A Christian Directory

Tit. 1. Directions for the Understanding the Word which you hear.

§. 1. Direct. 1. REad and meditate on the holy Scriptures much in private, and then you will be the better able to understand what is Preached on it in public, and to try the doctrine whether it be of God. Whereas if you are unacquainted with the Scriptures, all that is treated of or alleged from it will be so strange to you, that you will be but little edified by it. Psal. 1. 2. Psal. 119. Deut. 6. 11, 12.

§. 2. Direct. 2. Live under the clearest distinct convincing teaching that possibly you can procure. There is an unspeakable difference as to the edification of the hearers, between a judicious, clear, distinct and skillful Preacher, and one that is ignorant, confused, general, dry, and only scrapeth together a Cento or mingle-mangle of some undigested sayings to fill up the hour with. If in Philosophy, Physicks, Grammar, Law, and every Art and Science, there be so great a difference between one Teacher and another, it must needs be so in Divinity also. Ignorant Teachers that understand not what they say themselves, are unlike to make you men of understanding: as Erroneous Teachers are unlike to make you Orthodox and Sound.

§. 3. Direct. 3. Come not to hear with a careless heart, as if you were to hear a matter that little concerned you, but come with a sense of the unspeakable weight, necessity and consequence of the holy word which you are to bear: and when you understand how much you are concerned in it, and truly Love it, as the word of Life, it will greatly help your Understanding of every particular truth. That which a man Loveth not, and perceiveth no necessity of, he will hear with so little regard and heed, that it will make no considerable impression on his mind. But a good understanding of the Excellency and Necessity, exciting Love and •• rio • s attention, would make the particulars easy to be understood: when else you will be like •• stopped o • narrow mouthed bottle, that keepeth out that which you desire to put in. I know that understanding must go before affections! But yet the understanding of the concernments and worth of your own souls, must first procure such a serious care of your salvation, and a general regard to the word of God, as is needful to your further understanding of the particular instructions which▪ you shall after hear.

§. 4. Direct. 4. Suffer not vain thoughts or drowsy negligence to hinder your attention: If you mark not what is taught you, how should you understand and learn? set yourselves to it as for your lives: Be as earnest and diligent in attending and learning, as you would have the Preacher be in Teaching. If a drowsy careless Preacher be bad, a drowsy careless hearer is not good. Saith M • ses, D • ut. 32. 46. Set your hearts to all the words which I testify among you this day — 47. For it is not a vain thing for you because it is your life —. You would have God attentive to your p • ayers in your distresses: and why will you not then be attentive to his words? when the prayers of him are abominable to God, that turneth away his ear from hearing the Law. •• ik. 19. 48. All the people were very attentive to hear Christ. Neh. 8. 3. when Ezra read the Law from morning till mid▪day, the ears of all the people were attentive to it▪ when Paul continued his Lord's day exercise, and speech until midnight, one young man that full asleep, did fall down dead as a warning to them that will sleep when they should hear the message of Christ. Therefore you are excused that day from worldly business, that you may attend o • the Lord without▪ distraction, 1 Cor. 7. 35. Lydia's▪ attending to the words of Paul accompanied the opening of her heart and her Conversion, Act. 16. 14.

§. 5. Direct. 5. Mark specially the design and drift and principal doctrine of the Sermon. Both because that is the chief thing that the Preacher would have marked; and because the understanding of that will much help you to understand all the rest which dependeth on it, and relateth to it.

§. 6. Direct. 6. Mark most those things which are of greatest weight and • n • e •• ent to your souls: And do not • ix upon some little sayings, and by▪discourses, or witty sentences; like Children th •• bring home some scraps and words which they do but play with.

§. 7. Direct. 7. Learn first your Catechisms at home, and the great Essential points of Religion, contained in the Cre • d, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. And in your Hearing, first labor to get a clearer understanding of these; And then the lesser branches which grow out of these will be the better understood. You can scarce bestow too much care and pains in learning these great essential points. It is the fruitfullest of all your studies. Two things further I here advise you to avoid. 1. The hasly climbing up to smaller points (which some call Higher ) before you have well received these; and the receiving of those higher points, independently, without their due respect, to these which they depend upon. 2. The feeding upon dry and barren Controversies, and delighting in the chaff of • ingling words, and impertinent unedifying things, or discourses about to •• ali •• es and circumstances.

§. 8. Direct. 8. Meditate on what you hear when you come home, till you better understand it. Psal. 1. 2.

§. 9. Direct. 9. Enquire where you doubt, of those that can resolve and teach you. It showeth a careless mind, and a contempt of the Word of God, in most people and servants, that never come to ask the resolution of one doubt, from one weeks or years end to another, though they have Passors or Masters that have ability, and leisure and willingness to help them. Matth. 13. Mark 4. 10. When Christ was alone, they that were about him with the twelve, asked him the meaning of his Parable.

§. 10. Direct. 10. Read much those holy Books which treat best of the doctrine which you would understand▪

§. 11. Direct. 11. Pray earnestly for wisdom, and the illumination of the spirit, Ephes. 1. 18. Act. 26. 18. J • m. 1. 5.

§. 12. Direct. 12. Conscionable Practising what you know, is an excellent help to understanding. Joh. 7. 17.

Tit. 2. Directions for Remembering what you Hear.

THat want of Memory which cometh from Age and decay of Nature, is not to be cured; Nor should any servant of Christ be overmuch troubled at it: Seeing Christ will no more cast off his servants for that, than he will for age or any sickness: But for that want of memory which is curable, and is a fault, I shall give you these Directions following.

§. 1. Direct. 1. It greatly helpeth Memory to have a full Understanding of the matter spoken, which you would remember: And ignorance is one of the greatest hindrances to Memory. Common experience telleth you this, how easily you can remember any discourse which you thoroughly understand (For your very knowledge by invention will revive your memory): And how hard it is to remember any words which are insignificant, or which we understand not. Therefore labor most for a clear understanding according to the last Directions.

§. 2. Direct. 2. A deep awakened affection i • a very powerful help to memory. We easily remember anything which our estates or lives lie on; when trifles are neglected and soon forgotten: Therefore labor to get all to your hearts, according to the next following Directions.

§. 3. Direct. 3. Method is a very great help to memory. Therefore be acquainted with the Preachers Method: And then you are put into a path or tract, which you cannot easily go out of. And therefore it is that Ministers must not only be Methodical, and avoid prolix, confused, and involved discourses, and that malicious pride of hiding their Method, but must be as oft in the use of the same method as the Subject will bear, and choose that method which is most easy to the hearers to understand and remember, and labor to make them perceive your tract.

§. 4. Direct. 4. Numbers are a great help to memory: As if the Reasons, the Uses, the Motives, the Signs, the Directions, be six or seven or eight; when you know just the number, it helpeth you much to remember, which was the first, second, third, &c.

