ye die, Rom. 8. 13. Gal. 6. 8. and 5. 21, 23, 24.
§. 15. Direct. 15. 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 through 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.
§ 16. Direct. 16. 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.
§. 17. Direct. 17. 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.
§. 18. Direct. 18. 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 gather a double measure of strength by such extraordinary helps.
§. 19. Direct. 19. 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 days 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 today. 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 safelyer committed to memory, than to writing: And methinks a well humbled and a thankful heart, should not easily let the memory of them slip.
§. 20. Direct. 20. 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 profitablest 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 labor, 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.
CHAP. XVIII.
Tit. 1. Directions for the holy spending of the Lord's Day in Families.
§. 1. 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 thing: 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, Rev. 1. 10. and the ancient Christians: who sometime 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.
§. 2. 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.
§. 3. 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 upon 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 they might infallibly acquaint the Church with the Doctrine and Will of Jesus Christ, and leave it on record for succeeding ages; and so were entrusted by Office and enabled by gifts, to settle the Orders of the Gospel-Church, as Moses did the matters of the Tabernacle and Worship then: and so that their Laws or Orders thus settled, were the Laws or Orders of the Holy Ghost, John 20. 1, 19, 26. Acts 2. 1. Acts 20. 7. 1 Cor. 16. 1, 2. Rev. 1. 10. Matth. 28. 19, 20 John 16. 13, 14, 15. Rom. 16. 16. 2 Thess. 2. 15.
§. 4. 3. It is also confessed, that the Universal Church from the days of the Apostles down till now hath constantly kept holy the Lord's Day in the memorial of Christ's Resurrection, and that as by the will of Christ delivered to them by or from the Apostles: In so much that I remember not either any Orthodox Christian, or Heretic, that ever opposed, questioned or scrupled it, till of late ages. And as a historical discovery of the matter of fact, this is a good evidence that indeed it was settled by the Apostles: and consequently by Christ who gave them their Commission, and inspired them by the Holy Ghost.
§. 5. 4. It is confessed, that it is still the practice of the Universal Church: And those that take it to be but of Ecclesiastical appointment, •• me of them mean it of such extraordinary Ecclesiastics as inspired Apostles, and all of them take the appointment as obligatory to all the members of the Church.
§. 6. 5. The Laws of the Land where we live command it, and the King by Proclamation urgeth the execution; and the Canons, and Homilies, and Liturgy show that the holy observation of the Lord's Day, is the judgment and will of the Governors of the Church. Read the Homilies for the Time and place of Worship. Yea, they require the people to say when the fourth Commandment is read, [ Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this Law ]. And the command of Authority is not a contemptible obligation.
§. 7. 6. It is granted by all, that more than this is due to God, and the life that is in every Christian telleth him, that it is a very great mercy to us: not only to servants, but even to all men, that one day in seven they may disburden themselves of all the cares and business of the world, which may hinder their holy communion with God and one another; and wholly apply themselves to learn the will of God. And nature teacheth us to accept of mercy when it is offered to us, and not dispute against our happiness.
§. 8. 7. Common experience telleth us, that where the Lord's Day is more holily and carefully observed, Knowledge and Religion prosper best: and that more souls are converted on those days, than on all the other days besides: and that the people are accordingly more edified: And that where ever the Lord's Day is ordinarily neglected, or misspent, Religion and Civility decay, and there is a visible lamentable difference, between those places and families, and the other.
§. 9. 8. Reason and experience telleth us, that if men wer • le • t to themselves, what Time they should appoint for God's public Worship, in most pl •• es it would be so little, and disordered, and uncertain, that Religion would be for the most part banished out of the now Christian world. Therefore there being need of an Universal Law for it, it is probable that such a Law there is: And if so, it can be by none but God, the Creator, Redeemer and Holy Ghost, there being no other Universal Governor and Law-giver to impose it.
§. 10. 9. All must confess, that it is more desirable for Unity and Concord sake, that all Christians hold their holy Assemblies on one and the same day, and that all at once through all the world do worship God and seek his Grace; than that they do it some on one day, and some on another.
