of whatever you do or think His Glory It is true we may have subordinat Ends consisting with our Duty but let what tends directly and immediatly to the Glory of God have the first and great Room in your heart and when you repeat the Lords Prayer let your heart go out more earnestly in desiring that His Name may be Hallowed His will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven and His Kingdom come then you desire He may give you your daily Bread and forgive you your sins c. This may seem hard to be required that we desire any thing more earnestly than the Salvation of our Souls but if our Love be in any degree as it ought we will surly see it to be our Duty which being performed our Salvation is secured to us in and for Christ's sake and there can be no surer Mark of our Hearts being right with God than our truly finding that really above all things whatsoever we longingly desire that God's Name may be hallowed his Kingdom come and his Will be done The saying of that holy Man Quench Hell and burn Heaven yet will I love and fear my God did hold forth the most desireable frame of his heart and that it did flow from a right and excellent Principle Herein he acted meerly from a principle of Love to God without the immediat prospect of his eternal or temporal Advantage there is indeed nothing more certain than that either Salvation or utter Destruction will in end be the irretrivable Doom of all Mankind and that we are called with our power to endeavour the avoiding of that Sentence and the goodness of God is unexpressibly great in promising his Spirit enabling us to Duty in living up to his Precepts which even in relation to our temporal Beeing are so advantageous as it is obvious that if there were neither Heaven nor Hell the ways of true Wisdom have in themselves an excellencie and desireableness a thousand degrees beyond what is possible to find in giving way to our wicked Inclinations and living as may be pleasing to corrupt and depraved Nature Be you intreated by me not to make the Practice of such as only own themselves to be Christians your Rule Minde what is said Prov. 23.17 18. Let not thy heart envy Sinners but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long For surely there is an end and thine Expectation shall not be â—ut off Let all your thoughts and Actions be aâ— minding you are in the presence of a dreadfully just albeit merciful God and endeavour with all your Strength that your heart may be filled with knowledge of Christ faith in and love to him and be diligent in using the means of Grace which in providence you are trysted with I have hinted at some things of your Duty and you have the benefite of the Word preached publick Prayer and Praise and the administration of the Sacraments which I pray God in his mercy may continue to this Land you have also the benefite of many Pieces of practicall Divinity written by serious and Godly Men such as Flavel's Writings the two Allens Joseph and Richard and many others the serious reading of which with Prayer for a Blessing upon your doing thereof will be Strength to your Soul and at the hour of Death unexpressibly more savourie than the Consideration of having done what is generally the Practice of the world I desire ye may write over a Double of this and keep the Principal carefully by you for I have no exact Copy thereof And that you at sometimes read what I have written to you and whilst you are at the Colledge stint your self to the reading thereof excepting what is Advice relating to a married state once in the Week Let me know with your first Conveniencie if Joseph Allen's Allarum to unconverted Sinners be to be had in any Stationers Shop where you are and if it be not I will endeavour the sending it to you within a short time Make conscience of reading it seriously and diligently and when fitness of Frame in your heart enables you engage your self to God in the terms set down by that seriously holy Man But see to it that your whole heart go out after God in the Duty The Sin of an unfitted Frame of heart in what ever we do is great in Gods sight but in so solemn Approaching to him the doing of it unsuitably is a great Aggravation thereof I think it not amiss that sometime ye put in write to be kept by you what may evidence your Frame at such occasions if you have a suitable sense of Sin or your heart go out after God in Faith for Mercy or if in the expectation of particular Mercies or the Receit thereof you engage your self to any particular Duty or in the general more solemnly to serve God I think ye would put down in Writ your Engagements to God and what may evidence your Frame of Heart at these occasions I have my self considered with satisfaction even some few Petitions which may heart has gone out after God in the desire of and which at the time I have set down in Write not so much with a design more fully to imprint on my Memorie the Expressions of my Desires albeit my Memorie be very frail as to have the satisfaction of knowing by my reading them that at such times my heart did in some measure go out with earnestness in these desires and that my Remembrance of the Endeavours albeit frail and faint I have had to bring