§. 5. Direct. 5. Names also and signal words are a great help to memory: He may remember one word, that cannot remember all the sentence: And that one word may help him to remember much of the rest: Therefore Preachers should contrive the force of every Reason, Use, Direction, &c. as much as may be into someone emphatical word (And some do very profitably contrive each of those words to begin with the same Letter, which is good for memory, so it be not too much strained and put them not upon greater inconveniences▪): As if I were to direct you to the chiefest Helps to your salvation, and should name, 1. Powerful Preaching. 2. Prayer. 3. Prudence. 4. Piety. 5. Painfulness. 6. Patience. 7. Perseverance: though I opened everyone of these at large, the very names would help the hearers memory. It is this that maketh Ministers that care more for their people's souls, than the pleasing of curious ears, to go in the common road of Doctrine, Reason, Uses, Motives, Helps, &c. and to give their Uses the same titles, of Information, Reproof, Exhortation, &c. And yet when the Subject shall direct us to some other method, the hearers must not be offended with us: For one Method will not serve exactly for every Subject; and we must be loath to wrong the Text or Matter.

§. 6. Direct. 6. It is a great help to memory, often in the time of hearing to call over and repeat to yourselves the names or heads which have been spoken: The mind of man can do two things at once: You may both hear what is said, and recall and repeat to yourselves what is past: Not to stand long upon it, but oft and quickly to name over, e. g. the Reasons, Uses, Motives, &c. To me, this hath been (next to understanding and Affection) the greatest help of any that I have used: For otherwise to hear a Head but once, and think of it no more till the Sermon is done, would never serve my turn to keep it.

§. 7. Direct. 7. Grasp not at more than you are able to hold, lest thereby you lose all: If there be more particulars than you can possibly remember, lay hold on some which most concern you, and let go the rest: Perhaps another may rather take up those, which you leave behind. Yet say not that it is the Preachers fault to name more than you can carry away: For, 1. Then he must leave out his enlargement much more, and the most of his Sermon; for it's like you leave the most behind. 2. Another may remember more than you. 3. All is not lost when the words are forgotten: For it may breed a habit of understanding, and promote resolution, affection and practice.

§. 8. Direct. 8. Writing is an easy help for memory, to those that can use it: Some question whether they should use it because it hindereth their affection. But that must be differently determined according to the difference of subjects and of hearers. Some Sermons are all to work upon the affections at present, and the present advantage is to be preferred before the after perusal: But some must more profit us in after-digestion and review. And some hearers can write much with ease and little hinder their affection; and some write so little and are hindered so much, that it recompenseth not their loss: Some know so fully all that is said that they need no notes: and some that are ignorant need them for perusal.

§. 9. Direct. 9. Peruse what you remember, or write down, when you come home; and fix it speedily before it's lost: And hear others that can repeat it better: Pray it over, and confer of it with others.

§. 10. Direct. 10. If you forget the very words, yet remember the main drift of all: and get those Resolutions and affections which they drive at. And then you have not lost the Sermon, though you have lost the words: As he hath not lost his food, that hath digested it, and turned it into flesh and blood.

Tit. 3. Directions for holy Resolutions and Affections in hearing.

THE understanding and memory are but the passage to the Heart, and the Practice is but the expression of the Heart: therefore how to work upon the Heart is the principal business.

§. 1. Direct. 1. Live under the most convincing lively serious Preacher that possibly you can. It is a matter of great concernment to all, but especially to dull and senseless hearts? Hearken not to that earthly generation, that tell you because God can bless the weakest, and because it is your own fault if you profit not by the weakest, that therefore you should make no difference, but sit down under an ignorant, dumb or senseless man: Try first whether they had as willingly have a bad servant, or a bad Physician as a good one because God can bless the labors of the weakest: Try whether they would not have their Children duly reproved or corrected, because it is their own faults that they need it? And whether they would not take physic after a surfeit, though it be their own fault that made them sick? It's true that all our sin is our own fault; but the question is, what is the most effectual cure? what man that is alive and awake, doth not feel a very great difference between a dead and a lively Preacher?

§. 2. Direct. 2. Remember that Ministers are the Messengers of Christ, and come to you on his business and in his name. Hear them therefore as his officers, and as men that have more to do with God himself than with the speaker. It is the phrase of the holy Ghost, Heb. 4. 13. All things are naked and opened to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. It is God with whom you have to do, and therefore accordingly behave yourselves. See Luk. 10. 16. 1 Thes. 4. 8. 1 Cor. 4. 1.

§. 3. Direct. 3. Remember that this God is instructing you and warning you and treating with y • u, about no less than the saving of your souls: Come therefore to hear as for your salvation. Can that heart be dull that well considereth, that it is Heaven and Hell that is the matter that God is treating with him about?

§. 4. Direct. 4. Remember that you have but a little time to hear in; and you know not, whether ever you shall hear again: Hear therefore as if it were your last. Think when you hear the Calls of God and the offers of Grace, I know not but this may be my last: How would I hear if I were sure to die tomorrow? I am sure it will be ere long, and may be today for ought I know.

§. 5. Direct. 5. Remember that all these days and Sermons must be reviewed, and you must answer for all that you have heard, whether you heard it with Love, or with unwillingness and weariness; with diligent attention or with carelessness: and the word which you hear shall judge you at the last day: Hear therefore as those that are going to judgment, to give account of their hearing and obeying, Joh. 12. 48.

§. 6. Direct. 6. Make it your work with diligence to apply the Word as you are hearing it, and to work your own hearts to those suitable resolutions and affections which it bespeaketh. Cast not all upon the Minister, as those that will go no further than they are carried as by force: This is fitter for the dead than the living. You have work to do as well as the Preachers, and should all the while be as busy as he: As helpless as the infant is, he must suck when the Mother offereth him the breast: If you must be fed, yet you must open your mouths, and digest it: For another cannot digest it for you; nor can the holiest, wisest, powerful Minister, convert or save you without yourselves, nor deliver a people from sin and hell, that will not stir for their own deliverance. Therefore be all the while at work, and abhor an idle heart in hearing, as well as an idle Minister.

§. 7. Direct. 7. Chew the Cud, and call up all when you come home in secret, and by Meditation Preach it over to yourselves. If it were coldly delivered by the Preacher, do you consider of the great weight of the matter, and Preach it more earnestly over to your own hearts. You should love yourselves best, and best be acquainted with your own condition and necessities.

§. 8. Direct 8. Pray it over all to God▪ and there lament a stupid heart, and put up your complaints to Heaven against it: The name and presence of God hath a quickening and awaking power.

§. 9. Direct. 9. Go to Christ by faith for the quickenings of his spirit. Your life is hid in him your root and head: and from him all must be conveyed: He that hath the Son hath life: and because he liveth we shall live also. Intreat him to glorify the power of his Resurrection, by raising the dead; and to open your hearts, and speak to you by his spirit, that you may be taught of God, and your hearts may be his Epistles, and the tables where the everlasting Law is written. Col. 3. 3, 4. John. 15. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. John. 11. 25. & 14. 19. Phil. 3. 7, 8. Act. 16. 14. John. 6. 45. 2 Cor. 3. 3, 6, 17, 18. Heb. 8. 10. & 10. 16. Ier. 31. 33.