§. 11. 10. And all that ever I have conversed with confess, that if the holy spending of the Lord's Day be not necessary, it is lawful: and therefore when there is so much to be said for the Necessity of it too, to keep it holy is the safest way: Seeing this cannot be a sin, but the contrary may: And Lic • nce is encouragement enough to accept so great a mercy. All this set together will satisfy a man that hath any spiritual sense of the concernments of his own and others souls.
§. 12. Object. But you will say, That besides the name, it is yet a controversy whether the whole day should be sp • nt in holy exercises, or only so much as is meet for public communion, it being not found in antiqui • y, that the Churches used any further to observe it.
Answ. No sober man denieth that works of necessity for the preservation of our own or other men's lives, or health, or goods may be done on the Lord's Day: so that when we say that the whole day is to be spent holily, we exclude not eating and sleeping, nor the necessary actions about Worship: as the Pries • s in the Temple are said to break the Sabbath (that is, the external rest) and to be blameless. But otherwise, that it is the whole day, is evident in the Arguments produced: The ancient Histories and Canons of the Church speak not of one part of the day only, but the whole: All confess, that when Labor or sinful sports are forbidden, it is on the whole day, and not only on a part. And for what is alleged of the custom of the ancient Church, I answer, 1. The antien • est Churches spent almost all the day in public Worship and Communion: They begun in the morning, and continued without parting till the evening: The first part of the day being spent in teaching the Catechumens▪ they were then dismissed, and the Church continued together in preaching and praying, but especially in those laudatory Eucharistical Offices which accompany the celebration of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. They did not then, (as Gluttons do now) account it fasting to forbear a dinner, when they supped, yea, feasted at night: It being not usual among the Romans to eat any dinners at all. And they that spent all the day together in public Worship and Communion, you may be sure spent no • part of it in Dancing, nor Stage-plays, nor worldly businesses. 2. And Church History giveth us but little account what particular persons did in private, nor can it be expected. 3. Who hath brought us any proof that ever the Church approved of spending any part of the day in sports, or idleness, or unnecessary worldly business? Or that any Churches (or persons regardable) did actually so spend it? 4. Unless their proof be from those many Canons of our own and other Churches that command the holy observation of it, and forbid these plays and labors on it: which I confess doth intimate, that some there were that needed Laws to restrain them from the violation of it. 5. Again I say, that seeing few men will have the faces to say that plays and games or idleness are a duty on that day, it will suffice a holy thankful Christian if he have but leave to spend all the day for the good of his soul and those about him: and if he may be reading and meditating on the Word of God, and praying and praising him, and instructing his family, while others waste that time in vanity: especially to servants and poor men that have but little other leisure all the year, to seek for knowledge, or use any such helps for their salvation. As to a poor man that is kept hungry all the Week, a bare liberty of feasting with his Landlord on the Lord's day, would satisfy him without a Law to constrain him to it; so is it here with a hungry soul.
§. 2. Direct. 2. Remember that the work of the day •• , in general, to keep up knowledge and Religion in the world, and to own and honor our Creater, Redeemer and Regenerater openly before all; and to have communion with God through Christ in the Spirit, by Receiving and Exercising his Grace, in order to our Communion with him in Glory. Let these therefore (well understood) • e your Ends, and in these be you exercised all the day, and stick not hypocritically in bodily rest and outward duties. Remember that it is a day for heart-work, as well as for the exercise of the tongue, and ear, and knees: and that your principal business is with Heaven: Follow your hearts therefore all the day, and see that they be not idle while your bodies are exercised: Nothing is done if the Heart do nothing.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Remember that the special work of the day is to celebrate the memorial of Christ's Resurrection, and of the whole work of man's Redemption by him: Labor therefore with all diligence in the sense of your natural sin and misery, to stir up the lively sense of the wonderful Love of God and our Redeemer, and to spend all the day in the special exercises of Faith and Love: And seeing it is the Christian weekly festival, or day of Thanksgiving for the greatest mercy in the world, spend it as a day of Thanksgiving should be spent, especially in Ioyful Praises of our Lord: and let the hu • bling and instructing exercis • s of the day, he all subordinate to these laudatory exercises. I know that much time must be spent in teaching and warning the ignorant and ungodly, because