CHAPTER I: CONSIDERATION OF THE GENERAL INSTRUMENTS AND MEANS SERVING A HOLY LIFE, BY WAY
CONSIDERATION OF THE GENERAL INSTRUMENTS AND MEANS SERVING A HOLY LIFE, BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.
It is necessary that every man should consider, that since God hath given him an excellent nature, wisdom, and choice, an understanding soul, and an immortal spirit; having made him lord over the beasts, and but a little lower than the angels; he hath also appointed for him a work and a service great enough to employ those abilities, and hath also designed him to a state of life after this, to which he can only arrive by that service and obedience. And therefore, as every man is wholly God's own portion by the title of creation, so all our labours and care, all our powers and faculties, must be wholly employed in the service of God, and even all the days of our life; that this life being ended, we may live with him for ever.
Neither is it sufficient that we think of the service of God as a work of the least necessity, or of small employment, but that it be done by us as God intended it; that it be done with prevailing ingredient; and the ministers of religion are so scattered, that they cannot unite to stop the inundation, and from chairs or pulpits, from their synods or tribunals, chastise the infidelity of the willingly seduced multitude; and that those few good people who have no other plot in their religion but to serve God and save their souls, do want such assistances of ghostly counsel as may serve their emergent needs, and assist their endeavours in the acquist of virtues, and relieve their dangers when they are tempted to sin and death; -- I thought I had reasons enough inviting me to draw into one body those advices which the several necessities of many men must use at some time or other, and many of them daily: that by a collection of holy precepts they might less feel the want of personal and attending guides, and that the rules for conduct of souls might be committed to a book which they might always have; since they could not always have a prophet at their needs, nor be suffered to go up to the house of the Lord to inquire of the appointed oracles.
I know, my Lord, that there are some interested persons who add scorn to the afflictions of the Church of England; and because she is afflicted by men, call her "forsaken of the Lord;" and because her solemn assemblies are scattered, think that the religion is lost, and the church divorced from God, supposing Christ (who was a man of sorrows) to be angry with his spouse when she is like him, (for that is the true state of the error,) and that he who promised his Spirit to assist his servants in their troubles will, because they are in trouble, take away the Comforter from them; who cannot be a comforter, but while he cures our sadnesses, and relieves our sorrows, and turns our persecutions into joys, and crowns, and sceptres. But, concerning the present state of the Church of England, I consider, that because we now want the blessings of external communion in many degrees, and the circumstances of a prosperous and unafflicted people, we are to take estimate of ourselves with single judgments, and every man is to give sentence concerning the state of his own soul by the precepts and rules of our Lawgiver, not by the after-decrees and usages of the church; that is, by the essential parts of religion, rather than by the uncertain significations of any exterior adherences; for, though it be uncertain when a man is the member of a church whether he be a member to Christ or no, because in the church's net there are fishes good and bad; yet we may be sure that, if we be members of Christ we are of a church to all purposes of spiritual religion and salvation; and, in order to this, give me leave to speak this great truth: --
That man does certainly belong to God, who, 1. I believe, and is baptized into all the articles of the Christian faith, and studies to improve his knowledge in the matters of God, so as may best make him to live a holy life. 2. He that, in obedience to Christ, worships God diligently, frequently, and constantly, with natural religion; that is, of prayer, praises, and thanksgiving. 3. He that takes all opportunities to remember Christ's death by a frequent sacrament, (as it can be had,) or else by inward acts of understanding, will, and memory (which is the spiritual communion,) supplies the want of the external rite. 4. He that lives chastely; 5. And is merciful; 6. And despises the world, using it as a man, but never suffering it to rifle a duty; 7. And is just in his dealing, and diligent in his calling. 8. He that is humble in his spirit; 9. And obedient to government; 10. And content in his fortune and employment. 11. He that does his duty because he loves God; 12. And especially if, after all this, he be afflicted, and patient, or prepared to suffer affliction for the cause of God: the man that hath these twelve signs of grace and predestination, does as certainly belong to God, and is his son, as surely as he is his creature.
And if my brethren in persecution and in the bonds of the Lord Jesus can truly show these marks, they shall not need be troubled that others can show a prosperous outside, great revenues, public assemblies, uninterrupted successions of bishops, prevailing armies, or any arm of flesh, or less certain circumstance. These are the marks of the Lord Jesus, and the characters of a Christian: this is a good religion; and these things God's grace hath put into our powers, and God's laws have made to be our duty, and the nature of men and the needs of commonwealths have made to be necessary. The other accidents and pomps of a church are things without our power, and are not in our choice: they are good to be used when they may be had, and they help to illustrate or advantage it; but if any of them constitute a church in the being of a society and a government, yet they are not of its constitutions, as it is Christian and hopes to be saved.
And now the case is so with us that we are reduced to that religion which no man can forbid, which we can keep in the midst of a persecution; by which the martyrs, in the days of our fathers, went to heaven; that by which we can be servants of God, and receive the Spirit of Christ, and make use of his comforts, and live in his love, and in charity with all men: and they that do so cannot perish.
My Lord, I have now described some general lines and features of that religion which I have more particularly set down in the following pages; in which I have neither served nor disserved the interests of any party of Christians, as they are divided by uncharitable names from the rest of their brethren; and no man will have reason to be angry with me for refusing to mingle in his unnecessary or vicious quarrels; especially while I study to do him good by conducting him in the narrow way to heaven, without intricating him in the labyrinths and wild turnings of questions and uncertain talkings. I have told what men ought to do, and by what means they may be assisted; and in most cases I have also told them why; and yet with as much quickness as I could think necessary to establish a rule, and not to engage in homily or discourse. In the use of which rules, although they are plain, useful, and fitted for the best and worst understandings, and for the needs of all men, yet I shall desire the reader to proceed with the following advices.
1. They that will with profit make use of the proper instruments of virtue, must so live as if they were always under the physician's hand. For the counsels of religion are not to be applied to the distempers of the soul as men used to take hellobore; but they must dwell together with the spirit of a man, and be twisted about his understanding for ever: they must be used like nourishment, that is, by a daily care and meditation; not like a single medicine, and upon the actual pressure of a present necessity: for counsels and wise discourses, applied to an actual distemper, at the best are but like strong smells to an epileptic person; sometimes they may raise him, but they never cure him. The following rules, if they be made familiar to our natures and the thoughts of every day, may make virtue and religion become easy and habitual; but when the temptation is present, and hath already seized upon some portions of our consent, we are not so apt to be counselled, and we find no gust or relish in the precept: the lessons are the same, but the instrument is unstrung, or out of tune.
2. In using the instruments of virtue we must be curious to distinguish instruments from duties, and prudent advices from necessary injunctions; and if by any other means the duty can be secured, let there be no scruples stirred concerning any other helps, only if they can, in that case, strengthen and secure the duty, or help towards perseverance, let them serve in that station in which they can be placed. For there are some persons in whom the Spirit of God hath breathed so bright a flame of love, that they do all their acts of virtue by perfect choice and without objection, and their zeal is warmer than that it will be allayed by temptation; and to such persons mortification by philosophical instruments, as fasting, sackcloth, and other rudenesses to the body, is wholly useless; it is always a more uncertain means to acquire any virtue, or secure any duty; and if love hath filled all the corners of our soul, it alone is able to do all the work of God.
3. Be not nice in stating the obligations of religion; but where the duty is necessary, and the means very reasonable in itself, dispute not too busily whether, in all circumstances, it can fit thy particular; but "super totam materiam," upon the whole make use of it. For it is a good sign of a great religion, and no imprudence, when we have sufficiently considered the substance of affairs then to be easy, humble, obedient, apt, and credulous in the circumstances, which are appointed to us in particular by our spiritual guides, or, in general, by all wise men in cases not unlike. He that gives alms does best not always to consider the minutes and strict measures of his ability, but to give freely, incuriously, and abundantly. A man must not weigh grains in the accounts of his repentance; but for a great sin have a great sorrow, and a great severity; and in this take the ordinary advices, though, it may be, a less rigour might not be insufficient; arithmetical measures, especially of our own proportioning, are but arguments of want of love, and of forwardness in religion; or else are instruments of scruple, and then become dangerous. Use the rule heartily and enough, and there will be no harm in thy error if any should happen.
4. If thou intendest heartily to serve God, and avoid sin in any one instance, refuse not the hardest and most severe advice that is prescribed in order to it, though possibly it be a stranger to thee; for whatever it be, custom will make it easy.
5. When many instruments for the obtaining any virtue, or restraining any vice, are propounded, observe which of them fits thy person or the circumstances of thy need, and use it rather that the other; that by this means thou mayest be engaged to watch and use spiritual arts and observation about thy soul. Concerning the managing of which, as the interest is greater, so the necessities are more, and the cases more intricate, and the accidents and dangers greater and more importunate; and there is greater skill required than in the securing an estate, or restoring health to an infirm body. I wish all men in the world did heartily believe so much of this as is true; it would very much help to do the work of God.
Thus, my Lord, I have made bold by your hand to reach out this little scroll of cautions to all those, who, by seeing your honoured names set before my book, shall, by the fairness of such a frontispiece, be invited to look into it. I must confess it cannot but look like a design in me, to borrow your name and beg your patronage to my book, that, if there be no other worth in it, yet at least it may have the splendour and warmth of a burning glass, which, borrowing a flame from the eye of Heaven, shines and burns by the rays of the sun its patron. I will not quit myself from the suspicion, for I cannot pretend it to be a present either of itself fit to be offered to such a personage, or any part of a just return; but I humbly desire you would own it for an acknowledgement of those great endearments and noblest usages you have passed upon me; but so men in their religion give a piece of gum, or the fat of a cheap lamb, in sacrifice to Him that gives them all that they have or need; and unless He, who was pleased to employ your Lordship as a great minister of his providence, in making a promise of his good to me, the meanest of his servants, "that he will never leave me nor forsake me," shall enable me, by greater services of religion, to pay my great debt to your honour, I must still increase my score; since i shall now spend as much in my needs of pardon for this boldness, as in the reception of those favours, by which I stand accountable to your Lordship in all the bands of service and gratitude; though I am, in the deepest sense of duty and affection,
My most honoured Lord,
Your Honour's most obliged,
And most humble servant,
JEREMY TAYLOR
TO THE
RIGHT HON. AND TRULY NOBLE
RICHARD LORD VAUGHAN,
EARL OF CARBERY,
KNIGHT OF THE HONOURABLE ORDER OF THE BATH
___________________________
My Lord,
I have lived to see religion painted upon banners, and thrust out of churches; and the temple turned into a tabernacle, and that tabernacle made ambulatory, and covered with skins of beasts and torn curtains; and God to be worshipped, not as he is "the Father of our Lord Jesus," (an afflicted Prince, the King of sufferings,) nor as the "God of Peace," (which two appellatives God newly took upon him in the New Testament, and glories in for ever,) but he is owned now rather as "the Lord of Hosts," which title he was preached by the Prince of Peace. But when religion puts puts on armour, and God is not acknowledged by his New Testament titles, religion may have in it the power of the sword, but not the power of godliness; and we may complain of this to God, and amongst them that are afflicted, but we have no remedy but what we must expect from the fellowship of Christ's sufferings and the returns of the God of peace. In the meantime, and now that religion pretends to stranger actions upon the new principles; and men are apt to prefer a prosperous error before an afflicted truth; and some will think they are religious enough, if their worshippings have in them the great earnestness and passion, with much zeal and desire; that we refuse no labour; that we bestow upon it much time; that we use the best guides, and arrive at the end of glory by all the ways of grace, of prudence, and religion.