§. 10. Direct. 10. Make Conscience of Teaching and provoking others. Pity the souls of the ignorant about you. God often blesseth the grace that is most improved in doing him service; and our stock is like the Woman's Oil, which increased as long as she poured out, and was gone when she stopped. 1 King▪ 17. 12, 14, 16. Doing good is the best way for receiving good: He that in pity to a poor man that is almost starved, will but fall to rubbing him, shall get himself heat, and both be gainers.

Tit. 4. Directions to bring what we Hear into Practice.

WIthout this the rest is vain or Counterfeit, and therefore somewhat must be said to this.

§. 1. Direct. 1. Be acquainted with the failings of your hearts and lives, and come on purpose to get directions and help against th • se particular failings. You will not know what Medicine you need, much less how to use it, if you know not what aileth you. Know what duties you omit or carelessly perform, and know what sins you are most guilty of, and say when you go out of doors, I go to Christ for Physic for my own disease: I hope to hear something before I come back, which may help me more against this sin, and fit me better for my duty, or provoke me more effectually. Are those men like to practice Christ's directions, that either know not their disease, or love it and would not have it cured?

§. 2. Direct. 2. The three forementioned are still presupposed. viz. that the word have first done its part upon your understandings, memory and Hearts: For that word cannot be practiced, which is not understood, nor at all remembered, nor hath not procured Resolutions and Affections. It is the due work upon the Heart that must prevail for the reformation of the Life.

§. 3. Direct. 3. When you understand what it is in point of Practice that the Preacher driveth at, observe especially the Uses and the Moving reasons, and plead them with your own hearts; and let Conscience be Preaching over all that the Minister Preacheth to you: You take them to be soul-murderers that silence able faithful Preachers, and also those Preachers that silence themselves and feed not the flock committed to their care; And do you think it a small matter to silence your own Conscience, which must be the Preacher that must set home all, before it can come to Resolution or Practice? Keep Conscience all the while at work, preaching over all that to your hearts, which you hear with your ears; and urge yourselves to a speedy Resolution: Remember that the whole body of Divinity is practical in its end and tendency; and therefore be not a mere notional hearer: but consider of every word you hear, what Practice it is that it tendeth to; and place that deepest in your memory; If you forget all the words of the Reasons and Motives which you hear, be sure to remember what Practice they were brought to urge you to. As if you heard a Sermon against uncharitableness, censoriousness or hurting others, though you should forget all the Reasons and Motives in particular, yet still remember that you were convinced in the hearing, that cens • rious and hurtful uncharitableness is a great sin, and that you heard Reason enough to make you resolve against it. And let Conscience Preach out the Sermon to the end, and not let it die in bare conviction; but Resolve, and be past wavering before you stir: And above all the Sermon remember the Directions and Helps for Practice with which the truest method usually shuts up the Sermon.

§. 4. Direct. 4. When you come home, let Conscience in secret also repeat the Sermon to you. Between God and yourselves consider what there was delivered to you in the Lord's message, that your souls were most concerned in? what sin reproved which you are guilty of? what duty pressed which you omit? And there meditate seriously on the weight and Reasons of the thing; and resist not the light, but yet bring all to a fixed Resolution, if till then you were unresolved: Not ensnaring yourselves with dangerous Vows about things doubtful, or peremptory Vows without dependence on Christ for strength: But firmly Resolving and cautelously engaging yourselves to duty: not with carnal evasions and reserves, but with humble dependence upon grace, without which of yourselves you are able to do nothing.

§. 5. Direct 5. Hear the most Practical Preachers you can well get. Not those that have the finest Notions, or the cleanest style, or neatest words; but those that are still urging you to Holiness of Heart and life, and driving home every truth to Practice: not that false doctrine will at all bear up a holy life, but true doctrine must not be left in the p • rch or at the doors, but be brought home and used to its proper end, and seated in the heart, and placed as the poise upon the Clock, where it may set all the wheels in motion.

§. 6. Direct. 6. Take heed especially of two sorts of false Teachers: ANTINOMIAN LIBERTINES, and AUTONOMIAN PHARISEES: The first would build their sins on Christ; not pleading for sin itself, but taking down many of the chief helps against it, and disarming us of the weapons by which it should be destroyed, and reproaching the true Preachers of obedience as Legalists, that preach up works and call men to Doing, when they Preach up Obedience to Christ their King, upon the terms and by the Motives which are used by Christ himself and his Apostles. Not understanding aright the true doctrine of Faith in Christ and Justification and free grace, (which they think none else understand but they), they pervert it and make it an enemy to the Kingly office of Christ, and to sanctification, and the necessary duties of obedience.

The other sort do make void the Commandments of God by their Traditions, and instead of the holy Practice of the Laws of Christ, they would drive the world with fire and sword to practice all their superstitious sopperies, so that the few plain and necessary precepts of the Law of the Universal King, is drowned in the greater body of their Canon Law, and the Ceremonies of the Popes imposing are so many in comparison of the Institutions of Christ, that the worship of God and work of Christianity is corrupted by it, and made as another thing. The wheat is lost in a heap of Chaff, by them that will be Lawgivers to themselves and all the Church of Christ.

§. 7. Direct. 7. Associate yourselves with the most holy serious practical Christians: Not with the ungodly, nor with barren opinionists, that talk of nothing but their Controversies and the way or interest of their sects (which they call the Church ): nor with outside formal Ceremonious Pharisees, that are pleading for the washing of Cups and tithing of Mint, and the tradition of their Fathers, while they hate and persecute Christ and his Disciples. But walk with the most Holy and blameless and charitable, that live upon that truth which others talk of, and are seeking to please God by the wisdom which is first pure and then peaceable and gentle, (Jam. 3. 17, 18), when others are contending for their several sects, or seeking to please Christ, by killing him, or censuring him, or slandering him in his servants, John. 16. 2, 3. Matth. 25. 45. 40.

§. 8. Direct. 8. Keep a just account of your Practice: Examine yourselves in the end of every day and week how you have spent your time, and practiced what you were taught; and judge yourselves before God according at you find it. Yea you must call yourselves to account every hour, what you are doing, and how you do it: whether you are upon God's work or not: And your hearts must be watched and followed like unfaithful servants, and like loitering Scholars, and driven on to every duty, like a dull or tired horse.

§. 9. Direct. 9. Above all set your hearts to the deepest contemplations of the wonderful Love of God in Christ, and the sweetness and excellency of a holy life, and the certain incomprehensible glory which it tendeth to, that your souls may be in Love with your dear Redeemer, and all that is holy, and Love and obedience may be as natural to you: And then the practice of holy doctrine, will be easy to you, when it is your delight.

§. 10. Direct. 10. Take heed that you receive not ungrounded or unnecessary prejudices against the person of the Preacher. For that will turn away your heart, and lock it up against his doctrine. And therefore abhor the spirit of uncharitableness, cruelty and faction, which always bendeth to the suppressing or vilifying and disgracing all those, that are not of their way and for their interest: And be not so blind as not to observe, that the very design of the Devil, in raising up divisions among Christians is, that he may use the tongues or hands of one another to vilify them all and make them odious to one another, and to disable one another from hindering his Kingdom, and doing any considerable service to Christ. So that when a Minister of Christ should be winning souls, either he is forbidden or he is despised, and the hearers are saying, [O he is such, or such a one] according to the names of reproach which the Enemy of Christ and Love hath taught them.