my Heart to that Frame might afterward shame me from any Sluggishness of Temper or any proness to gratisle my many Corruptions so as may be inconsistent with what God at the time enabled me to attain to Make Conscience always your Friend it is Gods witness within you beware of doing what may harden or kill it depend upon God that it may be in you according to knowledge and so walk in every thing as it may witness for you in the day of your greatest need I do intreat your whole Life and Conversation may be humble and serious in the sight of God have always upon your Heart a Sense of your unexpressibly great misery which will stir you up to the performance of Duty in which you must ever be most intent and serious And besides your daily Performance set at times some Hours and at some times one day a-part for your wrestling with God that He for Christs sake may subdue Corruption in you and give knowledge in every Duty and Grace to perform it and I hope our good God in his mercy will so far discover to you the filthiness of Sin and how Desireable Lovely and Advantageous it is to serve him That times so set a-part will be your delight for your direction in such Duties you have many means as Scudders daily walk and the Works of many other serious and godly Divines both of this and the English Nation and that
to and keeping it in a tender frame yea the advantages thereof are so great as may stir up to the redeeming time for the exercise thereof even from what may lawfully be allowed to our worldly Concerns or bodily Refreshment and how much more then ought we when we are alone guard against our minds going out after foolish and vain fancies if not what is grossly sinful in the sight of God Surely if we had an awful sense of his omnipresence and omniscience we would dare to be thinking upon what is unallowable in his sight and if we had a sense of our miserable condition through sin our hearts would ever be ready to take hold of all occasions of serious thinking how we should evite the Curse and Wrath of God to all eternity which unavoidably will be the Portion of hardned sinners not coming to God in and through Christ David in Ps 4.4 Requires we stand in aw and sin not and that we commune with our hearts upon our beds whereby you may be satisfied it hath been the practise of the Godly seriously to meditate at all times The subject Matter for your meditation is obvious and will easily occur as the Debt we ow to the Justice of God for sin the certainty of Death and after that of Judgment the misery of such as shall be Doomed to Hell with the Devils and so for ever separate from the Presence of God His incomprchensible Mercy to lost sinners in Jesus Christ and the Fulness of the unspeakable Joys that is secured to such as heartily and humbly lays hold thereof yea innumerable are the Subjects of that exercise that will with ease offer themselves and I advise for your Direction and encouragement to that Duty that you read the last Part of Mr. Baxter's Saints rest which doth fully Treat thereof 8. Every Evening set some short time apart and state your self as before God's Tribunal take a back-look upon your Actions of that day and what you have done towards God or your Neighbour amiss acknowledge it with contrition and brokenness of heart and seek of God Grace enabling you to a due Reparation either by a sorrowful even publick acknowledgment thereof in so far as they are sins against our good God providing the same may tend to the Edification of His Church and People or by repairing the prejudice of any hurt done to your Neighbour in so far as it is possible within your power and in your Evening Prayer acknowledge the goodness of God throughout all the days of your time and in particular acknowledge Him for the Mercies of that day and enlarge your self in Prayer as in the Morning 9. As you are called to own a Profession of Godliness so you are to avow the publick performance of Duty wherever Providence shall tryst your Being yet for the most part you would endeavour its Being as retired and as private as possible at least beware that to be seen or heard of men or any self end be not a Motive to your doing thereof I remember to have heard of a woman meeting with godly Mr. Fox upon the Street and after some discourse she pulling out her Bible told him she was going to hear a Sermon upon which he said to her if you will be advised by me go home but said she when shall I then go to Church To whom he answered when you tell no body of it 10. Beware of Hypocricie and be assured God will not be dissembled with he hath in many places of Scripture ranked Hypocrites with the worst of sinners you will find Mat. 23.13 they are amongst the number of such against whom our Lord denounces a Wo and in Chap. 14.51 the misery of their condition is held forth in the Sentence of the unjust Servant where as an aggravation of his punishment it is said his portion shall be with the hypocrites where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth Do not you appear to be what you are not and let the design of being thought religious or the making use of a Profession to cloak your carnal and worldly ends be far from you I acknowledge