their poverty and labors hinder them from other such opportunities, and we must speak to them then or not at all: But if it were not for their mere necessity, and if we could as well speak to them other days of the Week, the Churches should spend all the Lord's Day in such praises and thanksgivings as are suitable to the ends of the institution. But seeing that cannot be expected, methinks it is desirable that the ancient custom of the Churches were more imitated, and the morning Sermon being fuited to the state of the more ignorant and unconverted, that the rest of the day were spent in the exercises of Thanksgiving to the Joy and encouragement of believers, and in doctrine suited to their state. And yet I must add, that a skillful Preacher will do both together, and so declare the Love and Grace of our Redeemer, as by a meet application may both draw in the ungodly, and comfort those that are already sanctified, and raise their hearts in Praise to God.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Remember that the Lord's day is appointed specially for public worship and personal Communion of the Churches therein: see therefore that you spend as much of the day as you can in this public worship and Church-communion; especially in the celebration of that Sacrament which is appointed for the memorial of the death of Christ until his coming, 1 Cor. 11. 25, 26. This Sacrament in the Primitive Church was celebrated every Lord's day; yea and ofter; even ordinarily on every other day of the week when the Churches assembled for Communion. And it might be so now without any hindrance to Preaching or Prayer if all things were ordered as they should be: For those Prayers and instructions and exhortations which are most suited to this Eucharistical action, would be the most suitable Prayers and Sermons for the Church on the Lord's days. In the mean time s • e that so much of the day, as is spent in Church-communion and public worship, be accordingly improved by you; and be not at that time about your secret or family services, but take only those hours for such private duties, in which the Church is not assembled. And remember how much the Love of Saints is to be exercised in this Communion: and therefore labor to keep alive that Love, without which no man can celebrate the Lord's day according to the end of the institution.
§. 5. Direct. 5. Understand how great a mercy it is that you have leave thus to wait upon God for the receiving and exercise of grace, and to cast off the distracting thoughts and businesses of the world, and what an opportunity is put into your hand, to get more in one day, than this world can aff • rd you all your lives: And therefore come with gladness as to the receiving of so great a mercy, and with desire after it, and with hope to speed, and not with unwillingness as to an unpleasant task, as carnal hearts that Love not God, or his Grace or Service, and are aweary of all they do, and gl • d when it is done, as the Ox that is unyoaked. Isa. 58. 13, 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a Delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasu • e, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord —The affection that you have to the Lord's day much showeth the temper of the heart. A holy person is glad when it cometh, as loving it for the holy exercises of the day: A wicked carnal heart is glad of it only for his carnal ease, but weary of the spiritual duties.
§. 6. Direct. 6. Avoid both the extremes of Profaneness and Superstition in the point of your external rest: And to that end, Observe, 1. That the work is not for the day, but the day for the holy work: As Christ saith, Mark 2. 27. The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. It is appointed for our good, and not for our hurt. 2. The outward rest is not appointed for itself, but as a means to the freedom of the mind for inward and spiritual employments: And therefore all those outward and common labors and discourses are unlawful, which any way distract the mind, and hinder either our outward or inward attendance upon God, and our edification. 3. And (whatever it was to the Jews) no common words or actions are unlawful which are no hindrance to this communion and worship and spiritual edification. 4. Yea those things that are necessary to the support of nature, and the saving of the Life or health or estate and goods of ourselves or our neighbors are needful duties on that day: Not all those works which are truly charitable (for it may be a work of mercy to build Hospitals, or make Garments for the poor, or Till their ground) but such works of mercy as cannot be put off to another day, and such as hinder not the duties of the day. 5. The same word or action on the Lord's day which is unlawful to one man, may be lawful to another; as being no hindrance, yea a duty to him: As Christ saith, The Priests in the Temple break or profane the Sabbath (that is, the outward rest, but not the command ) and are blameless, Matth. 12. 