CHAP. XX. Directions for profitable Reading the holy Scriptures.

§. 1. SEeing the diversity of men's tempers and understandings is so exceeding great, that it is impossible that anything should be pleasing and suitable to some, which shall not be disliked and quarrelled with by others, and seeing in the Scriptures there are many things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction, 2 Pet. 3. 16. and the Word is to some the savor of death unto death, 2 Cor. 2. 16. You have therefore need to be careful in Reading it: And as Christ saith, Luke 8. 18. Take heed how you hear; so I say, Take heed how you read.

§. 2. Direct. 1. Bring not an evil heart of Unbelief: Open the Bible with holy Reverence as the Book of God, indicted by the Holy Ghost: Remember that the Doctrine of the New Testament was revealed by the Son of God, who was purposely sent from Heaven to be the Light of the world, and to make known to men the Will of God, and the matters of their salvation. Bethink you well if God should but send a Book or Letter to you by an Angel, how reverently you would receive it? How carefully you would peruse it; and regard it above all the Books in the world? And how much rather should you do so, by that Book which is indicted by the Holy Ghost, and recordeth the doctrine of Christ himself, whose authority is greater than all the Angels? Read it not therefore as a common Book, with a common and irreverent heart; but in the dread and Love of God the Author.

§. 3. Direct. 2. Remember that it is the very Law of God which you must live by, and be judged by at last: And therefore read it with a full Resolution to obey what ever it commandeth, though flesh, and men, and Devils contradict it. Let there be no secret exceptions in your heart, to baulk any of its Precepts, and shift off that part of obedience, which the flesh accounteth difficult or dear.

§. 4. Direct. 3. Remember that it is the Will and Testament of your Lord, and the Covenant of most full and gracious Promises; which all your Comforts, and all your hopes of pardon and everlasting life are built upon: Read it therefore with Love and great delight. Value it a thousand fold more than you would do, the letters of your dearest friend, or the Deeds by which you hold your Lands; or anything else of low concernment. If the Law was sweeter to David than honey, and better than thousands of Gold and Silver, and was his delight and meditation all the day; O what should the sweet and precious Gospel be to us?

§. 5. Direct. 4. Remember that it is a Doctrine of unseen things, and of the greatest Mysteries: and therefore come not to it with arrogance, as a Judge, but with Humility as a Learner or Disciple: And if anything seem difficult or improbable to you, suspect your own unfurnished understanding, and not the sacred Word of God. If a Learner in any Art or Science, will suspect his Teacher and his Books, when ever he is stalled, or meeteth with that which seemeth unlikely to him; his pride would keep possession for his ignorance, and his folly were like to be uncurable.

§. 6. Direct. 5. Remember that it is an Universal Law and Doctrine, written for the most ignorant as well as for the curious: and therefore must be suited in plainness to the capacity of the simple, and yet have matter to exercise the most subtle wits: and that God would have the style, to sav • ur more of the innocent weakness of the instruments, than the matter: Therefore be not offended or troubled when the style d • th seem less polite, than you might think beseemed the Holy Ghost; nor at the plainness of some parts, or the mysteriousness of others: But adore the wisdom and tender condescension of God to his poor creatures.

§. 7. Direct. 6. Bring not a carnal mind, which savoreth only fleshly things, and is enslaved to those sins which the Scripture doth condemn: For the carnal mind is enmity against God, and neither is, nor can be subject to his Law, Rom. 8. 7, 8. And the things of God are not discerned by the mere natural man, for they are foolishness to him, and they must be spiritually discerned, 2 Cor. 2. 14. And Enmity is an ill Expositor: It will be quarrelling with all, and making faults in the word which findeth so many faults in you: It will hate that word which cometh to deprive you of your most sweet and dearly beloved sin. Or if you have such a carnal mind and enmity, believe it not no more than a partial and wicked enemy should be believed, against God himself, who better understandeth what he hath written, than any of his foolish enemies.

§. 8. Direct. 7. Compare one place of Scripture with another, and expound the darkest by the help of the plainnest, and the fewer expressions by the more frequent, and ordinary, and the doubtfuller points by those which are most certain; and not on the contrary.

§. 9. Direct. 8. Presume not on the strength of your own understanding, but humbly pray to God for light: and before and after you read the Scripture, pray earnestly that the Spirit which did indite it may expound it to you, and keep you from unbelief and error, and lead you into the truth.

§. 10. Direct. 9. Read some of the best Annotations or Expositors; who being better acquainted with the phrase of the Scripture than yourselves, may help to clear your understanding. When Philip asked the Eunuch that read Isa. 53. Understandest thou what thou readest? he said, How can I except s • me man should guide me? Acts 8. 30, 31. Make use of your Guides, if you would not •••• .

§. 11. Direct. 10. When you are stalled by any difficulty which overmatcheth you, note it down, and pr • p • und it to your Pastor, and crave his help, or (if the Minister of the place be ignorant and unable) g • t • s • me one that God hath furnished for such work: And if after all, some things remain still dark and difficult, remember your imperfection, and wait on God for further light, and thankfully make use of all the rest of the Scripture which is plain. And do not think as the Papists, that men must forbear reading it for fear of erring, no more than that men must forbear eating for fear of poison, or than Subjects must be kept ignorant of the Laws of the King, for fear of misunderstanding or abusing them.

CHAP. XXI. Directions for Reading other Books.

BEcause God hath made the excellent holy Writings of his servants, the singular blessing of this Land and Age, and many a one may have a good Book, even any day or hour of the Week, that cannot at all have a good Preacher, I advise all God's servants to be thankful for so great a mercy and to make use of it, and be much in Reading: For Reading with most doth more conduce to Knowledge than Hearing doth: because you may choose what subjects and the excellentest Treatises you please; and may be often at it, and may peruse again and again what you forget, and may take time as you go to fix it on your mind: And with very many it doth more than Hearing also to move the Heart, though Hearing of itself in this hath the advantage: Because lively Books may be easilier had, than lively Preachers: Especially these sorts of men should be much in Reading: 1. Masters of families, that have more souls to care for than their own. 2. People that live where there is no Preaching, or as bad or worse than none. 3. Poor people, and servants, and children, that are forced on many Lord's Days to stay at home, whilst others have the opportunity to hear. 4. And vacant persons that have more leisure than others have. To all these, but especially Masters of families, I shall here give a few Directions.

§. 1. Direct. 1. I presuppose that you keep the Devils Books out of your hands and house: I mean Cards, and idle Tales, and Play-books, and Romances or Love-books, and false bewitching stories, and the seducing Books of all false Teachers, and the railing or scorning Books which the men of several Sects and Factions write against each other, on purpose to teach men to hate one another, and banish Love: For where these are suffered to corrupt the mind, all grave and useful writings are forestalled: And it is a wonder to see, how powerfully these poison the minds of children, and many other empty heads: Also Books that are written by the Sons of Corah, to breed distal • es and discontents in the minds of the people against their Governors, both Magistrates and Ministers. For there is something in the best Rulers, for the tongues of seditious men to fasten on, and to aggravate in the people's ears; and there is something even in godly people, which tempteth them too easily to take fire and be distempered before they are aware: And they foresee not the evil to which it tendeth.

