CONSIDERATION OF THE GENERAL INSTRUMENTS AND MEANS SERVING TO 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, 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 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 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.

Therefore, first, 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 than he that lays out his time upon God, and his money upon the poor."

Only, secondly, 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, if we eat or drink, so it be done temperately, and as may best preserve our health, that our health may enable our services towards 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.

To which if we add, thirdly, that in these and all other actions of our lives we always stand before God, acting and speaking, and thinking in His presence, 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 do the work of God.

2 Πυθομένου τινὸς, πῶς ἔστιν ἐσθίειν ἀρεστῶς θεοῖς; εἰ δικαίως ἐστὶν, ἔφη, καὶ εὐγνωμόνως, καὶ ἴσως, καὶ ἐγκρατῶς, καὶ

κοσμίως, οὐκ ἔστι καὶ ἀρεστῶς τοῖς Oeois;-Arrian. Epict., lib. i. cap. 13. [tom. iii. p. 58.]

I shall therefore by way of introduction reduce these three to practice, and shew 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 hath 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 incumbrances, 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 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 calling the ministers of the divine pro

vidence, and the stewards of the creation, and servants of a great family of God, the world, in the employment of procuring necessaries 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 hath 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 his soul; 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 businesses, 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, and indeed is 'the burial of a living man;' an idle person being so useless to any purposes 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 eat the fruits of the earth: like a vermin or a wolf; when their time comes they die and perish, and in the mean time do no good; they neither plough nor carry burdens; all that they do either is 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.

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 c Sen. [ep. lxxxii. tom. ii. p. 332.]

Ezek. xvi. 49.