And, indeed, if we consider how much of our lives is taken up by the needs of nature; how many years are wholly spent, before we come to any use of reason; how many years more before that reason is useful to us to any great purposes, how imperfect our discourse is made by our evil education, false principles, ill company, bad examples, and want of experience; how many parts of our wisest and best years are spent in eating and sleeping, in necessary businesses and unnecessary vanities, in worldly civilities and less useful circumstances, in the learning arts and sciences, languages, or trades; that little portion of hours that is left for the practices of piety and religious walking with God, is so short and trifling, that, were not the goodness of God infinitely great, it might seem unreasonable or impossible for us to expect of him eternal joys in heaven, even after the well spending those few minutes which are left for God and God's service, after we have served ourselves and our own occasions.
And yet it is considerable, that the fruit which comes from the many days of recreation and vanity is very little; and, although we scatter much yet we gather up but little profit; but from the few hours we spend in prayer and the exercises of a pious life, the return is great and profitable; and what we sow in the minutes and spare portions of a few years, grows up to crowns and sceptres in a happy and a glorious eternity.
1. Therefore although it cannot be enjoined, that the greatest part of our time be spent in the direct actions of devotion and religion, yet it will become, not only a duty, but also a great providence, to lay aside, for the services of God and the businesses of the Spirit, as much as we can; because God rewards our minutes with long and eternal happiness; and the greater portion of our time we give to God, the more we treasure up for ourselves; and "No man is a better merchant that be that lays out his time upon God, and his money upon the poor."
2. Only it becomes us to remember, and to adore God's goodness for it, that God hath not only permitted us to serve the necessities of our nature, but hath made them to become parts of our duty; that if we, by directing these actions to the glory of God, intend them as instruments to continue our persons in his service, he, by adopting them into religion, may turn our nature into grace and accept our natural actions as actions of religion. God is pleased to esteem it for a part of his service, [4] if we eat or drink; so it be done temperately, and as may best preserve our health, that our health may enable our services toward him: and there is no one minute of our lives (after we are come to the use of reason) but we are or may be doing the work of God, even then when we most of all serve ourselves.
3. To which if we add, that in these and all other actions of our lives we always stand before God, acting, and speaking, and thinking in his practice, and that it matters not that our conscience is sealed with secrecy, since it lies open to God; it will concern us to behave ourselves carefully, as in the presence of our Judge.
These three considerations rightly managed, and applied to the several parts and instances of our lives, will be like Elisha stretched upon the child, apt to put life and quickness into every part of it, and to make us live the life of grace, and to do the work of God.
I shall, therefore, by way of introduction, reduce these three to practice, and show how every Christian may improve all and each of these to the advantage of piety, in the whole course of his life; that if he please to bear but one of them upon his spirit, he may feel the benefit, like an universal instrument, helpful in all spiritual and temporal actions. __________________________________________________________________
SECTION I __________________________________________________________________
The first general instrument of Holy Living, Care of our Time.
He that is choice of his time will also be choice of his company, and choice of his actions; lest the first engage him in vanity and loss; and the latter, by being criminal, be a throwing his time and himself away, and a going back in the accounts of eternity.
God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends: but so, that for every hour of our life (after we are persons capable of laws, and know good from evil) we must give account to the great Judge of men and angels. And this is it which our blessed Saviour told us, that we must account for every idle word; not meaning that every word which is not designed to edification, or is less prudent, shall be reckoned for a sin; but that the time which we spend in our idle talking and unprofitable discoursings; that time which might and ought to have been employed to spiritual and useful purposes -- that is to be accounted for.
For we must remember that we have a great work to do, many enemies to conquer, many evils to prevent, much danger to run through, many difficulties to be mastered, many necessities to serve, and much good to do; many children to provide for, or many friends to support, or many poor to relieve, or many diseases to cure; besides the needs of nature and of relation, our private and our public cares, and duties of the world, which necessity and the providence of God have adopted into the family of religion.
And that we need not fear this instrument to be a snare to us, or that the duty must end in scruple, vexation, and eternal fears, we must remember, that the life of every man may be so ordered (and indeed must) that it may be a perpetual serving of God: the greatest trouble and most busy trade and worldly encumbrances, when they are necessary, or charitable, or profitable in order to any of those ends which we are bound to serve, whether public or private, being a doing of God's work. For God provides the good things of the world to serve the needs of nature, by the labours of the ploughman the skill and pains of the artisan, and the dangers and traffic of the merchant: these men are, in their callings, the ministers of the Divine Providence, and the stewards of the creation, and servants of a great family of God, the world, in the employment of procuring necessities for food and clothing, ornament, and physic. In their proportions also, a king and a priest and a prophet, a judge and an advocate, doing the works of their employment according to their proper rules, are doing the work of God; because they serve those necessities which God hath made, and yet made no provisions for them, but by their ministry. So that no man can complain that his calling takes him off from religion; his calling itself, and his very worldly employment in honest trades and offices, is a serving of God; and, if it be moderately pursued and according to the rules of Christian prudence, will leave void spaces enough for prayers and retirements of a more spiritual religion.
God has given every man work enough to do, that there shall be no room for idleness; and yet hath so ordered the world, that there shall be space for devotion. He that hath the fewest businesses of the world is called upon to spend more time in the dressing of the soil; and he that hath the most affairs may so order them that they shall be a service of God; whilst at certain periods, they are blessed with prayers and actions of religion, and all day long are hallowed by a holy intention.
However, so long as idleness is quite shut out from our lives, all the sins of wantonness, softness, and effeminacy, are prevented and there is but little room left for temptation; and, therefore, to a busy man temptation is fain to climb up together with his business, and sins creep upon him only by accidents and occasions; whereas, to an idle person they come in a full body, and with open violence and the impudence of a restless importunity.
Idleness is called the sin of Sodom and her daughters,' [5] and indeed is "the burial of a living man;" an idle person being so useless to any purpose of God and man, that he is like one that is dead, unconcerned in the changes and necessities of the world; and he only lives to spend his time, and to eat the fruits of the earth; like a vermin or a wolf, when their time comes they die and perish, and in the meantime do no good; they neither plough nor carry burdens; all that they do is either unprofitable or mischievous.
Idleness is the greatest prodigality in the world; it throws away that which is invaluable in respect of its present use, and irreparable when it is past, being to be recovered by no power of art or nature. But the way to secure and improve our time we may practise in the following rules. __________________________________________________________________
[5] Ezek. xvi. 49. __________________________________________________________________
Rules for employing our Time.
1. In the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to his service; and at night, also let him close thine eyes: and let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time beyond the needs and conveniences of nature; and sometimes be curious to see the preparation which the sun makes, when he is coming forth from his chambers of the east.
2. Let every man that hath a calling be diligent in pursuance of its employment, so as not lightly or without reasonable occasion to neglect it in any of those times which are usually, and by the custom of prudent persons and good husbands, employed in it.
3. Let all the intervals or void spaces of time be employed in prayers, reading, meditating, works of nature, recreation, charity, friendliness and neighbourhood, and means of spiritual and corporal health; ever remembering so to work in our calling, as not to neglect the work of our high calling; but to begin and end the day with God, with such forms of devotion as shall be proper to our necessities.
4. The resting days of Christians, and festivals of the church, must in no sense be days of idleness; for it is better to plough upon holy days than to do nothing, or to do viciously: but let them be spent in the works of the day, that is, of religion and charity, according to the rules appointed. [6]
5. Avoid the company of drunkards and busybodies, and all such as are apt to talk much to little purpose; for no man can be provident of his time that is not prudent in the choice of his company; and if one of the speakers be vain, tedious, and trifling, he that hears, and he that answers in the discourse, are equal losers of their time.
6. Never talk with any man, or undertake any trifling employment, merely to pass the time away; [7] for every day well spent may become a "day of salvation," and time rightly employed is an "acceptable time." And remember, that the time thou triflest away was given thee to repent in, to pray for pardon of sins, to work out thy salvation, to do the work of grace, to lay up against the day of judgment a treasure of good works, that thy time may be crowned with eternity.
7. In the midst of the works of thy calling, often retire to God [8] in short prayers and ejaculations; and those may make up the want of those larger portions of time, which, it may be, thou desirest for devotion, and in which thou thinkest other persons have advantage of thee; for so thou reconcilest the outward work and thy inward calling, the church and the commonwealth, the employment of the body and the interest of thy soul: for be sure, that God is present at thy breathings and hearty sighings of prayer, as soon as at the longer offices of less busied persons; and thy time is as truly sanctified by a trade, and devout though short prayers, as by the longer offices of those whose time is not filled up with labour and useful business.
8. Let your employment be such as may become a reasonable person; and not be a business fit for children or distracted people, but fit for your age and understanding. For a man may be very idly busy, and take great pains to so little purpose, that, in his labours and expense of time, he shall serve no end but of folly and vanity. There are some trades that wholly serve the ends of idle persons and fools, and such as are fit to be seized upon by the severity of laws and banished from under the sun; and there are some people who are busy; but it is, as Domitian was, in catching flies.
9. Let your employment befitted to your person and calling. Some there are that employ their time in affairs infinitely below the dignity of their person; and being called by God or by the republic to help to bear great burdens, and to judge a people, do enfeeble their understanding and disable their persons by sordid and brutish business. Thus Nero went up and down Greece, and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Eropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns. Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles. He that is appointed to minister to holy things must not suffer secular affairs and sordid arts to eat up great portions of his employment: a clergyman must not keep a tavern, nor a judge be an innkeeper; and it was a great idleness in Theophylact, the patriarch of C.P. to spend his time in the stable of horses, when he should have been in his study, or in the pulpit, or saying his holy offices. Such employments are the diseases of labour, and the rust of time which it contracts, not by lying still, but by dirty employment.