§. 2. Direct. 2. When you read to your family or others, let it be seasonably and gravely, when silence and attendance encourage you to expect success; and not when children are crying or talking, or servants hus • ing to disturb you. Distraction is worst in the greatest businesses.

§. 3. Direct. 3. Choose such Books as are most suitable to your state or to those you read to. It is worse than unprofitable, to read Books for comforting troubled minds, to those that are blockishly secure, and have hardened, obstinate, unhumbled hearts: It is as bad as to give Medicines or Plaisters contrary to the Patients need, and such as cherish the disease: So is it to read Books of too high a style or subject, to dull and ignorant hearers. We use to say, That which is one man's meat, is another man's poison. It is not enough that the matter be good, but it must be agreeable to the case for which it is used.

§. 4. Direct. 4. To a common family begin with those Books, which at once inform the judgment about the Fundamentals, and awaken the affections to entertain them and improve them: Such as are Treatises of Regeneration, Conversion or Repentance: To which purpose I have written myself, the Call to the Unconverted, the Treatise of Conversion, Directions for a s • und Conversion, a Treatise of Judgment, a Sermon against making light of Christ, True Christianity, a Sermon of Repentance, Now or Never, A Saint or a Bruit, with others: which I mention not as equalling them with others, but as those which I am more accountable for: On this subject these are very excellent, Mr. R. Allen's Works, Mr. Whatel • y on the New Birth, Mr. Swinnock of Regeneration, Mr. W. Pinks's five Sermons, most of Mr. Th. Hookers Sermons, Mr. Io. Rogers Doctrine of Faith, Mr. Dents Plain man's Path-way to Heaven: most of Mr. Perkins and Mr. Boltons Works, and many the like.

§. 5 Direct. 5. Next these read over those Books which are more suited to the state of young Christians for their growth in grace, and for their exercise of Faith, and Love, and Obedience, and for the mortifying of selfishness, pride, sensuality, worldliness, and other the most dangerous sins. My own on this subject are, my Directions for weak Christians, my Saints Rest, a Treatise of Self-denial, another of the Mischiefs of Self-ignorance, Life of Faith, of Crucifying the World, the Unreasonableness of Infidelity, of Right Rejoicing, &c. To this use these are excellent: Mr. Hildershams Works, Dr. Prestons, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Boltons, Mr. Fenners, Mr. Gurnalls, Mr. Anthony Burgesses Sermons: Mr. Lockier on the Colossi • ns, with abundance more that God hath blest us with.

§. 6. Direct. 6. At the same time labor to methodize your knowledge, and to that end read first and learn some short Catechism, and then some larger (as Mr. Balls or the Assemblies larger) and next some Body of Divinity, ( as Ames his Marrow of Divinity, and Cases of Conscience, which are Englished ).

And let the Catechism be kept in memory while you live, and the rest be thoroughly understood.

§. 7. Direct. 7. Next read (to yourselves or families) the larger Expositions of the Creed, Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments: such as Perkins, Bishop Andrew's on the Commandments, and Dod, &c. that your understanding may be more full, particular and distinct; and your families may not stop in Generals which are not understood.

§. 8. Direct. 8. Read much those Books which direct you in a course of daily communion with God, and ordering all your conversations: As Mr. Reyners Directions, the Practice of Piety, Mr. Palmers, Mr. Scudders, Mr. Boltons Directions, and my Divine Life.

§. 9. Direct. 9. For Peace, and Comfort, and increase of the Love of God read Mr. Symmonds Deserted Soul, &c. and his Life of Faith: All Dr. Sibbs Works, Mr. Harsnets Cordials, Bishop Halls Works, &c. my Method for Peace, and Saints Rest, &c.

§. 10. Direct. 10. For the understanding of the Text of Scripture, keep at hand, either Deodates or the Assembly of Divines, or the Dutch Annotations, with Dr. Hammonds, or Dicksons and Hutchinsons brief Observations.

§. 11. Direct. 11. For securing you against the Feavor of uncharitable Zeal and Schism, and contentious wranglings, and er • elties for Religion sake, read diligently Bishop Halls Peacemaker ( and other of his Books) Mr. Burroughs Irenicon, Acontius Stratagems of Satan, and my Catholic Unity, Catholic Church, Universal Concord, &c.

§. 12. Direct. 12. For establishing you against Popery on the soundest grounds, not running in the contrary extreme, read Dr. Challoners Credo Ecclesiam, &c. Chillingworth, Dr. Field of the Church, &c. and my True Catholic, and my Key for Catholics, and my Safe Religion, and Winding-sheet for Popery, and Disputation with Mr. Johnson.

§. 13. Direct. 13. For special preparation for affliction, sufferings, sickness, death, read Mr. Hughs Rod, Mr. Lawrence Christ's power over sicknesses, Mr. S. Rutherfords Letters, &c. my Treatise of Selfdenyal, The Believers Last Work, the Last Enemy Death, and the fourth Part of my Saints Rest. I will add no more, lest they seem too many.

CHAP. XXII. Directions for the right Teaching of Children and Servants, so as may be most likely to have success.

I Here suppose them utterly untaught that you have to do with, and therefore shall direct you what to do, from the very first beginning of your Teaching and their learning: And I beseech you study this Chapter more than many of the rest; for it is an unspeakable loss that befalls the Church and the souls of men, for want of skill, and will, and diligence, in Parents and Masters in this matter.

§. 1 Direct. 1. Cause your younger Children to learn the words, though they be not yet capable of understanding the matter: And do not think as some do, that this is but to make them Hypocrites, and to teach them to take God's Name in vain: For it is neither Vanity nor Hypocrisy to help them first to understand the words and signs, in order to their early understanding of the matter and signification. Otherwise no man might teach them any language, nor teach them to read any words that be good, because they must first understand the words before the meaning: If a child learn to read in a Bible, it is not taking God's Name or Word in vain, though he understand it not: For it is in order to his learning to understand it: And it is not vain which is to so good a Use: If you leave them untaught till they come to be twenty years of age, they must then learn the words before they can understand the matter. Do not therefore leave them the children of darkness, for fear of making them hypocrites. It will be an excellent way to redeem their Time, to teach them first that which they are capable of learning: A child of five or six years old can learn the words of a Catechism or Scripture, before they are capable of understanding them. And then when they come to years of understanding, that part of their work is done, and they have nothing to do but to study the meaning and use of those words which they have learnt already: Whereas if you leave them utterly untaught till then, they must then be wasting a long time to learn the same words which they might have learnt before: And the loss of so much time is no small loss or sin.

§. 2. Direct. 2. The most natural way of teaching children the Meaning of God's Word, and the Matters of their salvation, is by familiar talk with them, suited to their capacities: Begin this betimes with them while they are on their Mothers laps; and use it frequently. For they are quickly capable of some understanding about greater matters as well as about less: And knowledge must come in by slow degrees: Stay not till their minds are prepossessed with vanity and toys, Prov. 22. 6.

