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tion and godliness, looking for, and basting unto th coming of the day of God?

Lord, in mercy remember thy servant in the da of Judgment.

1

Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God. Ir thee, O Lord, have I trusted: let me never be confounded. Amen.

Despre the Chriftian Reader to obferve that all the fe 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 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 bow many be pleases in any one of the Forms.

Ad Sect. 2.

זיי

A Prayer for holy Intention in the beginning and pursuit of any confiderable Action, as Study, Preaching, &c.

Eternal God, who hast 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 shall think, or speak, or doe, may be by me designed to the glorification of thy Name, and by thy blessing it may be effective and fuccefsful 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, fubordinate, and profitable to ends beyond their own proper efficacy: and let no pride or felf-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

thy glory here, I may be partaker of thy glory hereafter, through Jesus Chrift our Lord. Amen.

Ad Sect. 3.

A Prayer meditating and referring to the
Divine Prefence.

This Prayer is specially to be used in temptation
to private fins.

Almighty God, infinite and eternal, thou fillest all things with thy presence; 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 servants by thy Spirit, in the consciences of all men by thy testimony and observation of us. Teach me to walk always in thy presence; to fear thy Majesty, to reverence thy Wisdom and Omni science, that I may never care to commit any undecency in the eye of my Lord and my Judge; but that I may with fo much care and reverence demean my self, 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 Chrift. Amen.

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CHAP. II.

Of Chriftian Sobriety.

SECT

Of Sobriety in the general fence.

ftellt olemiste Lun

C

Hristian Religion in all its moral parts is nothing else but the Law of Nature, and great Reason, complying with the great neceffities 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 pruposed for all that live according to it, and which he hath revealed in Jesus Chrift and according to the Apostle's Arithmetick hath put these three parts of it, 1. Sobriety, 2. Justice. 3. Religion. For the Grace of God bringing Jalvation 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 present world, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. The first contains all our deportment in our personal and private caрасіties, 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 entercourse with God.

Coristian Sobriety is all that duty that concerns our selves 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. Modesty; 5. Content.

It

It is a using severity, denial, and frustration of our appetite when it grows unreasonable in any of these instances: the neceffity of which we shall to best purpose understand by confidering the evil consequences of sensuality, effeminacy, or fondness after carnal pleasures.

Evil Confequences of Voluptuousness or Sensuality.

1. A longing after sensual pleasures is a dissolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft and wandring, unapt for noble, wise or spiritual employments; because the principles upon which pleasure is chofen and pursued, are sottish, weak and unlearned, such as prefer the bo- Tu fi animum vicifti potius quam animus te, eft quod gaudeas. dy before the Qui animum vincunt quam quos animus, femper probiores

foul, the appe

cluent.

Trinum.

tite before reason, sence before the spirit, the pleasures of a short abode before the pleasures of eternity.

2. The nature of sensual pleasure is vain, empty, and unfatisfying, biggest always in expectation, and a mere vanity in the injoying, and leaves a sting 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 instances of pleasure have a sting 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 fascination or witchcraft blinding the understanding and enslaving the will. And he that knows he is free-born or redeemed with the blood of the Son of God, will not easily suffer the Μόνον σκίψας freedom of his foul to be entangled and rifled.

πόσα πωλεῖς τὴν σεαυτέ

προαίρεσιν, ἄνθρωπε, εἰ μηδὲν ἄλλο, μὴ ὀλίγο αὐτὴν πωλήσης. Arrian, C. 2. 1. 1.

4. It is most contrary to the state of a Christian, whose life is a perpetual exercise, a wrestling and warfare, to which sensual pleasure disables him by yielding to that enemy with whom he must strive if ever he will be crowned. And this argu

Θέλεις ὀλύμπια νικήσαι; Δεί σε εὐταχθεῖν, άραγκοθροφεῖν, ἀπέχεθαι πεμμάτων, γυμνάζε θαι πρὸς ἀλάγκην, &c. Epift. cap. 35.

E 2

ment

ment the Apostle intimated: He that striveth for ma2 Cor. 9. 25. fteries is temperate in all things: Now they do it to ob

tain a corruptible Crown, but we an incorruptible.

5. It is by a certain consequence the greatest Impediment in the world to matyrdom; that being a fondness, 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 consent to lose his life with torments.

Degrees of Sobriety.

Agait st this Voluptuousness Sobriety is opposed in three degrees.

1. A despite or disaffection to pleasures, or a resolving against all entertainment of the instances and temptations of fenfuality: and it consists in the internal faculties of will and understanding, decreeing and declaring against them, disapproving and difliking them upon good reason and strong resolution.

2. A fight and actual war against all the temptations and offers of sensual pleasure in all evil instances and degrees: and it confifts in prayer, in fafting, in cheap dier, and hard lodging, and laborious exercises, and avoiding occafions, and using all arts and industry of fortifying the Spirit, and making it severe, manly and Christian.

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 spiritual 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 sweetness of a good Confcience, with the peace of meekness, and the felicities of a contented spirit; in the same degree we disrelish and loath the husks of swinith lusts, and the parings of the apples of Sodom; and the taste of finful pleasures is unfavoury as the Drunkard's vomit.

Rules

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