10. Let your employment be such as becomes a Christian; that is, in no sense mingled with sin: for he that takes pains to serve the ends of covetousness, or ministers to another's lust, or keeps a shop of impurities or intemperance, is idle in the worst sense; for every hour so spent runs him backward, and must be spent again in the remaining and shorter part of his life, and spent better.
11. Persons of great quality, and of no trade, are to be most prudent and curious in their employment and traffic of time. They are miserable if their education hath been so loose and undisciplined as to leave them unfurnished of skill to spend their time: but most miserable are they, if such misgovernment and unskilfulness make them fall into vicious and baser company, and drive on their time by the sad minutes and periods of sin and death. They that are learned know the worth of time, and the manner how well to improve a day; and they are to prepare themselves for such purposes, in which they may be most useful in order to arts or arms, to counsel in public, or government in their country; but for others of them, that are unlearned, let them choose good company, such as may not tempt them to a vice, or join with them in any; but that may supply their defects by counsel and discourse, by way of conduct and conversation. Let them learn easy and youthful things, read history and the laws of the land, learn the customs of their country, the condition of their own estate, profitable and charitable contrivances of it; let them study prudently to govern their families, learn the burdens of their tenants, the necessities of their neighbours, and in their proportion supply them, and reconcile their enmities, and prevent their lawsuits, or quickly end them; and in this glut of leisure and disemployment, let them set apart greater portions of their time for religion and the necessities of their souls.
12. Let the women of noble birth and great fortunes do the same things in their proportions and capacities; nurse their children, look to the affairs of the house, visit poor cottages, and relieve their necessities; be courteous to the neighborhood, learn in silence of their husbands or their spiritual guides, read good books, pray often and speak little, and "learn to do good works for necessary uses;" for by that phrase St. Paul expresses the obligation of Christian women to good housewifery, and charitable provisions for their family and neighbourhood.
13. Let all persons of all conditions avoid all delicacy and niceness in their clothing or diet, because such softness engages them upon great mispendings of their time, while they dress and comb out all their opportunities of their morning devotion, and half the day's severity, and sleep out the care and provision of their souls.
14. Let every one of every condition avoid curiosity, and all inquiry into things that concern them not. For all business in things that concern us not, is an employing our time to no good of ours, and therefore not in order to a happy eternity. In this account our neighbours' necessities are not to be reckoned: for they concern us, as one member is concerned in the grief of another: but going from house to house, tattlers and busybodies, which are the canker and rust of idleness, as idleness is the rust of time, are reproved by the apostle in severe language, and forbidden in order to this exercise.
15. As much as may be, cut off all impertinent and useless employments of your life unnecessary and fantastic visits, long waitings upon great personages, where neither duty, nor necessity, not charity, obliges us; all vain meetings, all laborious trifles, and whatsoever spends much time to no real, civil, religious, or charitable purpose.
16. Let not your recreations be lavish spenders of your time; but choose such which are healthful, short, transient, recreative, and apt to refresh you; but at no hand dwell upon them, or make them your great employment: for he that spends his time in sports, and calls it recreation, is like him whose garment is all made of fringes, and his meat nothing but sauces; they are healthless, chargeable, and useless. And therefore avoid such games, which require much time or long attendance; or which are apt to steal thy affections from more severe employments. For to whatsoever thou hast given thy affections, thou wilt not grudge to give thy time. Natural necessity and the example of St. John, who recreated himself with sporting with a tame partridge,
[9] teach us, that it is lawful to relax and unbend our bow, but not to suffer it to be unready or unstrung.
17. Set apart some portions of every day for more solemn devotion and religious employment, which be severe in observing: and if variety of employment, or prudent affairs, or civil society, press upon you, yet so order thy rule, that the necessary parts of it be not omitted; and though just occasions may make our prayers shorter, yet let nothing but a violent, sudden, and impatient necessity, make thee, upon any one day, wholly to omit thy morning and evening devotions; which if you be forced to make very short, you may supply and lengthen with ejaculations and short retirements in the day-time, in the midst of your employment or of your company.
18. Do not the work of God negligently' [10] and idly: let not thy heart be upon the world when thy hand is lift up in prayer; and be sure to prefer an action of religion, in its place and proper season, before all worldly pleasure, letting secular things, that may be dispensed with in themselves, in these circumstances wait upon the other; not like the patriarch, who ran from the alter in St. Sophia to his stable, in all his pontificals, and in the midst of his office, to see a colt newly fallen from his beloved and much-valued mare Phorbante. More prudent and severe was that of Sir Thomas More, who, being sent for by the king when he was at his prayers in public, returned answer, he would attend him when he had first performed his service to the King of kings. And it did honour to Rusticus, [11] that, when letters from Caesar were given to him, he refused to open them till the philosopher had done his lecture. In honouring God and doing his work, put forth all thy strength; for of that time only thou mayest be most confident that it is gained, which is prudently and zealously spent in God's service.
19. When the clock strikes, or however else you shall measure the day, it is good to say a short ejaculation every hour, that the parts and returns of devotion may be the measure of your time; and do so also in all the breaches of thy sleep; that those spaces, which have in them no direct business of the world, may be filled with religion.
20. If, by thus doing, you have not secured your time by an early and fore-handed care, yet be sure by a timely diligence to redeem the time; that is, to be pious and religious in such instances in which formerly you have sinned, and to bestow your time especially upon such graces, the contrary whereof you have formerly practised, doing actions of chastity and temperance with as great a zeal and earnestness as you did once act your uncleanness; and then, by all arts, to watch against your present and future dangers, from day to day securing your standing: this is properly to redeem your time, that is, to buy your security of it at the rate of any labour and honest acts.
21. Let him that is most busied set apart some solemn time every year,
[12] in which, for the time, quitting all worldly business, he may attend wholly to fasting and prayer, and the dressing of his soul by confessions, meditations, and attendances upon God; that he may make up his accounts, renew his vows, make amends for his carelessness, and retire back again, from whence levity and the vanities of the world, or the opportunity of temptations, or the distraction of secular affairs, have carried him.
22. In this we shall be much assisted, and we shall find the work more easy, if, before we sleep, every night [13] we examine the actions of the past day with a particular scrutiny, if there have been any accident extraordinary; as long discourse, a feast, much business, a variety of company. If nothing but common hath happened, the less examination will suffice; only let us take care that we sleep not without such a recollection of the actions of the day, as may represent any thing that is remarkable and great, either to be the matter of sorrow or thanksgiving: for other things a general care is proportionable.
23. Let all these things be done prudently and moderately, not with scruple and vexation. For these are good advantages, but the particulars are not Divine commandments; and therefore are to be used as shall be found expedient to every one's condition. For provided that our duty be secured, for the degrees and for the instruments every man is permitted to himself and the conduct of such who shall be appointed to him. He is happy that can secure every hour to a sober or a pious employment: but the duty consists not scrupulously in minutes and half hours, but in greater portions of time; provided that no minute be employed in sin, and the great portions of our time be spent in sober employment, and all the appointed days, and some portions of every day, be allowed for religion. In all the lesser parts of time, we are left to our own elections and prudent management, and to the consideration of the great degrees and differences of glory that are laid up in heaven for us, according to the degrees of our care, and piety, and diligence. __________________________________________________________________
[6] See chap. iv. sect. 6.
[7] S. Bern. de Triplici Custodia.
[8] Laudatur Augustus Caesar apud Lucanum, -- media inter praelia semper Stellarum coelique plagis, superisque vacabat. -- x. 186.
[9] Cassian, Bellat. 24. c. xxi.
[10] Plutarch. de Curiosit. c. x.
[11] Jer. xiviii. 10.
[12] phd dn autots euokiglomtes, ots eusrtom, euprepdpdserm deu apogiam eisaei pheromtai. -- Procop. 2 Vandal.
[13] 1 Cor. vii. 5. __________________________________________________________________
The Benefits of this Exercise.
This exercise, besides that it hath influence upon our whole lives, it hath a special efficacy for the preventing of, 1. beggarly sins, that is, those sins which idleness and beggary usually betray men to; such as are lying, flattery, stealing, and dissimulation. 2. It is a proper antidote against carnal sins, and such as proceed from fulness of bread and emptiness of employment. 3. It is a great instrument of preventing the smallest sins and irregularities of our life, which usually creep upon idle, disemployed, and curious persons. 4. It not only teaches us to avoid evil, but engages us upon doing good, as the proper business of all our days. 5. It prepares us so against sudden changes that we shall not easily be surprised at the sudden coming of the day of the Lord: for he that is curious of his time will not easily be unready and unfurnished. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
SECTION II. __________________________________________________________________
The second general instrument of Holy Living, Purity of Intention.
That we should intend and design God's glory in every action we do, whether it be natural or chosen, is expressed by St. Paul, [14] "Whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of God. Which rule, when we observe, every action of nature becomes religious, and every meal is an act of worship, and shall have its reward in its proportion, as well as an act of prayer. Blessed be that grace and goodness of God, which, out of infinite desire to glorify and save mankind, would make the very works of nature capable of becoming acts of virtue, that all our life-time we may do him service.
This grace is so excellent that it sanctifies the most common action of our life; and yet so necessary that, without it, the very best actions of our devotion are imperfect and vicious. For he that prays out of custom, or gives alms for praise, or fasts to be accounted religious, is but a pharisee hypocrite in his fast. But a holy end sanctifies all these and all other actions, which can be made holy, and gives distinction to them, and procures acceptance.
For, as to know the end distinguishes a man from a beast, so to choose a good end distinguishes him from an evil man. Hezekiah repeated his good deeds upon his sick-bed, and obtained favour of God, but the pharisee was accounted insolent for doing [15] the same thing: because this man did it to upbraid his brother, the other to obtain a mercy of God. Zacharias questioned with the angel about his message, and was made speechless for his incredulity; but the blessed Virgin Mary questioned too, and was blameless; for she did it to inquire after the manner of the thing, but he did not believe the thing itself; he doubted of God's power, or the truth of the messenger; but she only of her own incapacity. This was it which distinguished the mourning of David from the exclamation of Saul; the confession of Pharaoh from that of Manasses; the tears of Peter from the repentance of Judas: for the praise is not in the deed done, but in the manner of its doing.' [16] If a man visits his sick friend, and watches at his pillow for charity's sake, and because of his old affection, we approve it; but if he does it in hope of legacy, he is a vulture, and only watches for the carcass. The same things are honest and dishonest: the manner of doing them, and the end of the design, makes the separation.'