§. 3. Direct. 3. By all means let your children learn to read, though you be never so poor, whatever shift you make: And if you have servants that cannot read, let them learn yet (at spare hours) if they be of any capacity and willingness. For it is a very great mercy to be able to read the holy Scripture and any good Books themselves, and a very great misery to know nothing but what they hear from others They may read almost at any time, when they cannot hear.

§. 4. Direct. 4. Let your children when they are little ones read much the History of the Scriptures: For though this of itself is not sufficient to breed in them any saving knowledge, yet it enticeth them to delight in reading the Bible, and then they will be often at it when they love it: so that all these benefits will follow. 1. It will make them Love the Book (though it be but with a common Love). 2. It will make them spend their time in it, when else they would rather be at play. 3. It will acquaint them with Scripture-History, which will afterwards be very useful to them 4. It will lead them up by degrees to the knowledge of the doctrine, which is all along interwoven with the History.

§. 5. Direct. 5 Take heed that you turn not all your family instructions into a customary formal course, by bare readings and repeating Sermons from day today; without familiar personal application: For it is ordinarily seen that they will grow as sleepy, and senseless, and customary under such a dull and distant course of duty (though the matter be good) almost as if you had said nothing to them. Your business therefore must be to get within them, and awaken their consciences to know that the matter doth most nearly concern them, and to force them to make application of it to themselves.

§. 6. Direct. 6. Let none affect a formal Preaching way to their families, except they be Preachers themselves, or men that are able for the Ministry: But rather spend the time in Reading to them the p •• e fullest Books, and speaking to them more familiarly about the state and matters of their souls. Not that I think it unlawful for a man to preach to his family in the same Method that a Minister doth to his people: For no doubt but he may teach them in the profitablest manner he can: And that which is the best Method for a set speech in the Pulpit, is usually the best Method in a family. But my reasons against this Preaching-way ordinarily, are these: 1. Because it is very few Masters of families that are able for it, (even among them that think they are): And then they ignorantly abuse the Scripture, so as tends much to God's dishonor. 2. Because there is scarce any of them all, but may read at the same time, such lively profitable Books to their Families, as handle those things which they have most need to hear of, in a far more edifying manner than they themselves are able, (except they be so poor that they can get no such Books). 3. Because the familiar way is most edifying. And to talk seriously with Children and Servants about the great concernments of their souls, doth commonly more move them than Sermons or set speeches. Yet because there is a season for both, you may sometimes read some powerful Books to them, and sometimes talk familiarly to them. 4. Because it often comes from Pride, when men put their speech into a Preaching method to show their parts, and as often nourisheth pride.

§. 7. Direct. 7. Let the manner of your teaching them be very often interl • cutory or by way of Questions: Though when you have so many or such persons present as that such familiarity is not seasonable, then Reading, repeating, or set speeches may do best: But at other times when the number or quality of the company hindereth not, you will find that Questions and familiar discourse is best: For, 1. It keepeth them awake and attentive, when they know they must make some answer to your Questions; which set speeches, with the dull and sluggish, will hardly do. 2. And it mightily helpeth them in the application; so that they much more easily take it home, and perceive themselves concerned in it.

§. 8. Direct. 8. Yet prudently take heed that you speak nothing to any in the presence of others that tends to open their ignorance or sin, or the secrets of their hearts, or that any way tendeth to shame them, (except in the necessary reproof of the obstinate): If it be their common ignorance that will be opened by questioning them, you may do it before your servants or Children themselves, that are familiar with each other, but not when any strangers are present. But if it be about the secret state of their souls that you examine them, you must do it singly, when the person is alone: L • st shaming and troubling them make them ha • e instruction, and deprive them of all the benefit of it.

§. 9. Direct. 9. When you come to teach them the Doctrine of Religion, begin with the Baptismal Covenant, as the sum of all that is essential to Christianity: And here teach them briefly all the substance of this at once: For though such General knowledge will be obscure and not distinct and satisfactory, yet it is necessary at first: because they must see Truths set together: For they will understand nothing truly, if they understand it but independantly by broken parts. Therefore open to them the sum of the Covenant or Christian Religion all at once, though you say but little at first of the several parts: Help them to understand what it is to be baptized into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: And here you must open it to them in this order. You must help them to know who are the Covenanters, GOD and MAN: and first the nature of man is to be opened, because he is first known, and God in him who is his Image.

§. 10. Direct. 10. When you have opened the Baptismal Covenant to them, and the Essentials of Christianity, cause them to learn the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. And tell them the Uses of them; that man having three Powers of soul, his Understanding, his Will, and his Obediential or executive power, all these must be sanctified, and therefore there must be a Rule for each. And that accordingly the Creed is the summary Rule to tell us what our Understandings must Believe, and the Lord's Prayer is the summary Rule to direct us what our wills must desire, and our tongues must ask, and the Ten Commandments is the summary R • le of our Practice: And that the Holy Scripture in general is the more large and perfect Rule of all: And that all that will be taken for true Christians must have a General implicit Belief of all the Holy Scriptures, and a particular explicit Belief, Desire, and sincere practice, according to the Creeds, Lord's Prayer, and ten Commandments.

§. 11. Direct. 11. Next teach them a short Catechism (by memory) which openeth these a little more fully, and then a larger Catechism: The shorter and larger Catechism of the Assembly are very well fitted to this use: I have published a very brief one myself, which in eight Articles or Answers containeth all the essential points of Belief, and in One Answer, the Covenant-consent, and in four Articles or Answers more, containeth all the substantial parts of Christian duty: The answers are some of them long for Children. But if I knew of any other that had so much in so few words, I would not offer this to you, because I am conscious of its imperfections. But there are very few Catechisms that differ in the substance: Which ever they learn, let them as they go have your help to understand it, and let them keep it in memory to the last.

