hereafter also CHAP. XVIII How to manage an Afflicted Condition 1. USE your best endeavours to get good by all the Afflictions and Crosses that shall befal you I know indeed it may be with Christians as with Meats some are preserved in Sugar as Cherries and Plums c. others as Beef are preserved in Brine But yet I think you have more reason to fear the sweetness of a prosperous rather than the sharp Brine of an adverse condition Bees are killed with Honey but quickened with Vinegar If you read your Bible through you shall find that few of God's Children have gone through a prosperous condition without being ensnared thereby and rarely find any but have been bettered by adversity In the Summer of prosperity it 's well if you be not Fly-blown In the budding Spring and in the blooming Summer then Pride and Vanity Formality in Religion and Satisfaction in Creature comforts will be apt to sprout forth and taint you but the sharp Winter of Affliction will kill these Vermin Sharp and bitter things are abstersive and cleanse the body from many noxious and phlegmatick humours whereas sweet things much used do stuff up the passages of the body and create many obstructions It 's a high Character that is given of that Noble Person that Mirrour of your Sex the Lady Jane Gray that she so managed an afflicted condition that she made Misery it self seem amiable and the Night-cloths of Adversity did as much become her as her Day-dressing God's Children are his Jewels his rich Plate which being scoured by Afflictions look brighter their Souls are bleacht and whitened in the Waters of Afflictions These are the sharp Lemmon that take off their Mill-dews Christians seldom come to be great Scholars in the School of Christ without the Rod of Afflictions Learn to value Afflictions as you do Physick not according to the tast and rellish but according to the profitable effects that it works That is to be accounted a blessed Feaver that preserves the Soul from everlasting burnings 2. If you be not better'd by God's Rod when he sends it take heed lest he turn not his Rod into a Serpent as Moses Rod was Is it not to be thought a dangerous symptom of God's rejection and that the Physician of our Souls is leaving us when Afflictions which usually are God's Physick to purge out our Disease do cooperate therewith and so encrease it it's then to be feared that we shall hardly recover 3. Improve all Afflictions for your spiritual good by Prayers and actings of Faith in a Promise 1. By Prayer Is any afflicted let him pray Jam. 5.13 Afflictions may be said to be improv'd by Prayer these two ways 1. By making them a motive to put your self on Prayer The Rod then doth the Child good when it brings his stubborn heart to his knees God therefore lays his People on their backs that he may make them to look up to Heaven Every Cross is an unsanctified Cross that is not attended with Prayer 2. By using Prayer as a means to help you against those sins which are apt to accompany an afflicted condition as Impatience Discontent c. and to fetch in those graces which you have most need of therein as Faith Humility Repentance Contentment Joy and Submission to the Will of God Prayer will cause these precious fruits to grow on the Cross and so it will be sanctified to you 2. Improve Afflictions by actings of Faith in the Promises Afflictions are sweetned to Believers they are rolled up in Sugar they are steept in Honey sanctified by the word of the Promise that they shall work together for good Rom. 8.28 and yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness Heb. 12.1 The Promise gives them a most delicious rellish to Faith Faith can make a soveraign Oil of these Scorpions to heal the Soul Faith can turn Water into Wine even the bitter Waters of Marah into the Wine of Comfort CHAP. XIX How to manage your Relative Condition 1. BE earnest in Prayer to the God of all Grace to furnish you with suitable Grace for the Relations you stand in Hath God called you to be a Wife pray for the spirit of a Wife There 's no Relation that we enter into but it calls for new duties from us No Relation but hath its peculiar temptations and sins to which it is prone Consider then what are your Relation-temptations and your Relation-sins and what are your Relation-duties and pray for strength against those particular temptations and sins and for those particular duties No duties are more momentous and yet none less observed usually It 's a common fault to neglect our own work and too much to complain of others neglecting theirs and so like Planets we eclipse one another Many Wives are apt to pick quarrels because their Husbands do not their duties when themselves omit their own And so many unnatural Children complain of their Parents for being so when it is next door to an impossibility for a Patent to be unnatural O mind well your Relation defects and be very careful that Religion may form and mould your demeanour towards all your Relations whatsoever This will be your excellency thus will you be like a fixed Star shining in that proper Orb in that very sphere and station where God hath fixt you without eccentrick motions 2. If you would know how