A Christian Directory

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. And watch your hearts that they wander not, nor sleep not, nor sleight the sacred matters which you are about. And guard your eyes that they carry not away your hearts: And let not your hearts be a moment idle, but seriously employed all the Time: And when hypocrites and distempered Christians are quarrelling with the imperfections of the speaker, or congregation or mode of Worship, do you rather make it your diligent endeavor, to watch your hearts, and improve what you hear.

§. 8. Direct. 8. As soon as you come home, while dinner is preparing, it will be a seasonable time, either for secret prayer or meditation; to call over what you heard, and urge it on your hearts, and beg God's help for the improvement of it, and pardon for your public failings.

§. 9. Direct. 9. Let your time at meat be spent in the cheerful remembrance or mention of the Love of your Redeemer; or somewhat suitable to the company and the day.

§. 10. Direct. 10. After dinner call your families together, and sing a Psalm of Praise, and by examination or repetition, or both, cause them to remember what was publicly taught them.

§. 11. Direct. 11. Then go again to the Congregation (to the beginning) and behave your selves as before.

§. 12. Direct. 12. When you come home call your families together, and first crave God's assistance and acceptance: and then sing a Psalm of Praise: and then repeat the Sermon which •• u heard; or if there was none, read one out of some lively profitable book: and then Pray and Praise God: and all with the holy seriousness and joy which is suitable to the work and day.

§. 13. Direct. 13. Then while Supper is preparing, betake yourselves to secret prayer and meditation; • either in your Chambers or walking as you find most profitable: And let your Servants, have no more to hinder them from the same privilege, than what is of Necessity.

§. 14. Direct. 14. At Supper spend the time as is aforesaid (at Dinner): Always remembering that though it be a day of Thanksgiving, it is not a day of gluttony, and that you must not use too full a diet, lest it make you heavy and drowsy and unfit for holy duty.

§. 15. Direct. 15. After Supper examine your Children and Servants what they have learnt all day, and sing a Psalm of praise and conclude with prayer and thanksgiving.

§. 16. Direct. 16. If there be time after, both you and they may in secret review the duties and mercies and failings of the day, and recommend yourselves by Prayer into the bands of God for the night following: and to betake yourselves to your rest.

§. 17. Direct. 17. And to shut up all, let your last thoughts be holy, in the thankful sense of the mercy you have received, and the goodness of God revealed by our Mediator, and comfortably trusting your souls and bodies into his hands, and longing for your nearer approach unto his Glory, and the beholding and full enjoying of him forever.

§. 18. I have briefly named this order of duties, for the memory of those that have opportunity to observe it: But if any man's place and condition deny him opportunity for some of these, he must do what he can: but see that carnal negligence cause not his omission. And now I appeal to Reason, Conscience and Experience, whether this employment be not more suitable to the principles, ends and hopes of a Christian, than idleness, or vain talk, or Cards or Dice or Dancing, or Ale-house haunting, or worldly business or discourse? And whether this would not exceedingly conduce to the increase of Knowledge, Holiness and Honesty? And whether there be ever a worldling or voluptuous sensualist of them all, that had not rather be found thus at death; or look back when Time is past and gone, upon the Lord's days thus spent, than as the idle, fleshly, and ungodly spend them?

CHAP. XIX. Directions for profitable Hearing the Word Preached.

OMitting those Directions which concern the external modes of Worship (for the Reasons mentioned Tom. 2. and known to all that know me and the time and place I live in) I shall give you such Directions about the personal internal management of your duty, as I think most necessary to your Edification. And seeing that your Duty and benefit lieth in these four General points: 1. That you hear with understanding: 2. That you Remember what you hear; 3. That you be duly affected with it; 4. And that you sincerely practice it, I shall more particularly Direct you in order to all these ends and duties.