§. 12. Direct. 12. Next open to them more distinctly the particular part of the Covenant and Catechism. And here I think this Method most profitable for a family: 1. Read over to them, the best expositions that you can get on the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, which are not too large to confound them, nor too brief so as to be hardly understood. For a summary Mr. Brinsleyes True watch is good; but thus to read to them, such as Mr. Perkins on the Creed, and Dr. King on the Lord's Prayer, and Dod on the Commandments, are fit: so that you may read one Article, one Petition, and one Commandment at a time: And read these over to them divers times. 2. Besides this in your familiar discourse with them, open to them plainly one Head or Article of Religion at a time, and another the next time, and so on till you come to the end. And here, 1. Open in one discourse the nature of man and the Creation. 2. In another (or before it) the nature and attributes of God. 3. In another the fall of man, and especially the Corruption of our nature, as it consisteth in an inordinate inclination to earthly and fleshly things, and a backwardness or averseness or enmity to God and Holiness and the Life to come: and the nature of sin; and the impossibility of being saved till this sin be pardoned, and these natures renewed, and restored to the Love of God and Holiness, from this Love of the world and fleshly pleasures. 4. In the next discourse open to them the doctrine of Redemption in general, and the Incarnation, and natures and person of Christ particularly. 5. In the next open the Life of Christ, his fulfilling the Law, and his overcoming the Tempter, his humble life, and contempt of the world, and the end of all, and how he is exemplary and imitable unto us. 6. In the next open the whole Humiliation and suffering of Christ, and the pretenses of his persecutors, and the Ends and Uses of his suffering, death and burial. 7. In the next open his Resurrection, the proofs, and the Uses of it. 8. In the next open his Ascension, Glory and Inter • ession for us, and the Uses of all. 9. In the next open his Kingly, and Prophetical offices in General, and his making the Covenant of Grace with man, and the nature of that Covenant, and its effects. 10. In the next open the Works or Office of the Holy Ghost in General, as given by Christ to be his Agent in men on earth, and his great witness to the world; and particularly open the extraordinary gift of the spirit to the Prophets and Apostles, to plant the Churches and indite and seal the holy Scripture; and show them the authority and use of the holy Scriptures. 11. In the next, open to them the ordinary works of the Holy Ghost, as the Illuminater, Renewer and Sanctifier of souls, and in what order he doth all this, by the Ministry of the Word. 12. In the next, open to them, the office and use and duty of the ordinary Ministry, and their duty toward them, especially as Hearers, and the nature and use of public Worship, and the nature, and Communion of Saints and Churches. 13. In the next open to them the Nature and use of B • p • ism and the Lord's Supper. 14. In the next open to them the shortness of life, and the state of souls at death and after death and the day of Judgment, and the Justification of the Righteous and the Condemnation of the wicked at that day. 15. In the next open to them the Joyes of H • aven and the miseries of the damned. 16. In the next open to them the vanity of all the pleasure, and profits and honor of this World, and the method of Temptations, and how to overcome them. 17. In the next open to them the reason and use of suffering for Christ, and of self denial, and how to prepare for sickness and death. And after this go over also the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments.

§. 13. Direct. 13. After all your instructions make them briefly give you an account in their own words of what they understand and remember of all: or else the next time, to give account of the f • rmer. And encourage them for all that is well done in their endeavors.

§. 14. Direct. 14. Labor in all to keep up a • akened serious attention, and still to print upon their hearts the greatest things: And to that end, For the Matter of your teaching and discourse, let nothing be so much in your mouths, as, 1. The Nature and Relations of God. 2. A Crucified and a Glorified Christ, with all his grace and privileges. 3. The operations of the spirit on the soul. 4. The madness of sinners, and the vanity of the world. 5. And endless Glory and Joy of Saints, and misery of the ungodly after death. Let these five points be frequently urged, and be the life of all the rest of your discourse. And then for the Manner of your speaking to them, let it be always with such a mixture of familiarity and seriousness that may carry along their serious attentions, whether they will or no: Speak to them as if they or you were dying, and as if you saw God and Heaven and Hell.

§. 15. Direct. 15. Take each of them sometime by themselves, and there describe to them the work of Renovation, and ask them whether ever such a work was wrought upon them. Shew them the true Marks of Grace, and help them to try themselves: Urge them to tell you truly whether their Love to God or the Creature, to Heaven or Earth, to Holiness or Flesh-pleasing be more: and what it is that hath their hearts and care and chief endeavor? And if you find them regenerate, help to strengthen them: If you find them too much dejected help to Comfort them: And if you find them unregenerate, help to convince them, and then to humble them, and then to show them the remedy in Christ, and then show them their duty that they may have part in Christ, and drive all home to the end that you desire to see: But do all this with Love and gentleness and privacy.

§. 16. Direct. 16. Some pertinent Questions which by the answer will engage them to teach themselves or to judge themselves, will be sometimes of very great use? As such as these;

§. 17. Direct. 17. Cause them to learn someone most plain and pertinent text, for every great and necessary duty, and against every great and dangerous sin: and often to repeat them to you: As Luk. 13. 3, 5. Except ye Repent ye shall all perish. Joh. 3. 5. Except a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. So Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 9. Heb. 18. 14. John. 3. 16 Luk. 18. 1, &c. So against lying, swearing, taking God's name in vain, flesh-pleasing, Gluttony, pride, and the rest.

§. 18. Direct. 18. Drive all your Convictions to a Resolution of Endeavor and amendment, and make them sometime promise you to do that which you have convinced them of: And sometimes before witnesses. But let it be done with these necessary Cautions. 1. That you urge not a promise in any doubtful point, or such as you have not first convinced them of. 2. That you urge not a promise in things beyond their present strength: As you must not bid them promise you to Believe, or to Love God, or to be tender-hearted, or heavenly-minded; but to do those duties which tend to these, as to hear the Word, or read, or pray, or meditate, or keep good company, or avoid temptations, &c. 3. That you be not too often upon this, (or upon one and the same strain in the other methods) lest they take them but for words of course, and custom teach them to contemn them. But seasonably and prudently done, their promises will lay a great engagement on them.

§. 19. Direct. 19. Teach them how to pray, by forms or without as is most suitable to their • ase and parts: And either yourself or some that may inform you should hear them pray sometime that you may know their spirit and how they profit.

§. 20. Direct. 20. Put such Books into their hands as are meetest for them, and engage them to read them when they are alone: And ask them what they understand and remember of them. And hold them not without necessity so hard to work, as to allow them no time for reading by themselves: But drive them on to work the harder, that they may have some time when their work is done.

§. 21. Direct. 21. Cause them to teach one another when they are together. Let their talk be profitable. Let those that read best, be reading sometime to the rest, and instructing them, and furthering their edification: Their familiarity might make them very useful to one another.

§. 22. Direct. 22. Tire them not out with too much at once; but give it them as they can receive it: Narrow mouthed bottles, must not be filled as wider vessels.

§. 23. Direct. 23. Labor to make all sweet and pleasant to them: and to that end sometime mix the reading of some profitable history: as the Book of Martyrs, and Clerks Martyrologie, and his Lives.

§. 24. Direct. 24. Lastly, Entice them with kindnesses and rewards: Be kind to your Children when they do well, and be as liberal to your servants as your Condition will allow you. For this maketh your persons acceptable first, and then your instructions will be much more acceptable: Nature teacheth them to Love those that Love them and do them good, and to hearken willingly to those they love. A small gift now and then, might signify much to the further benefit of their souls.

§. 25. If any shall say that here is so much ado in all these directions as that few can follow them. I entreat them to consult with Christ that died for them, whether souls be not precious, and worth all this ado. And to consider how small a labor all this is, in comparison of the everlasting end: And to remember that all is Gain and pleasure, and a delight to those that have holy hearts: And to remember that the effects to the Church and Kingdom, of such holy Government of families, would quite over-compensate all the pains.

CHAP. XXIII.

Tit. 1. Directions for Prayer, in General.