to be morally honest is not to be religious but mind that without endeavouring to be so in all your Actions there is no Religion And it is the height of folly for any to think that their being of a Perswasion with those that are the most godly or their own practising even with much appearing sincerity the Duties of Religion where there is not Moral Honesty doth so much as truly entitle them to the name of Christians it is true every man is subject to Failings and an entire doing of what is required of us is not within the power of sinful man but as truly are our Failings in Moral Duties either where they are customary and habitual or not repented of and endeavoured against difect indications of the want of Religion and that our Lord notwithstanding the Name and Profession of such will disown them in their greatest extremity and you may see the Prophet Micah holding forth that the outward performing of what was legally required of the Jews was not the principal part of their Duty and says in Chap. 6.7 8. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oyl shall I give my first-born for my transgression the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And God by the Prophet Jeremiah Chap. 4.24 saith Let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness judgement and righteousness in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. Yea our Lord himself in that most excellent Sermon upon the Mount hath said Mat. 7.21 Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven 11. Mind what you are engaged to in your being Baptized and live up to that solemn engagement you are to fight out your Warfare under the Banner of Christ our Lord and renounce the Devil the World and the Flesh seek of God for Jesus sake that He may give you knowlegde and enable you to see and live up to the solemn Tyes you are under through your baptismal Covenant and as ye will answer to our good God at the day of your Appearance before his Tribunal be not among the number of such as never thinks of Baptism being otherwise useful then as a Ceremony for their having a Name 12. I expect that you will be able as the Apostle requires to give an Answer to every man that asketh you a Reason of the Hope or Belief that is in you with Meekness and Fear Forbeâ—â— Debates and Disputings upon Controversies in Religion what
the Condition of their serving you but you have a Charge of their Souls which if neglected and not repented of you will answer at the day of your appearing before God's Tribunal Your first and great care must be that they serve God and if they so do they will be faithful in their service to you It is very desiderable that the generality of Masters are so little concerned in the Souls of their servants and that they should be so ready to reprehend their omission of Duty in their worldly Concerns and so neglective of putting them to their Duty toward God and rebaking their slighting of what is required of them in their service Endeavour what in you lies by Admonition and otherways that your servants live as suitable Members in a Christian Family and if you cannot procure them so to do disiniss them so soon as you can out of yours David in Psal 101. Promises to God what shall be his Carriage I will walk within my house with a perfect heart I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes I hate the work of them that turn aside it shall not cleave unto me c. And in vers 7. He saith He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house he that telleth lyes shall not tarry in my sight Endeavour that every one in your Family may with quietness go about what they are called to in their Station and prevent Contention and all Clamor and Noise for every ones acting in their several Concerns without Noise and with Discretion is most desirable Noise and too many words having always Confusion attending thereupon and where there is much of the Tongue in Husband or Wife or any within the Family it is easie to conjecture that there is in such persons no great fitness for Action Let your Carriage towards your servants be such as may oblige them to a due Respect to you and to the keeping of that distance which becomes them in their Station yet forbear all churlish and passionat behaviour towards them as the Apostle enjoins Eph. 6.9 forbearing threatning knowing that your Master also is in Heaven neither is there respect of persons with him When they do amiss in any thing reprove them not to satisfie Passion but so reprove and exhort as it may reach the end their amendment be not your self an evil Example to them let your own Actions rebuke them and be assured that no reproof will have weight where the Reprover is guilty of the Fault reproved And when you find a faithful servant respect him as a Friend for it is but just to allow it to him And Solomon Prov. 17.2 Telleth you that such shall have Rule over a Son that causeth shame and shall have part of the Inheritance among the Brethren 71. Your care must be that God may be served by all within your Family apart and joyntly at convenient Seasons be as careful that your Servants do by themselves discharge their duty God-ward Evening and Morning as you are that