Holy intention is to the actions of a man that which the soul is to the body, or form to its matter, or the root to the tree, or the sun to the world, or the fountain to a river, or the base to a pillar: for, without these, the body is a dead trunk, the matter is sluggish, the tree is a block, the world is darkness, the river is quickly dry, the pillar rushes into flatness and a ruin; and the action is sinful, or unprofitable and vain. The poor farmer that gave a dish of cold water to Artaxerxes was rewarded with a golden goblet; and he that gives the same to a disciple in the name of a disciple, shall have a crown; but if he gives water in dispute, when the disciple needs wine or a cordial, his reward shall be to want that water to cool his tongue. __________________________________________________________________
[14] 1 Cor. x. 31.
[15] Atticus eximie si coenat, lautus, habetur; Si Rutilus, demens --
[16] Seneca. __________________________________________________________________
Rules for our Intentions.
1. In every action reflect upon the end; and in your undertaking it, consider why you do it, and why you propound to yourself for a reward, and to your actions as its end.
2. Begin every action in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; the meaning of which is, 1, that we be careful that we do not the action without the permission or warrant of God; 2, that we design it to the glory of God, if not in the direct action, yet at least in its consequence; if not in the particular, yet at least in the whole order of things and accidents; 3, that it may be so blessed that what you intend for innocent and holy purposes, may not, by any chance, or abuse, or misunderstanding of men, be turned into evil, or made the occasion of sin.
3. Let every action of concernment be begun with prayer, that God would not only bless the action, but sanctify your purpose; and made an oblation of the action to God: holy and well intended actions being the best oblations and presents we can make to God; and, when God is entitled to them, he will the rather keep the fire upon the altar bright and shining.
4. In the prosecution of the action, renew and re-enkindle your purpose by short ejaculations to these purposes: Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, let all praise be given;' and consider: "Now I am working the work of God; I am his servant, I am in a happy employment, I am doing my master's business, I am not at my own dispose, I am using his talents, and all the gain must be his:" for then be sure, as the glory is his, so the reward shall be thine. If thou bringest his goods home with increase, he will make thee ruler over cities.
5. Have a care, that, while the altar thus sends up a holy frame, thou dost not suffer the birds to come and carry away the sacrifice: that is, let not that which began well, and was intended for God's glory, decline and end in thy own praise, or temporal satisfaction, or a sin. A story, told to represent the vileness of unchastity, is well begun; but if thy female auditor be pleased with thy language, and begins rather to like thy person for thy story than to dislike the crime, be watchful, lest this goodly head of gold descend in silver and brass, and end in iron and clay, like Nebuchadnezzar's image; for from the end it shall have its name and reward. [17]
6. If any accidental event, which was not first intended by thee, can come to pass, let it not be taken into thy purposes, not at all be made use of; as if, by telling a true story, you can do an ill turn to your enemy, by no means do it; but, when the temptation is found out, turn all thy enmity upon that.
7. In every more solemn action of religion join together many good ends, that the consideration of them may entertain all your affections; and that, when any one ceases, the purity of your intention may be supported by another supply. He that fasts only to tame a rebellious body, when he is provided of a remedy either in grace or nature, may be tempted to leave off his fasting. But be that in his fast intends the mortification of every unruly appetite, and accustoming himself to bear the yoke of the Lord, a contempt of the pleasures of meat and drink, humiliation of all wilder thoughts, obedience and humility, austerity and charity, and the convenience and assistance to devotion, and to do an act of repentance; whatever happens, will have reason enough to make him to continue his purpose, and to sanctify it. And certain it is, the more good ends are designed in an action the more degrees of excellency the man obtains.
8. If any temptation to spoil your purpose happens in a religious duty, do not presently omit the action, but rather strive to rectify your intention, and to mortify the temptation. St. Bernard taught us this rule: for when the devil, observing him to preach excellently and to do much benefit to his hearers, tempted him to vain-glory, hoping that the good man, to avoid that, would cease preaching, he gave this answer only, "I neither began for thee, neither for thee will I make an end."
9. In all actions which are of long continuance, deliberation, and abode, let your holy and pious intention be actual; that is, that it be, by a special prayer or action, by a peculiar act of resignation or oblation, given to God; but in smaller actions a pious habitual intention; that is, that it be included within your general care that no action have an ill end; and that it be comprehended in your general prayers, whereby you offer yourself and all you do to God's glory.
10. Call not every temporal end a defiling of thy intention, but only, 1, when it contradicts any of the ends of God; or 2, when it is principally intended in an action of religion. For sometimes a temporal end is part of our duty; and such are all the actions of our calling, whether our employment be religious or civil. We are commanded to provide for our family; but if the minister of divine offices shall take upon him that holy calling for covetous or ambitious ends, or shall not design the glory of God principally and especially, he hath polluted his hands and his heart; and the fire of the altar is quenched, or it sends forth nothing but the smoke of mushrooms or unpleasant gums. And it is a great unworthiness to prefer the interest of a creature before the ends of God, the Almighty Creator.
But because many cases may happen in which a man's heart may deceive him, and he may not well know what is in his own spirit; therefore, by these following signs, we shall best make a judgment whether our intentions be pure and our purposes holy. __________________________________________________________________
[17] Qui turatur ut maechetur, maechus est magis quam fur. __________________________________________________________________
Signs of our Purity of Intentions.
1. It is probable our hearts [18] are right with God, and our intentions innocent and pious, if we set upon actions of religion or civil life with an affection proportionate to the quality of the work; that we act our temporal affairs with a desire no greater than our necessity; and that in actions of religion we be zealous, active, and operative, so far as prudence will permit; but, in all cases, that we value a religious design before a temporal, when otherwise they are in equal order to their several ends: that is, that whatsoever is necessary in order to our soul's health be higher esteemed than what is for bodily; and the necessities, the indispensable necessities of the spirit, be served before the needs of nature, when they are required in their several circumstances; or plainer yet, when we choose any temporal inconvenience, rather than to commit a sin, and when we choose to do a duty, rather than to get gain. But he that does his recreation or his merchandise cheerfully, promptly, readily, and busily, and the works of religion slowly, flatly, and without appetite; and the spirit moves like Pharaoh's chariots when the wheels were off; it is a sign that his heart is not right with God, but it cleaves too much to the world.
2. It is likely our hearts are pure and our intentions spotless, when we are not solicitous of the opinion and censures of men: but only that we do our duty, and be accepted of God. For our eyes will certainly be fixed there from whence we expect our reward: and if we desire that God should approve us, it is a sign we do his work, and expect him our paymaster.
3. He that does as well in private, between God and his own soul, as in public, in pulpits, in theaters, and market-places, hath given himself a good testimony that his purposes are full of honesty, nobleness, and integrity. For what Helkanah said to the mother of Samuel, Am I not better to thee than ten sons?' is most certainly verified concerning God; that he, who is to be our judge, is better than ten thousand witnesses. But he that would have his virtue published, studies not virtue, but glory. "He is not just [19] that will not be just without praise: but he is a righteous man that does justice, when to do so is made infamous; and he is a wise man who is delighted with an ill name that is well gotten." And indeed that man hath a strange [20] covetousness, or folly, that is not contented with this reward, that he hath pleased God. And see what he gets by it. He that does good works
[21] for praise or secular ends, sells an inestimable jewel for a trifle; and that which would purchase heaven for him, he parts with for the breath of the people; which, at best, is but air, and that not often wholesome.
4. It is well, also, when we are not solicitous or troubled concerning the effect and event of all our actions; but that being first by prayer recommended to him, is left at his dispose: for then, in case the event be not answerable to our desires, or to the efficacy of the instrument, we have nothing left to rest in but the honesty of our purposes; which it is the more likely we have secured, by how much more we are indifferent concerning the success. St. James converted but eight persons, when he preached in Spain; and our blessed Saviour converted fewer than his own disciples did; and if thy labours prove unprosperous, if thou beset much troubled at that, it is certain thou didst not think thyself secure of a reward for thine intention; which thou mightst have done if it had been pure and just.
5. He loves virtue for God's sake and its own that loves and honours it wherever it is to be seen; but he that is envious or angry at a virtue that is not his own, at the perfection or excellency of his neighbour, is not covetous of the virtue, but of its reward and reputation; and then his intentions are polluted. It was a great ingenuity in Moses that wished all the people might be prophets; but if he had designed his own honour, he would have prophesied alone. But he that desires only that the work of God and religion shall go on, is pleased with it whosoever is the instrument.
6. He that despises the world, and all its appendant vanities, is the best judge, and the most secured of his intentions; because he is the farthest removed from temptation. Every degree of mortification is a testimony of the purity of our purposes; and in what degree we despise sensual pleasure, or secular honours, or worldly reputation, in the same degree we shall conclude our heart right to religion and spiritual designs.
7. When we are not solicitous concerning the instruments and means of our actions, but use those means which God hath laid before us, with resignation, indifferency, and thankfulness, it is a good sign that we are rather intent upon the end of God's glory than our own conveniency, or temporal satisfaction. He that is indifferent whether he serve God in riches or in poverty, is rather a seeker of God than of himself; and he that will throw away a good book because it is not curiously gilded, is more curious to please his eye than to inform his understanding.
8. When a temporal end consisting with a spiritual, and pretended to be subordinate to it, happens to fail and be defeated if we can rejoice in that, so God's glory may be secured, and the interests of religion, it is a great sign our hearts are right, and our ends prudently designed and ordered.
When our intentions are thus balanced, regulated, and discerned, we may consider, 1. That this exercise is of so universal efficacy in the whole course of a holy life that it is like the soul to every holy action, and must be provided for in every undertaking; and is, of itself alone, sufficient to make all natural and indifferent actions to be adopted into the family of religion.
2. That there are some actions, which are usually reckoned as parts of our religion, which yet, of themselves, are so relative and imperfect, that, without the purity of intention, they degenerate: and unless they be directed and proceed on to those purposes which God designed them to, they return into the family of common secular, or sinful actions. Thus, alms are for charity, fasting for temperance, prayer is for religion, humiliation is for humility, austerity or sufferance is in order to the virtue of patience; and when these actions fail of their several ends, or are not directed to their own purposes, alms are misspent, fasting is an impertinent trouble, prayer is but lip-labour, humiliation is but hypocisy, sufferance is but vexation; for such were the alms of the pharisee, the fast of Jezebel, the prayer of Judah reproved by the prophet Isaiah, the humiliation of Ahab, the martyrdom of heretics; in which nothing is given to God but the body, or the forms of religion; but the soul and the power of godliness is wholly wanting.