§. 1. HE that handleth this Duty of PRAYER as it deserveth, must make it the second Part in the Body of Divinity, and allow it a larger and exacter Tractate, than I here intend. For I have before told you, that as we have three Natural faculties, An Understanding Will and Executive Power, so these are qualified in the Godly, with Faith, Love and Obedience; and have three particular Rules: The Creed to show us what we must Believe, and in what Order: The Lord's Prayer to show us what and in what order we must Desire and Love: And the Decalogue to tell us what and in what order we must do: (Though yet these are so near kin to one another, that the same actions in several respects belong to each of the Rules: As the Commandments must be Believed and Loved as well as Obeyed, and the matter of the Lord's Prayer must be believed to be good and necessary, as well as Loved and Desired; and Belief and Love, and Desire, are commanded, and are part of our obedience; yet for all this they are not formally the same but divers. And as we say that the Heart or Will is the man, as being the Commanding faculty; so Morally the Will, the Love or Desire is the Christian; and therefore the Rule of Desire or Prayer is a Principal part of true Religion: The internal part of this Duty I partly touched before Tom. 1. Chap. 3. and the Church Part I told you why I past by Tom. 2. it being not left by the Government where we live to Private Ministers discussion (save only to persuade men to obey what is established and commanded). Therefore because I have omitted the later, and but a little touched upon the former, I shall be the larger on it in this place, to which (for several Reasons) I have reserved it.

§. 2. Direct. 1. See that you understand what Prayer is: Even, The expressing or acting of our Desires before another to move, or some way procure him to grant them. True Christian Prayer is, The believing and serious expressing or acting of our lawful desires before God, through Jesus our Mediator, by the help of the Holy Spirit, as a means to procure of him, the grant of these desires. Here note, 1. That inward Desire is the soul of Prayer: 2. The expressions or inward actings of them, is as the Body of Prayer. 3. To men it must be Desire so expressed, as they may understand it: But to God the inward acting of Desires is a Prayer, because he understandeth it. 4. But it is not the acting of Desire simply in itself that is any Prayer: For he may have Desires, that offereth them not up to God, with Heart or Voice: But it is Desires as some way offered up to God, or represented or acted towards him, as a means to procure his blessing, that is Prayer indeed.

§. 3. Direct. 2. See that you understand the Ends and Use of Prayer. Some think that it is of no Use, but only to move God to be willing of that which he was before unwilling of: And therefore because that God is Immutable, they think that Prayer is a Useless thing. But Prayer is Useful, 1. As an act of Obedience to God's Command: 2. As the performance of a condition without which he hath not promised us his Mercy, and to which he hath promised it. 3. As a Means to actuate and express, and increase, our own Humility, Dependance, Desire, Trust and Hope in God, and so to make us capable and fit for Mercy, who else should be uncapable and unfit. 4. And so, though God be not changed by it in himself, yet the Real change that is made by it on ourselves, doth infer a change in God by mere Relation or Extrinsical denomination; he being one that is, according to the tenor of his own established Law and Covenant, engaged to disown or punish the Unbelieving, Prayerless and Disobedient, and after engaged to Own or pardon them that are Faithfully Desir • us and Obedient: And so this is a Relative, or at least a denominative change. So that in Prayer, Faith and Fervency are so far from being useless that they as much prevail for the thing desired by qualifying ourselves for it, as if indeed they moved the mind of God, to a real change: Even as he that is in a Boat, and by his hook layeth hold of the banck, doth as truly by his labor get nearer the banck, as if he drew the banck to him.

§. 4. Direct. 3. Labor above all to know that God to whom you pray. To know him as your Maker, your Redeemer and your Regenerater; as your Owner, your Ruler and your Father, Felicity and End; as All-sufficient for your relief, in the infiniteness of his Power, his Wisdom and his Goodness: and to know your own dependence on him; and to understand his Covenant or Promises, upon what terms he is engaged and resolved either to give his mercies, or to deny them. He that cometh to God, must believe that He is, and that He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him: Heb. 11. 6. He that calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved: But how shall they call on him, on whom they have not believed, Rom. 10. 13, 14.

§. 5. Direct 4. Lab • ur when you are about to pray, to stir u • in your souls the mo • t lively and •• ri • u • b • lief, of th • se u • seen things that your Prayers have respect to; and to pray as if you saw them all the while: Even as if you saw God in his Gl • ry, and saw Heaven and Hell, the glorified and the damned, and Jesus Christ your Mediator interceding for you in the Heavens. As you would pray if your eyes beheld all these, so strive to pray while you believe them: And say to yourselves, Are they not as sure as if I saw them? Are they not made known by the Son and Spirit of God?

§. 6. Direct. 5. Labor for a constant a • cuaintance with yourselves, your sins and manifold wants and nec • ssi • ies; and also to take an actual special notice of your case, when you go to prayer. If you get not a former c •• stant acquaintance with your own case, you cannot expect to know it aright upon a sudd • n as you go to pray: And yet if you do not actually surv • y your h •••• ts and lives when you go to prayer, your souls will be unhumbled, and want that lively sense of your necessities, which must put life into your prayers. Know well what sin is, and what God's wrath, and Hell, and Judgment is, and wh • t sin you have committed, and what duty you have omitted, and failed in, and what wants and corruptions are yet within you, and what mercy and grace you stand in need of, and then all this will make you pray, and pray to purpose with all your hearts. But when men are willful strangers to themselves, and never seriously look backwards or inwards to see what is amiss and wanting; nor look not forwards, to see the danger that is before them, no wonder if their hearts be dead and dull, and if they are as unfit to pray, as a sleeping man to work.

§. 7. Direct. 6. See that you hate hyp • crisie, and let not your lips go against or without your hearts; but that your hearts be the spring of all your words: That you love not sin, and be not •• th to leave it, when you seem to pray against it; and that you truly desire the grace which you ask, and ask not for that which you would not have: And that you be ready to use the lawful means to get the mercies which you ask; and be not like those lazy wishers, that will pray God to give them increase at harvest, when they lie in bed, and will neither plow or sow: or that pray him to save them from fire, or water, or danger, while they run into it, or will not be at the pains to go out of the way. O what abundance of wretches do offer up hypocritical mock-prayers to God! blaspheming him thereby, as if he were an Idol, and knew not their hypocrisy, and searched not the hearts? Alas, how commonly do men pray in public, that the rest of their lives hereafter may be pure and holy, that hate purity and holiness at the heart, and deride and oppose that which they s • em to pray for? As Austin confesseth of himself before he was converted, that he prayed against his filthy sin, and yet was afraid lest God should grant his prayers. So many pray against the sins which they would not be delivered from, or would not use the means that is necessary to their conquest and deliverance. Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity, 2 Tim. 2. 19. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, Psal. 66. 18. See Ezek. 14. 3, 4, 14. Alas, how easy is it for an • ungodly person to learn to say a few words by rote, and to run them over, without any sense of what he speaketh; while the tongue is a stranger to the heart, and speaketh not according to its desires.

§. 8. Direct. 7. Search your hearts and watch them carefully, lest some beloved Vanity alienate them from the work in hand, and turn away your thoughts, or prepossess your affections, so that you want them when you should use them. If the mind be set on other matters, prayer will be a heartless, lifeless thing: Alas, what a dead and pitiful work, is the prayer of one that hath his heart ensnared in the Love of money, or in any ambitious or covetous design? The thoughts will easily follow the affections.