15. And the Cook may lawfully be employed in dressing meat, when it were a sin in another to do it voluntarily without need. 6. The Lord's day being to be kept as a day of Thanksgiving, the dressing of such meat as is fit for a day of Thanksgiving is not to be scrupled: The primitive Christians in the Apostles time, had their Love-feasts constantly (with the Lord's Supper or after) on the Evening of the day. And they could not feast without dressing meat. 7. Yet that which is lawful in itself must be so done as consisteth with care and compassion of the souls of servants that are employed about it, that they may • e deprived of no more of their spiritual benefit than needs. 8. Also that which is lawful must sometimes be forborne, when it may by scandal tempt others that are loose or weak, to do that which is unlawful: not that the mere displeasing of the erroneous should put us out of the right way; but the scandal which is spoken against in Scripture, is the laying a Temptation before men that are weak to make them sin. 9. Take heed of that hypocritical and c • nsorious temper which turneth the holy observation of the day, into a Ceremonious abstinence from lawful things; and censureth those as ungodly that are not of the same mind, and forbear not such things as well as they. Mark the difference between Christ and the Pharisees in this point: Much of their contention with him was about the outward observation of the Sabbath; because his disciples rubbed out Corn to eat on the Sabbath day, and because he healed on the Sabbath, and bid the healed man, Take up his bed and walk: And they said, There are six days in which men ought to work; they might come and be healed on them. Luk 6. 1, 5, 6. & 13. 12, 14, 15, 16. John. 5. 17, 18. Mark 1. 21, 24. & 2. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27▪ 28. & 3. 2, 3, 5. & 6. 2, 5. Luk. 14. 1, 3, 5, 6. John. 5. 9, 10, 16. & 7. 22, 23, 24. & 9. 14, 16. And a man that is of their spirit will think that the Pharisees were in the right: No doubt Christ might have chosen another day to heal on; But he knew that the works which most declared the power of God, and honored him before all, and confirmed the Gospel, were fittest for the Sabbath day. Take heed therefore of the Pharisees Ceremoniousness and Censoriousness. If you see a man walking abroad on the Lord's day, censure him not till you know that he doth it from profaneness or negligence: You know not but it may be necessary to his health, and he may improve it in holy meditation? If you hear some speak a word more than you think needful, of common things, or do more about meat and clothing than you think meet; censure them not till you hear their reason. A scrupulousness about such outward observances, when the holy duties of the day are no whit hindered by that thing, and a censoriousness towards those that are not as scrupulous, is too Pharisaical and Ceremonious a Religion for spiritual charitable Christians. And the extremes of some Godly people in this kind, have occasioned the Quakers and Seekers to take and use all days alike, and the profane to contemn the sanctifying of the Lord's day.
Tit. 2. More particular Directions for the order of holy duties.
§. 1. Direct. 1. REmember the Lord's day before it cometh, and prepare for it, and prevent those disturbances that would hinder you and deprive you of the benefit: For Preparation: 1. Six days you must labor and do all that you have to do: Dispatch all your business, that you may not have it then to hinder and disturb you: And see that your Servants do the same. 2. Shake off the thoughts of worldly things, and clear your minds of worldly delights and cares. 3. Call to mind the doctrine taught you the last Lord's day, (and if you have servants, cause them to remember it) that you may be prepared to receive the next. 4, Go seasonably to bed that you and your servants may not be constrained to lie long the next morning, or be sleepy on the Lord's day. 5. Let your meditations be preparatory for the day. Repent of the sins of the week past as particularly and seriously as you can: and seek for pardon and peace through Christ; that you come not with guilt or trouble upon your Consciences before the Lord.
§▪ 2. Direct. 2. Let your first thoughts be not only Holy, but suitable to the occasions of the day. With gladness remember what a day of mercies you awake to; and how early your Redeemer rose from the dead that day; and what excellent work you are to be employed in.
§. 3. Direct. 3. Rise full as early that day as you do on other days. Be not like the carnal generation, that sanctify the Lord's day but as a Swine doth, by sleeping and idleness and fullness. Think not your worldly business more worthy of your early rising, than your spiritual employment is.
§. 4. Direct. 4. Let your dressing time be spent in some fruitful meditation, or conference or hearing someone read a Chapter: And let it not be long to detain you from your duty.
§. 5. Direct. 5. If you can have leisure go first to secret prayer: And if you are servants or have any necessary business to do, dispatch it quickly that you may be free for better work.
§. 6. Direct. 6. Let Family-worship come next, and not be slubbered over slightly, but be serious and reverent: and suit all to the nature or end of the day. Especially awaken yourselves and servants to consider what you have to do in public, and to go with prepared sanctified hearts.
§. 7. Direct. 7. Enter the holy Assembly with reverence and joy; and compose yourselves as those that come thither to treat with the living God, about the matters of Eternal life.