3. We are to consider that no intention can sanctify an unholy or unlawful action. Saul, the king, disobeyed God's commandment, and spared the cattle of Amalek to reserve the best for sacrifice; and Saul, the pharisee, persecuted the church of God with a design to do God service; and they that killed the apostles had also good purposes, but they had unhallowed actions. When there be both truth in election, and charity in the intention; [22] when we go to God in ways of his own choosing or approving, then our eye is single, and our hands are clean, and our hearts are pure. But when a man does evil that good may come of it, or good to an evil purpose, that man does like him that rolls himself in thorns that he may sleep easily; he roasts himself in the fire that he may quench his thirst with his own sweat; he turns his face to the east that he may go to bed with the sun. I end this with the saying of a wise heathen: [23] "He is to be called evil that is good only for his own sake. Regard not how full hands you bring to God, but how pure. Many cease from sin out of fear alone, not out of innocence or love of virtue;" and they, as yet, are not to be called innocent but timorous. __________________________________________________________________
[18] See Sect. I. of this Chapter, Rule 18.
[19] Seneca, Ep. 113.
[20] St. Chrys. 1. ii. de Compun. Cordis.
[21] St. Greg. Moral. 8, cap. xxv.
[22] St. Bern. lib. de Praecpt.
[23] Publius Mimus __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
SECTION III
The third general instrument of Holy Living; or the Practice of the Presence of God.
That God is present in all places, that he sees every action, hears all discourses and understands every thought, is no strange thing to a Christian ear who hath been taught this doctrine, not only by right reason and the consent of all the wise men in the world, but also by God himself in holy Scripture. Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth?' Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.' [24] "For in him we live and move and have our being.' [25] God is wholly in every place; included in no place; not bound with cords, except those of love; not divided into parts, nor changeable into several shapes; filling heaven and earth with his present power and with his never absent nature. So St. Augustine [26] expresses this article. So that we may imagine God to be as the air and the sea, and we all enclosed in his circle, wrapped up in the lap of his infinite nature; or as infants in the wombs of their pregnant mothers: and we can no more be removed from the presence of God than from our own being. __________________________________________________________________
Several Manners of the Divine Presence.
The presence of God is understood by us in several manners, and to several purposes.
1. God is present by his essence; which, because it is infinite, cannot be contained within the limits of any place; and, because he is of an essential purity and spiritual nature, he cannot be undervalued by being supposed present in the places of unnatural uncleanness; because as the sun, reflecting upon the mud of strands and shores, is unpolluted in its beams, so is God not dishonoured when we suppose him in every of his creatures, and in every part of every one of them; and is still as unmixed with any unhandsome adherence as is the soul in the bowels of the body.
2. God is everywhere present by his power. [27] He rolls the orbs of heaven with his hands; he fixes the earth with his foot; he guides all the creatures with his eye, and refreshes them with his influence: he makes the powers of hell to shake with his terrors, and binds the devils with his word, and throws them out with his command, and sends the angels on embassies with his decrees: he hardens the joints of infants, and confirms the bones, when they are fashioned beneath secretly in the earth. he it is that assists at the numerous productions of fishes; and there is not one hollowness in the bottom of the sea, but he shows himself to be Lord of it by sustaining there the creatures that come to dwell in it: and in the wilderness, the bittern and the stork, the dragon and the satyr, the unicorn and the elk, live upon his provisions, and revere his power, and feel the force of his almightiness.
3. God is more specially present, in some places, but the several and more special manifestations of himself to extraordinary purposes. First, by glory. Thus, his seat is in heaven, because there he sits encircled with all the outward demonstrations of his glory, which he is pleased to show to all the inhabitants of those his inward and secret courts. And thus they that die in the Lord, may be properly said to be gone to God;' with whom although they were before, yet now they enter into his courts, into the secret of his tabernacle, into the retinue and splendour of his glory. That is called walking with God, but this is dwelling or being with him. I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ;' so said St. Paul. But this manner of Divine Presence is reserved for the elect people of God, and for their portion in their country.
4. God is, by grace and benediction, specially present in holy places,
[28] and in the solemn assemblies of his servants. If holy people meet in grots and dens of the earth when persecution or a public necessity disturbs the public order, circumstance, and convenience, God fails not to come thither to them; but God is also, by the same or a greater reason, present there where they meet ordinarily by order and public authority; there God is present ordinarily, that is, at every such meeting. God will go out of his way to meet his saints when themselves are forced out of their way of order by a sad necessity; but else, God's usual way is to be present in those places where his servants are appointed ordinarily [29] to meet. But his presence there signifies nothing but a readiness to hear their prayers, to bless their persons, to accept their offices, and to like even the circumstance of orderly and public meeting. For thither the prayers of consecration, the public authority separating it, and God's love of order, and the reasonable customs of religion, have in ordinary, and in a certain degree, fixed this manner of his presence, and he loves to have it so.
5. God is especially present in the hearts of his people by his Holy Spirit; and indeed the hearts of holy men are temples in the truth of things, and, in type and shadow, they are heaven itself. For God reigns in the hearts of his servants; there is his kingdom. The power of grace hath subdued all his enemies: there is his power. They serve him night and day, and give him thanks and praise; that is his glory. This is the religion and worship of God in the temple. The temple itself is the heart of man; Christ is the high-priest, who from thence sends up the incense of prayers, and joins them to his own intercession, and presents all together to his Father; and the Holy Ghost, by his dwelling there, hath also consecrated it into a temple; [30] and God dwells in our hearts by faith and Christ by his Spirit, and the Spirit by his purities: so that we are also cabinets of the mysterious Trinity; and what is this short of heaven itself, but as infancy is short of manhood, and letters of words? The same state of life it is, but not the same age. It is heaven in a looking-glass, dark, but yet true, representing the beauties of the soul, and the graces of God, and the images of his eternal glory, by the reality of a special presence.
6. God is especially present in the consciences of all persons, good and bad, by way of testimony and judgment; that is, he is there a remembrance to call our actions to mind, a witness to bring them to judgment, and a judge to acquit or to condemn. And although this manner of presence is, in this life, after the manner of this life, that is imperfect, and we forget many actions of our lives; yet the greatest changes of our state of grace or sin, our most considerable actions, are always present, like capital letters to an aged and dim eye; and, at the day of judgment, God shall draw aside the cloud, and manifest this manner of his presence more notoriously, and make it appear that he was an observer of our very thoughts, and that he only laid those things by which, because we covered with dust and negligence, were not then discerned. But when we are risen from our dust and imperfection they all appear plain and legible.
Now the consideration of this great truth is of a very universal use in the whole course of the life of a Christian. All the consequents and effects of it are universal. He that remembers that God stands a witness and a judge, beholding every secresy, besides his impiety, must have put on impudence, if he be not much restrained in his temptation to sin. "For the greatest part of sin is taken away, [31] if a man have a witness of his conversation: and he is a great despiser of God who sends a boy away when he is going to commit fornication, and yet will dare to do it, though he knows God is present, and cannot be sent off; as if the eye of a little boy were more awful than the all-seeing eye of God. He is to be feared in public; he is to be feared in private: if you go forth, he spies you; if you go in, he sees you: when you light the candle, he observes you; when you put it out, then also God marks you. Be sure, that while you are in his sight, you behave yourself as becomes so holy a presence." But if you will sin, retire yourself wisely, and go where God cannot see, for nowhere else can you be safe. And certainly, if men would always actually consider, and really esteem this truth, that God is the great eye of the world, always watching over our actions, and an ever-open ear to hear all our words, and an unwearied arm ever lifted up to crush a sinner into ruin, it would be the readiest way in the world to make sin to cease from amongst the children of men, and for men to approach to the blessed estate of the saints in heaven, who cannot sin, for they always walk in the presence and behold the face of God. This instrument is to be reduced to practice, according to the following rules. __________________________________________________________________
[27] pheos periechei tg zouledee to tag, retxogn tou tomtoz ospeg ouaib, outos chsixig. Resp. ad Orthod.
[28] Mat. xviii. 20. Heb. x. 25.
[29] 1 Kings, v. 9. Psalm cxxxviii. 1, 2.
[30] 1 Cor. iii. 16. 2 Cor. vi. 16.
[31] S. Aug. de verbis Dominicis. c. iii. __________________________________________________________________
Rules of exercising this Consideration.
1. Let this actual thought often return, that God is omnipresent, filling every place; and say with David, [32] "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, thou art there," etc. This thought, by being frequent, will make an habitual dread and reverence towards God, and fear in all thy actions. For it is a great necessity and engagement to do unblamably when we act before the Judge,
[33] who is infallible in his sentence, all-knowing in his information, severe in his anger, powerful in his providence, and intolerable in his wrath and indignation.
2. In the beginning of actions of religion, make an act of adoration, that is, solemnly worship God, and place thyself in God's presence, and behold him with the eye of faith; and let thy desires actually fix on him as the object of thy worship, and the reason of thy hope, and the fountain of thy blessing. For when thou hast placed thyself before him, and kneelest in his presence, it is most likely all the following parts of thy devotion will be answerable to the wisdom of such an apprehension, and the glory of such a presence.
3. Let everything you see represent to your spirit the presence, the excellency, and the power of God; and let your conversation with the creatures lead you unto the Creator; for so shall your actions be done more frequently, with an actual eye to God's presence, by your often seeing him in the glass of the creation. In the face of the sun you may see God's beauty; in the fire you may feel his heat warming; in the water, his gentleness to refresh you: he it is that comforts your spirit when you have taken cordials; it is the dew of heaven that makes your field give you bread; and the breasts of God are the bottles that minister drink to your necessities. This philosophy, which is obvious to every man's experience, is a good advantage to our piety; and, by this act of understanding, our wills are checked from violence and misdemeanour.
4. In your retirement, make frequent colloquies, or short discoursings, between God and thy soul. Seven times a-day do I praise thee: and in the night season also I thought upon thee, while I was waking. So did David; and every act of complaint or thanksgiving, every act of rejoicing or of mourning, every petition and every return of the heart in these intercourses, is a going to God, an appearing in his presence, and a representing him present to thy spirit and to thy necessity. And this was long since by a spiritual person called, "a building to God a chapel in our heart." It reconciles Martha's employment with Mary's devotion, charity and religion, the necessities of our calling, and the employments of devotion. For thus, in the midst of the works of your trade, you may retire into your chapel, your heart, and converse with God by frequent addresses and returns.