the case stands betwixt God and your Soul consider what you are in all your several Relations and how you manage them Judge not your self so much by your praying and hearing and other duties of Religion in your general Calling as a Christian as by the practice of your Religion at home in your Relations Observe specially how your Religion works in your Relative condition and the temptations thereof She is not a good Woman that is not a good Wife or not a good Daughter 3. Live in a free and chearful submission and obedience to your Husband You have this command given in several places of Scripture Wives submit your selves to your own Husbands as unto the Lord Eph. 5.22 Col. 3.18 1 Pet. 3.1 This submission includes both Reverence and Obedience to the Husband and this Obedience must be shewed both to his commands his desires his restraints and his rebukes nay if his rebukes should turn to revilings the Wife may not revile again for that would be to shoot with the Devil in his own Bow but she may sweetly admonish him in things that she certainly knows to be sinful and hurtful Your subjection doth not hinder you from provoking him to love and good works as the Apostle useth the phrase Heb. 10 24. but yet even this provocation must be without passion You may lovingly admonish him thereunto but with a care that in so doing you provoke him not to wrath lest you do like those who take hot water to heat the Stomach and thereby enflame the Liver The Wife in Nathan's Parable is called a Lamb she must be a Lamb for
some circumstances in Worship which they like not 4. When you come home from the Publick be careful to spend your time in Religious Exercises Meditate on what you have heard and having like a diligent Bee gathered abroad in the Publick Assembly the sweet of heavenly Flowers work your Honey-comb within your own Hive Digest well by private Meditation that spiritual meat which was set before you in the Dishes of the Publick Ordinances Meditate also on the Attributes of God the Works of God and especially the Mercies of God that you may be stirred up to holy rejoycings praises and thanksgivings which are the most proper work of the day which is a day of thanksgiving and commemoration of the Mercies of God especially of the Resurrection of Christ and the great work of Redemption 5. Be careful that your Servants do not prophane or mis-spend this day as being tender of their Souls as well as your own Solomon's virtuous Woman gave a portion of holy Instructions as well as of Food to her Servants and Maidens Prov 31.15 26. CHAP. XXIV Of Holy Duties in general 1. BEfore you go to any Duty address your self to Jesus Christ for a supply of grace for the performance thereof If you be to go to a new act of praying or hearing or receiving the Sacraments you must eye Jesus Christ again put forth a new act of Faith towards him and labour for new Influences and a fresh supply of Spirit from him 2. Do not only number your Duties but weigh your Duties how many how many look only how oft they go to Duties but never seriously how or in what manner they perform them and so cheat themselves everlastingly concluding themselves to be in a state of Grace because of their constancy in Duties but miscarry everlastingly for want of a right manner of performing them as out of a right spring and principle and to a right end and with sincerity and fervency of affection Though the Tree bear many large and fair fruits yet it is not much valued unless they have a good rellish If the fruits that your Soul brings forth have not a good tast through the sincerity and right ends thereof or tast not of the Love of God they will not be acceptable unto God Let all your works be done in Love 1 Cor. 16.14 3. Do not only perform holy duties but love holy duties so they will be more acceptable to the God of Love An ungodly Man or Woman may often go to prayer but they love it not they may hear the Word but they receive not the Truth in the love of it But a good heart loves duties So long as you cannot find any rellish in Ordinances or private Duties but are in an indifferency whether you perform them or no or have your frequent intermissions of these meals so that sometimes you take them and sometimes you let them alone it is a sign you are not sound within or if you do constantly take them if it be without an appetite and perform holy duties only to stop the mouth of Conscience it s an argument your Soul is not in health Till you find sweetness in Ordinances the case is not well with you as it should be the Soul is out of frame If once you love duties they will be a delight and refreshment to you All the ways of Christ are Beds of Spices and Roses and can you walk on such and not be requited for it with sweet and fragrant smells Those that carry bundles of Spices from Arabia have their Spirits refresht with the sweet Odours that breathe from them A good Christian is refresht in duty the Soul can sing at her work Love turns all pains into pleasures Though the Mother take a great deal of pains in tending the Child yet she finds a sweet delight in it because of her love to it A good Christian can say with David O how I love thy Law