they do what ye require in your Affairs and if this ye do with a sincere and only design of God's glory you may with confidence expect the greater Success in your own concerns Forget not the worshiping of God in Prayer and Praise joyntly with all your Family and do it at such times as your Family may be most conveniently got together at least pray with them twice a day and at the most convenient time read some part of the Scripture and sing to his Praise I know many does use it at Evening before Supper because after that time Drousiness and unfitness after Meat disables from the performance of the Duty but I advise the time ye pitch upon may be when every one within the Family has liberty of being present and so may joyn in the Worship for I have often considered it unsuitable for some few in a Family to begin or proceed in Worship when others in that Family were acting in their Business and has thought it more decent when the meanest within the Family could attend albeit it should be after their Affairs for that day were ended And as your times for Family-worship ought to be such as all may give Attendance so let your continuance in it be as all may get their hearts brought up with you in the Duty and make not the length of your Prayers or any other part of Family-worship a Snare to these that should joyn with you Be often exhorting all within your Family to their Duty and let them not consider that the having of the Assemblies Catechism in their memory as only Childrens work that little Piece contains the Sum and Principles of Religion and I think is to be prized equally to any thing else written not dictated by the Spirit of God When ye conveen your Family to Worship at some times at least in some short and suitable Exhortation press that their hearts may go out after God in the Duty it being to be feared that all of us are too ready to draw near with our Bodies when we would be ashamed the frame of our hearts were laid open to our Neighbours then which there can be no Action more stupid Brutish and Atheistical for if we foolishly apprehend that God who is surely the Hearer of Prayer does not hear us and know our Heart why do we offer to draw near to Him And if we do consider Him as the Hearer of Prayer and Searcher of Hearts how daring is our Boldness and Wickedness to do it so unsuitably I intreat ye may duely discharge that Duty of worshiping God with your Family for ye find the Prophet Jeremiah 10.25 Ranking Families that call not upon God with the Heathen that are ignorant of him and he prays saying Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not and upon the Families that call not upon thy Name And it has always been the practice of the Godly as you find Joshua 24.15 peremptorlie saying But as for me and my House we will serve the Lord And you have Almighty God in the 18 Gen. 19. giving it as the Reason of his singular respect to Abraham For I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord c. 72. As at times your Family may be encreased by the repair of Friends and others let that be no ground for your neglecting the publick worshiping of God therein and let your Modest Humble Discreet and serious way of performing it incite to their joyning with you so far as is convenient for you be Hospital and let Strangers of whatsoever quality that may need the accomodation of your house and what you can afford have it with freedom so as may be consistent with your duty to these within your family and with cheerfulness entertain your Relations and Friends for Religion does truly allow of a free and hospitable Converse and such a competent use of every
in the World and I am not of the Opinion of such as maintains that all enmity betwixt Creatures is the Effect of Sin for I think our infinitely Wise God hath Created these Creatures used in the Recreation of man that they might be made use of to that End yet is it evident His Displeasure with Excess therein by suffering in His Wife Providence their so doing to become their great Snare obvious to the most unconcerned Considerers for how lamentable is it to hear the unallowable Passions yea the dreadful prophaning the Name of the most Blessed God that is almost the constant practice of such as gives up their Minds with too great intentness to Recreation and is it not astonishing to hear one otherways sober in his Conversation upon the least disappointment of the Flight of a Hawk or Hounding of a Dog so to carry as if there were not a God in Heaven surely if it were the practice of such persons before their sleeping seriously to Examine what they have done throughout the day the bitter remembrance of their unchristian Behaviour would cool their Inclinations to such Recreation D. Theophil let it be our work to endeavour the bettering our selves from the consideration of what do's hourly occur to us and I wish our Prayers to God in behalf of one another may be that in His Strength we so live as we may with Confidence Own the Name of Christians and Christ our Lord may be our Portion Heir and to all Eternity I am March 21. 