5. Represent and offer to God acts of love and fear, which are the proper effects of this apprehension, and the proper exercise of this consideration. For, as God is everywhere present by his power, he calls for reverence and godly fear; as he is present to thee in all thy needs, and relieves them, he deserves thy love; and since, in every accident of our lives, we find one or other of these apparent, and in most things we see both, it is a proper and proportionate return, that, to every such demonstration of God, we express ourselves sensible of it by admiring the Divine goodness, or trembling at his presence; ever obeying him because we love him, and ever obeying him because we fear to offend him. This is that which Enoch did, who thus walked with God.'
6. Let us remember that God is in us, and that we are in him: we are his workmanship, let us not deface it; we are in his presence, let us not pollute it by unholy and impure actions. God hath also wrought all our works in us:' [34] and because he rejoices in his own works, if we defile them, and make them unpleasant to him, we walk perversely with God, and he will walk crookedly towards us.
7. God is in the bowels of thy brother;' refresh them, when he needs it, and then you give your alms in the presence of God, and to God; and he feels the relief which thou providest for thy brother.
8. God is in every place; suppose it, therefore, to be a church: and that decency of deportment and piety of carriage, which you are taught by religion, or by custom, or by civility and public manners, to use in churches, the same use in all places; with this difference only, that in churches let your deportment be religious in external forms and circumstances also; but there and everywhere let it be religious in abstaining from spiritual indecencies, and in readiness to do good actions, that it may not be said of us, as God once complained of his people, Why hath my beloved done wickedness in my house?' [35]
9. God is in every creature: be cruel towards none, neither abuse any by intemperance. Remember, that the creatures and every member of thy own body, is one of the lesser cabinets and receptacles of God. They are such which God hath blessed with his presence, hallowed by his touch, and separated from unholy use, by making them to belong to his dwelling.
10. He walks as in the presence of God that converses with him in frequent prayer and frequent communion; that runs to him in all his necessities; that asks counsel of him in all his doubtings; that opens all his wants to him; that weeps before him for his sins; that asks remedy and support for his weakness; that fears him as a judge; reverences him as a lord; obeys him as a father; and loves him as a patron. __________________________________________________________________
[32] Psal. xiii. 7, 8.
[33] Boeth. 1. v. de Consol.
[34] Isa. xxvi. 12.
[35] Jer. xi. 15, secun. vulg. edit. __________________________________________________________________
The benefits of this Exercise.
The benefits of this consideration and exercise being universal upon all the parts of piety, I shall less need to specify any particulars; but yet, most properly, this exercise of considering the Divine presence is, 1. An excellent help to prayer, producing in us reverence and awfulness to the Divine Majesty of God, and actual devotion in our offices. 2. It produces a confidence in God and fearlessness of our enemies, patience in trouble and hope of remedy; since God is so nigh in all our sad accidents, he is a disposer of the hearts of men and the events of things, he proportions out our trials, and supplies us with remedy, and, where his rod strikes us, his staff supports us. To which we may add this, that God, who is always with us, is especially, by promise, with us in tribulation, to turn the misery into a mercy, and that our greatest trouble may become our advantage, by entitling us to a new manner of the Divine presence. 3. If is apt to produce joy and rejoicing in God, we being more apt to delight in the partners and witnesses of our conversation, every degree of mutual abiding and conversing being a relation and an endearment: we are of the same household with God; he is with us in our natural actions, to preserve us; in our recreations, to restrain us; in our public actions, to applaud or reprove us; in our private, to observe us; in our sleeps, to watch by us; in our watchings, to refresh us; and if we walk with God in all his ways, as he walks with us in all ours, we shall find perpetual reasons to enable us to keep that rule of God, Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.' And this put me in mind of a saying of an old religious person, [36] "There is one way of overcoming our ghostly enemies; spiritual mirth, and a perpetual bearing of God in our minds." This effectively resists the devil, and suffers us to receive no hurt from him. 4. This exercise is apt also to enkindle holy desires of the enjoyment of God, because it produces joy when we do enjoy him; the same desires that a weak man hath for a defender; the sick man for a physician; the poor for a patron; the child for his father; the espoused lover for her betroths. 5. From the same fountain are apt to issue humility of spirit, apprehensions of our great distance and our great needs, our daily wants and hourly supplies, admiration of God's unspeakable mercies: it is the cause of great modesty and decency in our actions; it helps to recollection of mind, and restrains the scatterings and looseness of wandering thoughts; it establishes the heart in good purposes, and leadeth on to perseverance; it gains purity and perfection, (according to the saying of God to Abraham, walk before me and be perfect,') holy fear, and holy love, and indeed everything that pertains to holy living: when we see ourselves placed in the eye of God, who sets us on work and will reward us plenteously, to serve him with an eye-service is very unpleasing, for he also sees the heart; and the want of this consideration was declared to be the cause why Israel sinned so grievously, for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not: [37] therefore the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness.' What a child would do in the eye of his father, and a pupil before his tutor, and a wife in the presence of her husband, and a servant in the sight of his master, let us always do the same, for we are made a spectacle to God, to angels, and to men; we are always in the sight and presence of the all-seeing and almighty God, who also is to us a father and a guardian, a husband and a lord. __________________________________________________________________
[36] In vita S. Anthon.
[37] Psal. x. 11. Ezek. ix. 9. __________________________________________________________________
[24] Jer. xxiii. 23, 24.
[25] Heb. iv. 13.
[26] Acts xvii. 28. __________________________________________________________________
PRAYERS AND DEVOTIONS,
According to the Religion and Purposes of this foregoing Considerations.
I. __________________________________________________________________
For grace to spend our time well.
O eternal God, who from all eternity dost behold and love thy own glories and perfections infinite, and hast created me to do the work of God after the manner of men, and to serve thee in this generation and according to my capacities, give me thy grace, that I may be a curious and prudent spender of my time, so as I may best prevent or resist all temptation, and be profitable to the Christian commonwealth, and, by discharging all my duty, may glorify thy name. Take from me all slothfulness, and give me a diligent and an active spirit, and wisdom to choose my employment; that I may do works proportionable to my person and to the dignity of a Christian, and may fill up all the spaces of my time with actions of religion and charity; that, when the devil assaults me, he may not find me idle; and my dearest Lord, at his sudden coming, may find me busy in lawful, necessary, and pious actions, improving my talent entrusted to me by thee, my Lord; that I may enter into the joy of my Lord, to partake of his eternal felicities, even for thy mercy's sake, and for my dearest Saviour's sake. Amen.
Here follows the devotion of ordinary days, for the right employment of those portions of time which every day must allow for religion. __________________________________________________________________
The first Prayers in the morning, as soon as we are dressed.
Humbly and reverently compose yourself, with heart lift up to God, and your head bowed, and meekly kneeling upon your knees, say the Lord's Prayer: after which use the following collects, or as many of them as you shall choose.
I. An Act of Adoration, being the song that the angels sing in heaven.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come:
[38] heaven and earth, angels and men, the air and the sea, give glory, and honour, and thanks to him that sitteth on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever. [39] All the blessed spirits and souls of the righteous cast their crowns before the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever. [40] Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are, and were created. Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. [41] Thy wisdom is infinite, thy mercies are glorious and I am not worthy, O Lord, to appear in thy presence, before whom the angels hide their faces. O holy and eternal Jesus, Lamb of God, who wert slain from the beginning of the world, thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign with thee for ever. Blessing, honour, glory, and power be unto him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen.
II. An Act of Thanksgiving, being the song of David, for the morning.
Sing praises unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks to him for a remembrance of his holiness. For his wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, and in his pleasure is life: heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Thou, Lord, hast preserved me this night from the violence of the spirits of darkness, from all sad casualties and evil accidents, from the wrath which I have every day deserved; thou hast brought my soul out of hell; thou hast kept my life from them that go down into the pit; thou hast showed me marvelous great kindness, and hast blessed me for ever: the greatness of thy glory reacheth unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. Therefore shall every good man sing of thy praise without ceasing. O my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever. Hallelujah!
III. An Act of Oblation, or presenting ourselves to God for the day.
Most holy and eternal God, lord and sovereign of all the creatures, I humbly present to thy Divine Majesty myself, my soul and body, my thoughts and my words, my actions and intentions, my passions and my sufferings, to be disposed by thee to thy glory; to be blessed by thy providence; to be guided by thy counsel; to be sanctified by thy Spirit; and afterwards that my body and soul may be received into glory: for nothing can perish which is under thy custody; and the enemy of souls cannot devour what is thy portion, nor take it out of thy hands. This day, O Lord, and all the days of my life, I dedicate to thy honour, and the actions of my calling to the uses of grace, and the religion of all my days to be united to the merits and intercession of my holy Saviour Jesus, that in him and for him I may be pardoned and accepted. Amen.
IV. An Act of Repentance or Contrition.
For as for me, I am not worthy to be called thy servant, much less am I worthy to be thy son; for I am the vilest of sinners and the worst of men; a lover of the things of the world, and a despiser of the things of God; proud and envious, lustful and intemperate, greedy of sin, and impatient of reproof; desirous to seem holy, and negligent of being so; transported with interest; fooled with presumption and false principles; disturbed with anger, with a peevish and unmortified spirit, and disordered by a whole body of sin and death. Lord, pardon all my sins for my sweetest Saviour's sake; thou, who didst die for me, holy Jesus, save me and deliver me; reserve not my sins to be punished in the day of wrath and eternal vengeance; but wash away my sins, and blot them out of thy remembrance, and purify my soul with the waters of repentance and the blood of the cross; that, for what is past, thy wrath may not come out against me; and, for the time to come, I may never provoke thee to anger or to jealousy. O just and dear God, be pitiful and gracious to thy servant. Amen.
V. The Prayer or Petition.
Bless me, gracious God, in my calling to such purposes as thou shalt choose for me, or employ me in: relieve me in all my sadnesses; make my bed in my sickness; give me patience in my sorrows, confidence in thee, and grace to call upon thee in all temptations. O be thou my guide in all my actions; my protector in all dangers; give me a healthful body, and a clear understanding; a sanctified and just, a charitable and humble, a religious and a contented spirit; let not my life be miserable and wretched; nor my name stained with sin and shame; nor my condition lifted up to a tempting and dangerous fortune: but let my condition be blessed, my conversation useful to my neighbours, and pleasing to thee; that when my body shall lie down in its bed of darkness, my soul may pass into the regions of light, and live with thee for ever, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
VI. An Act of Intercession or Prayer for others, to be added to this or any other office, as our devotion or duty, or their needs, shall determine us.