Psal 119.97 And I delight to do thy Will O my God! Psal 40.8 CHAP. XXV Of Prayer 1. DO not rush on Prayer presently without some serious consideration before Read therefore some portion of Scripture before you pray This will afford you matter of meditation which will furnish you with matter for Prayer for so you may turn what you have read into Prayer A good Heart is by one Duty quickned and prepared for another as the Wild Bores by whetting their Tusks with their other Teeth make them sharp and so every Tooth mutually sets an edge on another If therefore you be to read Pray before by some short Address to God if to Pray read before Yea Pray also before Prayer that God would Assist you in Prayer and deliver you from the Evil Infirmities of your Prayer Holy David Prays for his own Prayers Psal 141.1 2. 2. Look not upon Prayer as a task but as a priviledge O! what a great and glorious priviledge is it that the poorest Saint may with boldness have access to God! Eph. 3.18 Rom. 5.1 2. Is it not a Royal Priviledge to have a Key in our keeping that opens Heaven Gates and lets into the Presence Chamber of the King of Glory To speak with him at any time If you would thus look upon it I should not need to perswade you to go to Prayer constantly Morning and Evening This would be in stead of a hundred Arguments that Prayer is so High and so Royal a Priviledge that you may thereby go boldly to the Throne of Grace draw near to God himself and lay your Petition in his Bosom and plead your Cause before him and fill your Mouth with Arguments and Reason out your great Concernments with him and receive his Answers 3. Pray Earnestly Lazy Devotion and Key-cold Prayers will never prevail You must wrestle with God in Prayer like Holy Jacob that you may prevail In wrestling one single Person strives with another so the Devout Soul with God they go to it singly as it were Hand to Hand and have as it were a single Combat in private The Devout Saint loves to wrestle with God in the Closet when no Body is present the Door being shut he loves not to have Spectators of it he then comes up close to God and gets within him takes hold of his Everlasting Arms. Thus the Woman of Canaan Wrestled with Christ she stands to it though she had many Repulses from him The Soul thus Wrestles with God as a Child with the Father who is much delighted and pleased to let it get the better on him to encourage it and after takes it up from its Knees into his Arms when you go to Prayer you must set all your faculties on work you must open and spread the Sails open and spread forth your Affections as wide as you can that they may gather wind enough to waft you over to the Land of Promise 4. See that your Prayers be followed with Diligent and Serious Endeavours for effecting of that which you have Prayed for
whole course of your Life And therefore let me now bespeak you in the words of a Holy Man now with the Lord. Let Holiness sit in your Lips and season all your Speech with Grace let it dwell in your Heart let it be your companion in your Closet let it Travel with you in your Journey let it lye down and rise up with you let it close your Eyes in the Evening and call you out of your Bed in the Morning 3. Make holiness the main design and end of your Life Then indeed you live the Life of Holiness when holiness which is the main design of Christianity is the great design of your Life when the very drift purport and intent of your Life is to live to God 4. Spend all the time of your Life that you can redeem from other occasions in the duties of holiness while others steal time from holy duties for their Worldly business and pleasures do you borrow all the time that you can from those things yea from your sleep for holy duties 5. Put forth your Vital Power your Life your Vigor and Strength in Exercises of Holiness Summon in all the powers of your soul let none be wanting Whatsoever your Heart findeth to do in the Work of Religion do it with all your might ply your Oars hoise up your Sails put forward with all your power and strength with might and main in your course toward Heaven By thus doing you will certainly live the Life of Holiness It may be you may meet with some scoffs amongst some Ishmaels for such a Holy Life bat yet let not this discourage or take you off from following the ways of holiness and uprightness What if a Lame Man should laugh at your upright walking would you therefore go lamely But for your better encouragement I shall propound to you one Motive Consider that unless you live the Life of holiness you can never live the Life of glory Vnless you be Regenerated and Born again you can never enter into the Kingdom of God John 3.3 It 's only the New Creature that must be admitted into the New Jerusalem You will never be a Flower in the Paradise of Heaven unless you first be Transplanted out of the common field of Nature into Christ's holy Garden Without Holiness no one shall ever see the Lord. Heb. 12.14 It 's this that fits the very Angels for Heaven and therefore without it how can you ever think to come there It 's not the Angelical Nature but their Holiness that makes them fit for Heaven and therefore it 's more