tion and godliness, looking for, and bafting unto the coming of the day of God? Lord, in mercy remember thy fervant in the day of Judgment. Thou fhalt anfwer for me, O Lord my God. In thee, O Lord, have I trufted: let me never be confounded. Amen. I Defire the Chriftian Reader to obferve that all thefe Offices, or Forms of Prayer (if they bould be used every day) would not spend above an hour and a half: but because fome of them are double (and fo 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 mayft have the comforts and rewards of devotion. But he that thinks this it too much, either is very bufie in the world, or very careless of Heaven. However, I have parted the Prayers into smaller portions, that he may use which and bom many he pleafes in any one of the Forms. Ad Sect. 2. זייי A Prayer for holy Intention in the beginning and pur fuit of any confiderable Action, as Study, Preaching, &c. Eternal God, who haft made all things for man and man for thy glory, fanctifie my body and foul, my thoughts and my intentions, my words and actions, that whatsoever I fhall think, or fpeak, or doe, may be by me defigned to the glorification of thy Name, and by thy bleffing it may be effective and fuccefsful in the work of God, according as it can be capable. Lord turn my neceffities into virtue, the works of nature into the works of grace, by making them orderly, regular, temperate, fubordinate, and profitable to ends beyond their own proper efficacy: and let no pride or self-seeking, no covetoufness or revenge, no impure mixture or unhandfome purposes, no little ends and low imaginations pollute my fpirit, and unhallow any of my words and actions: but let my body be a fervant of my fpirit, and both body and spirit fervants of Jefus; that doing all things for thy thy glory here, I may be partaker of thy glory here after, through Jefus Chrift our Lord. Amen. Ad Sect. 3. A Prayer meditating and referring to the This Prayer is specially to be used in temptation Almighty God, infinite and eternal, thou fillest all things with thy prefence; thou art everywhere by thy effence, and by thy power, in heaven by glory, in holy places by thy grace and favour, in the hearts of thy fervants by thy Spirit, in the confciences of all men by thy teftimony and obfervation of us. Teach me to walk always in thy prefence; to fear thy Majefty, to reverence thy Wisdom and Omni fcience, that I may never care to commit any unde cency in the eye of my Lord and my Judge; but that I may with fo much care and reverence demean my felf, that my Judge may not be my Accufer, but my Advocate; that I expreffing the belief of thy prefence here by careful walking, may feel the effects of it in the participation of eternal glory, through Jefus Chrift. Amen. (50) K: K K K K K K K K K K K C CHAP. II. Of Chriftian Sobriety. SECT. I. Of Sobriety in the general fence. Hriftian Religion in all its moral parts is nothing else but the Law of Nature, and great Reafon, complying with the great neceffi25130 ties of all the World, and promoting the great profit of all Relations, and carrying us through all accidents and variety of chances to that end which God hath from eternal ages prupofed for all that live according to it, and which he hath revealed in Fefus Chrift and according to the Apoftle's Arithmetick: hath put thefe three parts of it, 1. Sobriety, 2. Juftice. 3. Religion. For the Grace of God bringing fal vation batb appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live, 1. Soberly; 2. Righteously; and, 3. Godly in this prefent world, looking for that bleffed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and Saviour Jefus Chrift. The firft contains all our deportment in our perfonal and private capacities, the fair treating of our bodies and our spirits. The fecond enlarges our duty in all relations to our Neighbour. The third contains the offices of direct Religion, and entercourfe with God. Christian Sobriety is all that duty that concerns our felves in the matter of meat and drink and pleasures and thoughts; and it hath within it the duties of, 1. Temperance; 2. Chastity; 3. Humility; 4. Modefty; 5. Content. It It is a ufing severity, denial, and fruftration of our appetite when it grows unreasonable in any of these inftances: the neceffity of which we fhall to best purpose understand by confidering the evil confequences of fenfuality,effeminacy, or fondness after carnal pleasures. Evil Confequences of Voluptuousness or Senfuality. 1. A longing after fenfual pleasures is a diffolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft and wandring, unapt for noble, wife or fpiritual employments; because the principles upon which pleasure is chosen and pursued, are sottish, weak and unlearned, such as prefer the bo- Tu fi animum vicifti potiùs quàm animus te, eft quod gaudeas. dy before the Qui animum vincunt quam quos animus, femper probiores foul, the appe cluent. Trinum. tite before reafon, fence before the spirit, the pleasures of a fhort abode before the pleasures of eternity. 2. The nature of fenfual pleasure is vain, empty, and unfatisfying, biggest always in expectation, and a mere vanity in the injoying, and leaves a fting and thorn behind it when it goes off. Our laughing, if it be loud and high commonly ends in a deep figh, and all the inftances of pleasure have a fting in the tail, though they carry beauty in the face and sweetness on the lip. 3. Senfual pleasure is a great abuse to the spirit of a man, being a kind of fafcination or witchcraft blinding the understanding and enflaving the will. And he that knows he is free-born or redeemed with the blood of the Son of God, will not eafily fuffer the Moorias freedom of his foul to be entangled and rifled. προαίρεσιν, ἄνθρωπε, εἰ μηδὲν ἄλλο, μὴ ὀλίγα αὐτὴν πωλήσης. Arrian. c. 2. 1. 1. πόσο πωλεῖς τήν σεαυτό 4. It is moft contrary to the ftate of a Christian, whose life is a perpetual exercife, a wrestling and warfare, to which fenfual pleasure difables him by yielding to that muft ftrive if ever he will be crowned. And this argu Θέλεις ολύμπια νικήσαι, Δεν σε εὐτακτεῖν, αναγκοτροφεῖν, ἀπέχεθαι πεμμάτων, γυμνάζει Παι πρὸς ἀνάγκην, &c. Εpid. cap. 35. enemy with whom he E 2 ment ment the Apostle intimated: He that friveth for ma2 Cor. 9. 25. fteries is temperate in all things: Now they do it to obtain a corruptible Crown, but we an incorruptible. 5. It is by a certain confequence the greatest Impediment in the world to matyrdom; that being a fondnefs, this being a cruelty to the flesh; to which a Christian man arriving by degrees must first have crucified the lesser affections: for he that is overcome by little arguments of pain, will hardly confent to lofe his life with torments. Degrees of Sobriety. Agai ft this Voluptuousness Sobriety is oppofed in three degrees. 1. A defpite or difaffection to pleasures, or a refolving against all entertainment of the inftances and temptations of fenfuality: and it confifts in the internal faculties of will and understanding, decreeing and declaring against them, difapproving and disliking them upon good reafon and strong refolution. 2. A fight and actual war against all the temptations and offers of fenfual pleasure in all evil inftances and degrees: and it confifts in prayer, in fafting, in cheap diet, and hard lodging, and laborious exercises, and avoiding occafions, and ufing all arts and induftry of fortifying the Spirit, and making it severe, manly and Chriftian. 3. Spiritual pleasure is the highest degree of Sobriety, and in the fame degree in which we relish and are Apoc 2.17. in love with fpiritual delights, the hidden Manna, with the sweetnesses of devotion, with the joys of thankfgiving, with rejoycings in the Lord, with the comforts of hope, with the deliciousness of charity and almsdeeds, with the fweetnefs of a good Confcience, with the peace of meeknefs, and the felicities of a contented fpirit; in the fame degree we difrelish and loath the husks of fwinith lufts, and the parings of the apples of Sodom; and the taste of finful pleasures is unfavoury as the Drunkard's vomit. Rules |