O God of infinite mercy, who hast compassion on all men, and relievest the necessities of all that call to thee for help, hear the prayers of thy servant, who is unworthy to ask any petition for himself, yet, in humility and duty, is bound to pray for others.
For the Church.
O let thy mercy descend upon the whole church; preserve her in truth and peace, in unity and safety, in all storms, and against all temptations and enemies; that she, offering to thy glory the never-ceasing sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving, may advance the honour of her Lord, and be filled with his Spirit, and partake of his glory. Amen.
For the King.
In mercy, remember the king; preserve his person in health and honour; his crown in wealth and dignity; his kingdoms in peace and plenty; the churches under his protection in piety and knowledge, and a strict and holy religion; keep him perpetually in thy fear and favour, and crown him with glory and immortality. Amen.
For the Clergy.
Remember them that minister about holy things; let them be clothed with righteousness, and sing with joyfulness. Amen.
For Wife or Husband.
Bless thy servant (my wife, or husband) with health of body and of spirit. O let the hand of thy blessing be upon his/her head night and day, and support him/her in all necessities, strengthen him/her in all temptations, comfort him/her in all his/her sorrows, and let him/her be thy servant in all changes; and make us both to dwell with thee for ever in thy favour, in the light of thy countenance, and in thy glory. Amen.
For our Children.
Bless my children with healthful bodies, with good understandings, with the graces and gifts of thy Spirit, with sweet dispositions and holy habits; and sanctify them throughout in their bodies, and souls, and spirits, and keep them unblamable to the coming of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
For Friends and Benefactors.
Be pleased, O Lord, to remember my friends, all that have prayed for me, and all that have done me good. (Here name such whom you would especially recommend.) Do thou good to them, and return all their kindness double into their own bosom, rewarding them with blessings, and sanctifying them with thy graces, and bringing them to glory.
For our Family.
Let all my family and kindred, my neighbours and acquaintance (here name what other relations you please) receive the benefit of my prayers, and the blessings of God, the comforts and supports of thy providence, and the sanctification of thy Spirit.
For all in Misery.
Relieve and comfort all the persecuted and afflicted; speak peace to troubled consciences; strengthen the weak; confirm the strong; instruct the ignorant; deliver the oppressed from him that spoileth him; and relieve the needy that hath no helper; and bring us all, by the waters of comfort, and in the ways of righteousness, to the kingdom of rest and glory, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. __________________________________________________________________
[38] Rev. xi. 17.
[39] Rev. v. 10, 13.
[40] Rev. iv. 10.
[41] Rev. xv. 3. __________________________________________________________________
Another Form of Prayer for the Morning.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, etc. Our Father, etc.
I.
Most glorious and eternal God, Father of mercy, and God of all comfort, I worship and adore thee with the lowest humility of my soul and body, and give thee all thanks and praise for thy infinite and essential glories and perfections, and for the continual demonstration of thy mercies upon me, upon all mine, and upon thy holy catholic church.
II.
I acknowledge, dear God, that I have deserved the greatest of thy wrath and indignation; and that, if thou hadst dealt with me according to my deserving, I had now, at this instant, been desperately bewailing my miseries in the sorrows and horrors of a sad eternity. But thy mercy triumphing over thy justice and my sins, thou hast still continued to me life and time of repentance; thou hast opened to me the gates of grace and mercy, and perpetually callest upon me to enter in, and to walk in the paths of a holy life, that I might glorify thee, and be glorified of thee eternally.
III.
Behold, O God, for this thy great and unspeakable goodness, for the preservation of me this night, and for all other thy graces and blessings, I offer up my soul and body, all that I am, and all that I have, as a sacrifice to thee and thy service, humbly begging of thee to pardon all my sins, to defend me from all evil, to lead me into all good; and let my portion be amongst thy redeemed ones in the gathering together of the saints, in the kingdom of grace and glory.
IV.
Guide me, O Lord, in all the changes and varieties of the world; that in all things that shall happen I may have an evenness and tranquility of spirit; that my soul may be wholly resigned to thy divine will and pleasure, never murmuring at thy gentle chastisements and fatherly correction; never waxing proud and insolent, though I feel a torrent of comforts and prosperous successes.
V.
Fix my thoughts, my hopes, and my desires upon heaven and heavenly things; teach me to despise the world, to repent deeply for my sins; give me holy purposes of amendment and ghostly strength, and assistance to perform faithfully whatsoever I shall intend piously. Enrich my understanding with an eternal treasure of Divine Truths, that I may know thy will: and thou, who workest in us to will and to do of thy good pleasure, teach me to obey all thy commandments, to believe all thy revelations, and make me partaker of all thy gracious promises.
VI.
Teach me to watch over all my ways, that I may never be surprised by sudden temptations or a careless spirit, nor ever return to folly and vanity. Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips, that I offend not in my tongue, neither against piety nor charity. Teach me to think of nothing but thee, and what is in order to thy glory and service: to speak nothing but of thee and thy glories; and to do nothing but what becomes thy servant, whom thy infinite mercy, by the graces of thy Holy Spirit, hath sealed up to the day of redemption.
VII.
Let all my passions and affections be so mortified and brought under the dominion of grace, that I may never, be deliberation and purpose, nor yet by levity, rashness, or inconsideration, offend thy Divine Majesty. make me such as thou wouldst have me to be: strengthen my faith, confirm my hope, and give me a daily increase of charity, that, this day and ever, I may serve thee according to all my opportunities and capacities, growing from grace to grace, till at last, by thy mercies, I shall receive the consummation and perfection of grace, even the glories of thy kingdom, in the full fruition of the face and excellencies of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; to whom be glory and praise, honour and adoration, given by all angels, and all men, and all creatures, now, and to all eternity. Amen.
*To this may be added the prayer of intercession for others, whom we are bound to remember, which is at the end of the foregoing prayer; or else you may take such special prayers which follow at the end of the fourth chapter (for parents, for children, etc.).
After which, conclude with this Ejaculation. Now in all tribulation and anguish of spirit, in all dangers of soul and body, in prosperity and adversity, in the hour of death and in the day of judgment, holy and most blessed Saviour Jesus, have mercy upon me, save me, and deliver me and all faithful people. Amen.
*Between this and noon, usually are said the public prayers appointed by authority, to which all the clergy are obligated and other devout persons that have leisure, to accompany them.
*Afternoon, or at any time of the day, when a devout person retires into his closet for private prayer or spiritual exercises, he may say the following devotions. __________________________________________________________________
An Exercise to be used at any time of the day.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, etc. Our Father, etc. The Hymn, collected out of the Psalms, recounting the Excellences and Greatness of God.
O be joyful in God, all ye lands; sing praises unto the honour of his name, make his name to be glorious. O come hither, and behold the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doings towards the children of men. He ruleth with his power for ever. [42]
He is the Father of the fatherless, and defendeth the cause of the widow, even God in his holy habitation. He is the God that maketh men to be of one mind in a house, and bringeth the prisoners out of captivity; but letteth the runagates continue in scarceness. [43]
It is the Lord that commandeth the waters; it is the glorious God that maketh the thunder; it is the Lord that ruleth the sea. The voice of the Lord is a glorious voice. [44]
Let all the earth fear the Lord: stand in awe of him, all ye that dwell in the world. Thou shalt show us wonderful things in thy righteousness, O God of our salvation; thou that art the hope of all the ends of the earth, and of them that remain in the broad sea. [45]
Glory be to the Father, etc.
Or this:
O Lord, thou art my God, I will exalt thee; I will praise thy name for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. [46]
Thou, in thy strength, settest fast the mountains, and art girded about with power. Thou stillest the raging of the sea, and the noise of his waves, and the uttermost parts of his people. [47]
They, also, that remain in the uttermost parts of the earth shall be afraid at thy tokens; thou, that makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to praise thee.
O Lord God of Hosts, who is like unto thee? thy truth, most mighty Lord, is on every side. [48] Among the gods there is none like unto thee: O Lord, there is none that can do as thou doest For thou art great, and doest wondrous things; thou art God alone. [49]
God is very greatly to be feared in the council of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all men that are round about him. [50]
Righteousness and equity are in the habitation of thy seat; mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Glory and worship are before him; power and honour are in his sanctuary. [51]
Thou, Lord, art the thing that I long for; thou art my hope even from my youth. Through thee have I been holden up, ever since I was born; thou art he that took me out of my mother's womb; my praise shall be always of thee. [52]
Glory be to the Father, etc.
*After this may be read some portion of Holy Scripture, out of the New Testament, or out of the Sapiential books of the Old, viz. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, etc., because these are of great use to piety and to civil conversation. Upon which when you have awhile meditated, humbly composing yourself upon your knees, say as followeth:
Ejaculations.
My help standeth in the name of the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth.
Show the light of thy countenance upon thy servant, and I shall be safe. [53]
Do well, O Lord, to them that be true of heart, and evermore mightily defend them. [54]
Direct me in thy truth, and teach me; for thou are my Saviour, and my great master. [55]
Keep me from sin and death eternal, and from my enemies visible and invisible.
Give me grace to live a holy life, and thy favour, that I may die a godly and happy death.
Lord, hear the prayer of thy servant, and give me thy Holy Spirit.
The Prayer.
O eternal God, merciful and gracious, vouchsafe thy favour and thy blessing to thy servant: let the love of thy mercies, and the dread and fear of thy majesty, make me careful and inquisitive to search thy will, and diligent to perform it, and to persevere in the practices of a holy life, even till the last of my days.
II.
Keep me, O Lord, for I am thine by creation; guide me, for I am thine by purchase; thou hast redeemed me by the blood of thy Son; and loved me with the love of a father, for I am thy child by adoption and grace: let thy mercy pardon my sins, thy providence secure me from the punishments and evils I have deserved, and thy care watch over me, that I may never any more offend thee: make me, in malice, to be a child; but in understanding, piety, and the fear of God, let me be a perfect man in Christ, innocent and prudent, readily furnished and instructed to every good work.
III.