excellent than the very Nature of the Angels considered in it self for it is the Image of God as a bright beam of the Divine Nature and so makes us capable of Heaven My Heart therefore yearns for you my Bowels rowl within me out of tender affection to your Soul lest you should come short of Holiness and thereby come short of Heaven Moral Virtues without Holiness will never be a Jacobs Ladder to reach Heaven how near soever they may come to it O what pity is it that an Ingenuous Nature should by some Moral accomplishments come near to Heaven and yet never come there that Rachel should dye when it was but a little way to come to Ephrath Be sure therefore to add the practice and power of Godliness as a full figure to your Cyphers For unless you do this I shall never have hope to see your Face in Heaven which is an undefiled Inheritance CHAP. IV. Of Living as in Gods Presence 1. LIve always as in the presence of God and as under his jealousie Thus did good Elizabeth in the Gospel of whom it is said That she was Righteous before God or in the Eyes of the Lord as the Vulgar Latin reads it Luke 1.6 It was good counsel of one of the Rabbins that we should always think that there was an Eye that saw all an Ear hearing all and an Hand writing all Often repeat the 1â—9 Psalm to your self and seriously consider that God is in all places and not only in the place where you are but within you in your very Breast and Bosom viewing all your thoughts and intentions not with a bare beholding but with a critical Eye and as a Judge to censure them to approve or Condemn them Whereupon his eye-lids are said to try the Children of Men Psal 11.4 You cannot shut the Heart so close but he hath a Key to unlock it he draws the Curtain and sees what is within he spies out what is Cabinetted and lock'd up in the most secret Corner and private Drawer there The bright and piercing Eye of Omniscience sees the very inward Conceptions before they come to the Birth the first eruptions and ebullitions of a Thought or Intention 2. If you do all things as believing that this Eye is upon you it will have a great influence on your Life What a holy trembling and quivering disposition would this create in you lest you should offend so Glorious an Eye What a Curb and Bridle would it be to restrain from all Sin even from secret Hypocrisie What a sharp Goad and Spur to all Uprightness The Masters Eye makes the Servant work Do but serve God faithfully while he sees you and it is enough I have read of one that committing a foul Sin said to himself No Eye sees me but presently there appear'd an Eye on the Wall with this Inscription But this Eye sees thee If you did always keep within you fresh apprehensions of God as present you would not admit a dishonourable thought of him in your Heart nor let an evil word have passage through the door of your Lips 3. Know for your encouragement that if you thus live as in Gods awful Presence you shall enjoy very much his gracious Presence here and his Glorious Presence hereafter to all Eternity CHAP. V. Of Living in Love to God and Christ 1. LIve in love to God and Jesus Christ do all things out of a principle of Love to God your Father and Jesus Christ the only Saviour God must be loved as your ultimate end the enjoyment of whom is the Souls everlasting blessedness and Christ as Mediator must be loved as the only way whereby we are reconciled to God and come to obtain that blessedness If you live not in the love of God how can you ever expect to live in his favour or that he will either accept you or your Services for it is this Love that perfumes all our actions and makes them a sweet Odour unto God Love to God is the very Life and Soul of all Natural Religion and Love to Christ is the Spirit and Vital principle that animates all Evangelical Duties which are required by the New Covenant and therefore no duty will be acceptible without it 2. Look well to it that your love to God and Christ be a singular superlative transcendent Love a Love that out-ballanceth all other Love whatsoever It must be the
lawful things being here most apt to go beyond our bounds There are more killed by Wine than there are by Poison But why may not I do as the most persons do that are of my rank and quality No do not you set your Watch by the Town Clock but by the Sun-Dial of the Scripture the true and perfect Dial of the increated Sun Make not your Neighbours but the Scriptures the Rule of your Life If you eye what others do and direct your course of Life accordingly you do steer by a Planet and not by the Pole-Star and will never so come at the heavenly Harbour the Port of Eternal bliss and happiness I do not advise you against necessary Recreations for your health But those that spend much time in Playing Carding Dicing or such kind of Games against which I hope I need not much caution you do but nick-name it when they call it Recreation and are like such that have a nice stomach who feed more on sauce than they do on meat 3. Make every day a working-day for Heaven and every day a Sabbath from sin I mean a resting-day from it Be every day working out your Salvation with fear and trembling your time is short