1692. Your affectionat Neighbour and Servant Theocritus D. THEOPHIL IN a Line some Weeks since I promised you some part of my Thoughts anent the Actionâ— of Persons of several Stations and since that time I have albeit to small purpose written something relating to what is and ought to bâ— the practice of Great Men it is indeed but superficially done for there is so much reprehendible in the Actions of all Men and manâ— Corruption calls for so many Arguments 〈◊〉 perswade to Duty as the Bounds of a Letter are too small to Treat thereof but the narrow Bounds of my Capacity do's more hinder mâ— doing it any thing effectually yet as I then saiâ— to you that it may be subject for your Meditation I shall this Morning signifie my thought of persons of an inferior Rank Mechanicks anâ— Lobourers of Land albeit they are wanting iâ— what may Qualifie them to put in practice Macheâ—ilian-Policy yet do they dayly in their ordinar Converse and Dealing practise what 〈◊〉 very little suitable to the Rules of Christianity And so great and many are the subtilties of persons in these Stations as plainly says the Generality thereof are running with violence 〈◊〉 Way that leads to eternal Destruction for 〈◊〉 you consider their way in Dealing doth it 〈◊〉 manifestly speak forth their unbelief of a Dâ—â—ty and that the only and Almighty God doâ—â— in His providential Dispensations order and dispose of wretched Mankind in all His Concernâ—â— and how evident is it that the most part of persons in that Station do's live not at all bounded by Conscience or what even the World calls Honour and that it is only shame and the fear of Worldly punishment hinders their being altogether unsociable it being a Truth not to be contraverted that were it not fear of temporal punishment there would be no peaceable Correspondence amongst Mankind which is an Evil greatly to be regrated and it is against all Reason For how brutishly foolish is it to dare the doing of any thing unallowable for fear of Man and temporal Punishment yet without controle to sin against our great God to whom there is no access for sinners but in and through Christ and before whose Tribunal all men must undoubtedly stand and there receive either the sentence of eternal Salvation or of eternal Damnation It were much to be wished that Men and Women of all Ranks would so live as the thoughts of approaching Death and Judgment might not be their terrour And surely the Station of men in low degree does not hinder but contribute to their so doing I have often thought that a Countrey Man's way oâ— living where he has for his convenient Subsistance and is Master of what is necessar for his being in that Station is desireable beyond the most pompous and splendid Living of the great est of Men. And it is beyond all Controversie that thousands of Land-labourers leads lives preferable in true and solid Contentment to their Land-lords who lives but too often idly upon a great part of the Fruits of their Labours And if they could be perswaded to the practice of Godliness in the discharge of Duties required of them in their Stations they would see much reason to magnifie the Mercy of God who in his providence has so disposed of them And it were the Interest of every one to rest contentedly satisfied with their worldly Station and that without Anxiety they acted in what ever they are called to Yea I think it may be warrantably said that none ought to aim at a higher Station in this world than they are in for many have at their dying hour wished never to have had Riches and worldly Honour which have Snares almost unresistable in frail Man And I think never any wise Man at least when dying and at the brink of Eternity but they did absolutly see the Vanity in such Enjoyments where the Possessors has not rightly used then as Stewards for our great Lord and Master 〈◊〉 I am unfit to handle what may be held forth as the Duty of any I pray God may bless thiâ— Land with the means of Grace to every Ranâ— and Degree of persons and continue them there in for the good of Souls to His Glory yet 〈◊〉 may say that albeit persons in that Station havâ— neither much time nor fitness for reading 〈◊〉 Books that every Family besides Bibles to every one would be furnished with some Bookâ— most suited to their Capacities The Assemblies Catechisms are truly to my apprehension beyond expression desireable and some of thâ— plainest Explanations thereof are useful As surely the meanest of Families that would froâ— Conscience resolve to imploy some part of theâ— little Money for acquiring some Books Exhorting and Directing to the practice of Duty would not be the poorer thereof nor any whiâ—â— thereby disabled for expending in their temporal concerns There are many Peices of practical Divinity some whereof may be had at easie Rates and I do seriously wish that each Family besides some few of other necessar Books would purchase to themselves Baxters poor Man's Family-Book and Flavel's Husbandrie Spiritualized And I am fully assured if they would a-part and in their Families together imploy the time at Evenings and other convenient Seasons which their worldly business may dispense with in serious perusal thereof And if they did in Humility and with hearts desire seek the blessing of God upon their Endeavours their Advantage and true Comfort in