Keep me, O Lord, from the destroying angel, and from the wrath of God: let thy anger never rise against me, but thy rod gently correct my follies, and guide me in thy ways, and thy staff support me in all sufferings and changes. Preserve me from fracture of bones, from noisome, infectious, and sharp sicknesses; from great violences of fortune and sudden surprises: keep all my senses entire till the day of my death, and let my death be neither sudden, untimely, nor unprovided: let it be after the common manner of men, having in it nothing extraordinary, but an extraordinary piety, and the manifestation of thy great and miraculous mercy.
IV.
Let no riches make me ever forget myself, no poverty ever make me to forget thee: let no hope or fear, no pleasure or pain, no accident without, no weakness within, hinder or discompose my duty, or turn me from the ways of thy commandments. O, let thy Spirit dwell with me for ever, and make my soul just and charitable, full of honesty, full of religion, resolute and constant in holy purposes, but inflexible to evil. Make me humble and obedient, peaceable and pious; let me never envy any man's goods, nor deserve to be despised myself: and if I be, teach me to bear it with meekness and charity.
V.
Give me a tender conscience; a conversation discreet and affable, modest and patient, liberal and obliging; a body chaste and healthful, competency of living according to my condition, contentedness in all estates, a resigned will and mortified affections; that I may be as thou wouldst have me, and my portion may be in the lot of the righteous, in the brightness of thy countenance, and the glories of eternity. Amen.
Holy is our God. Holy is the Almighty. Holy is the Immortal. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabbaoth, have mercy upon me. __________________________________________________________________
[42] Psalm ixvi. 1, 4, 6.
[43] Psalm xxix. 3, 4.
[44] Psalm lxv. 5.
[45] Psalm Ixviii. 5, 6.
[46] Isa. xxv. 1.
[47] Psalm 1xv. 6, 8.
[48] Psalm 1xxxvi. 8, 9.
[49] Psalm xcvi. 3.
[50] Psalm cxxiv. 8.
[51] Psalm 1xxxix. 9.
[52] Psalm 1xxi. 5, 6.
[53] Psalm 1xxx. 6.
[54] Psalm cxxv. 4.
[55] Psalm xxv. 5. __________________________________________________________________
A Form of Prayer for the Evening, to be said by such who have not time or opportunity to say the public prayers appointed for this office.
I. __________________________________________________________________
Evening Prayer.
O eternal God, great Father of men and angels, who hast established the heavens and the earth in a wonderful order, making day and night to succeed each other; I make my humble address to thy Divine Majesty, begging of thee mercy and protection this night and ever. O Lord, pardon all my sins, my light and rash words, the vanity and impiety of my thoughts, my unjust and uncharitable actions, and whatsoever I have transgressed against thee this day, or at any time before. Behold, O God, my soul is troubled in the remembrance of my sins, in the frailty and sinfulness of my flesh, exposed to every temptation, and of itself not able to resist any. Lord God of mercy, I earnestly beg of thee to give me a great portion of thy grace, such as may be sufficient and effectual for the mortification of all my sins and vanities and disorders, that as I have formerly served my list and unworthy desires, so now I may give myself up wholly to thy service and the studies of a holy life.
II.
Blessed Lord, teach me frequently and sadly to remember my sins; and be thou pleased to remember them no more: let me never forget thy mercies, and do thou still remember to do me good. Teach me to walk always as in thy presence: ennoble my soul with great degrees of love to thee, and consign my spirit with great fear, religion, and veneration of thy holy name and laws; that it may become the great employment of my whole life to serve thee, to advance thy glory, to root out all the accursed habits of sin; that in holiness of life, in humility, in charity, in chastity, and all the ornaments of grace, I may be patience wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
III.
Teach me, O Lord, to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom; ever to remember my last end, that I may not dare to sin against thee. Let thy holy angels be ever present with me, to keep me in all my ways from the malice and violence of the spirits of darkness, from evil company, and the occasions and opportunities of evil, from perishing in popular judgments, from all the ways of sinful shame, from the hands of all mine enemies, from a sinful life, and from despair in the day of my death. Then, O brightest Jesus, shine gloriously upon me, let thy mercies and the light of thy countenance sustain me in all my agonies, weaknesses, and temptations. Give me opportunity of a prudent and spiritual guide, and of receiving the holy sacrament; and let thy loving spirit so guide me in the ways of peace and safety, that, with the testimony of a good conscience, and the sense of thy mercies and refreshment, I may depart this life in the unity of the church, in the love of God, and a certain hope of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord, and most blessed Saviour. Amen.
Our Father, etc. __________________________________________________________________
Another form of Evening Prayer, which may also be used at bed-time.
Our Father, etc.
I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. [56]
My help cometh of the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy shade, upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, neither the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth for evermore.
Glory be to the Father, etc.
I.
Visit, I beseech thee, O Lord, this habitation with thy mercy, and me with thy grace and salvation. Let thy holy angels pitch their tents round about and dwell here, that no illusion of the night may abuse me, the spirits of darkness may not come near to hurt me, no evil or sad accident oppress me; and let the eternal Spirit of the Father dwell in my soul and body, filling every corner of my heart with light and grace. Let no deed of darkness overtake me; and let thy blessing, most blessed God, be upon me for ever, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
II.
Into thy hands, most blessed Jesus, I commend my soul and body, for thou hast redeemed both with thy precious blood. So bless and sanctify my sleep unto me that it may be temperate, holy, and safe; a refreshment to my wearied body, to enable it so to serve my soul, that both may serve thee with a never-failing duty. O, let me never sleep in sin or death eternal, but give me a watchful and prudent spirit, that I may omit no opportunity of serving thee; that whether I sleep or awake, live or die, I may be thy servant and thy child: that when the work of my life is done, I may rest in the bosom of my Lord, till by the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, I shall be awakened, and called to sit down and feast in the eternal supper of the Lamb. Grant this, O Lamb of God, for the honour of thy mercies, and the glory of thy name, O most merciful Saviour and Redeemer Jesus. Amen.
III.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who hath sent his angels, and kept me this day from the destruction that walketh at noon, and the arrow that flieth by day; and hath given me his Spirit to restrain me from those evils to which my own weaknesses, and my evil habits, and my unquiet enemies, would easily betray me. Blessed and for ever hallowed by thy name for that never-ceasing shower of blessing, by which I live, and am content and blessed, and provided for in all necessities, and set forward in my duty and way to heaven. Blessing honour, glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen.
Holy is our God! Holy is the Almighty! Holy is the Immortal! Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabbaoth, have mercy upon me! __________________________________________________________________
[56] Psalm cxxi. 1, etc. __________________________________________________________________
Ejaculations and short Meditations to be used in the night, when we awake.
Stand in awe and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. I will lay me down in peace and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety. [57]
O Father of spirits, and the God of all flesh, have mercy and pity upon all sick and dying Christians, and receive the souls which thou hast redeemed returning unto thee.
Blessed are they that dwell in the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God does lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. [58] And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle; for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever. [59]
Meditate on Jacob's wrestling with the angel all night: he thou also importunate with God for a blessing, and give not over till he hath blessed thee.
Meditate on the angel passing over the children of Israel, and destroying the Egyptians for disobedience and oppression. Pray for the grace of obedience and charity, and for the Divine protection.
Meditate on the angel who destroyed in a night the whole army of the Assyrians for fornication. Call to mind the sins of thy youth, the sins of thy bed; and say with David, My reins chasten me in the night season, and my soul refuseth comfort.' Pray for pardon and the grace of chastity.
Meditate on the agonies of Christ in the garden, his sadness and affliction all that night; and thank and adore him for his love, that made him suffer so much for thee; and hate thy sins which made it necessary for the Son to suffer so much.
Meditate on the last four things. 1. The certainty of death. 2. The terrors of the day of judgment. 3. The joys of heaven. 4. The pains of hell: and the eternity of both.
Think upon all thy friends who are gone before thee; and pray that God would grant to thee to meet them in a joyful resurrection.
"The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; [60] in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up. Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God?"
Lord, in mercy remember thy servant in the day of judgment.
Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God. In thee, O Lord, have I trusted: let me never be confounded. Amen.
I desire the Christian reader to observe, that all these offices or forms of prayer (if they should be used every day) would not spend above an hour and a half: but because some of them are double (and so but one of them to be used in one day) it is much less: and by affording to God one hour in twenty-four thou mayest have the comforts and rewards of devotion. But he that thinks this is too much, either is very busy in the world, or very careless of heaven. I have parted the prayers into smaller portions, that he may use which and how many he please in any one of the forms.
Ad. Sect. 2. __________________________________________________________________
[57] Psalm iv. 4, 9.
[58] Rev. xxi. 23.
[59] Rev. xxii. 5.
[60] 2 Pet. iii. 10. __________________________________________________________________
A Prayer for holy intention is the beginning and pursuit of any considerable action, as Study, Preaching, etc.
O eternal God, who has made all things for man and man for thy glory, sanctify my body and soul, my thoughts, and my intentions, my words and actions, that whatsoever I shall think, or speak, or do, may be by me designed to the glorification of thy name; and by thy blessing it may be effective and successful in the work of God, according as it can be capable. Lord, turn my necessities into virtue; the works of nature into the works of grace, by making them orderly, regular, temperate, subordinate, and profitable to ends beyond their own proper efficacy: and let no pride or self-seeking, no covetousness or revenge, no impure mixture or unhandsome purposes, no little ends and low imaginations, pollute my spirit, and unhallow any of my words and actions; but let my body be a servant of my spirit, and both body and spirit servants of Jesus; that doing all things for thy glory here, I may be partaker of thy glory hereafter: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Ad. Sect. 3. __________________________________________________________________
A prayer meditating and referring to the Divine presence.
* This Prayer is especially to be used in temptation to private sin.
O almighty God, infinite and eternal, thou fillest all things with thy presence; thou art everywhere by thy essence and by thy power; in heaven by glory, in holy places by thy grace and favour, in the hearts of thy servants by thy Spirit, in the consciences of all men by thy testimony and observation of us. Teach me to walk always as in thy presence, to fear thy majesty, to reverence thy wisdom and omniscience; that I may never dare to commit any indecency in the eye of my Lord and my Judge; but that I may with so much care and reverence demean myself that my Judge may not be my accuser but my advocate; that I, expressing the belief of thy presence here by careful walking, may feel the effects of it in the participation of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ. Amen. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________
[4] uphomegou tigos, pos estin esphtein artos pheots; eidikaios estn, ephe, kai eugoroos, kai isoe, kai egeoatos, kai kosmios, omk esti kai aresos tois pheois. Arrian. Epist. 1.i.c.13. __________________________________________________________________