and your work is great and your Salvation lies at stake therefore fall hard to your work set on it with all your might and hoard up all the time that possibly you can for it 4. Remember often that Immortality and Eternity hangs upon the spending of your time and according as you spend this so it will be with you to all eternity either for happiness or misery I have read a Story of a certain Gentlewoman who used to spend much time in playing at Cards and such Games coming once from that Pastime late in the night and finding her Waiting-Maid reading a good Book cast her Eyes over the Maids shoulder and spake words to this effect Thou poor melancholy Soul what alway reading and spending thy time in this manner wilt thou take no comfort in thy life But the Gentlewoman being soon after got to Bed could take no rest but lay groaning and sighing bitterly The Maid lying in the same Room and hearing it desired to know the reason of it to whom her Mistress replied I read this word Eternity in thy Book which hath so pierced my heart that I believe I shall never sleep more till I have a better Assurance of my Eternity Lastly Consider seriously that you must at the great Day of the Lord give an account for all your time It 's said of Ignatius that whensoever he heard a Clock strike he would say Here is now one hour more past which I have to answer for O what a heart-affecting consideration is the loss of time with the account to be given for it Holy Mr. Baxter tells us he familiarly knew a most holy grave and Reverend Divine who was so affected with the words of a godly Woman who at her death did often and vehemently cry out O call time again O call time again that the sense of it seemed to remain on his heart and appear in his Praying Preaching and Conversation to his death O that the reading of her words here might have the like happy Influence on your Heart and Conversation CHAP. XXII Of the Order and Method of Duties every Week-day 1. AS soon as you are awake in the morning lift up your heart in some good thought to God Let your heart be raised up in thankfulness to God for the mercies of the former night and by fiducial reliance on him for his Providence over you that day following Set forth in the morning in the Name of God resolving to do all things that day in that Name Col. 3.17 and for his Glory and that you will so spend it for God And likewise fortifie and arm your self against all the temptations that you foresee you are likely to meet with occasionally that day And if any thought about any worldly concern shall present it self to you striving to get first in check it with the words of our Saviour in another case Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father I have not yet raised up my heart to God Thoughts will stand about your heart in a morning as a company of Clients about the door and that which first enters hath usually most to do all that day Satan will first croud in if possible by some worldly or vain thought to get the first entrance in the morn he is like a greedy and restless stomach-worm that keeps a coyl to have his break-fast before his Master be served Therefore let it be your diligent care as soon as you awake to fill your heart with some thoughts of God which will be the best break-fast to keep out the wind of a temptation And if you thus perfume the Soul in the morning with such sweet odours you will the better keep out ill scents all the day Let your heart be as the Sun-Dial that early receives the Sun-beams and goes along with it till the evening Let it receive the Beams of the Sun of Righteousness freely in the morning and he will shine on it all the day If you do not at first set out to a right point of the Compass you will make a bad Voyage Ejaculations which may be used when you awake in or toward the Morning MY voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Psal 5.3 How precious are thy thoughts unto me O God how great is the sum of them If I would count them they are more in number than the Sand. When I awake I am still with thee Psal 139.17 18. My Soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning I say more than they that watch for the morning Psal 130.6 O when shall the day dawn and the day-star arise in my heart It is of the Lords mercies that I am not consumed because his compassions fail not they are new every morning Lam. 3.22 23. Therefore my thanks shall never fail but be new and fresh every morning also 2. Let not your morning hours which are the very flower and cream of time the most precious of all the day for any work or duty be spent in Bed or vainly out of Bed And while you are dressing let some one if you can conveniently read to you or else you may employ your time in thinking of the last Sermon you heard or some other good thoughts as of the Soul's Wedding Garment Matth. 22.11 or of the durable Cloathing Ezek. 23.18 in comparison of which all the best Apparel is but a Cobweb Tiffany a fine worthlese Nothing or you may use such Ejaculations and Meditations as these following Ejaculations and Meditations which may be used while you are dressing PVT on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof Rom.