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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
 
 Chap. _ JJopyright No.. 
 
 Shelt__IL 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
SEP 10 1B98 
 
THE PRESENCE OF GOD 
 
Qassics of the Quiet Hour* 
 
 Selections for every day in the month. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 Francis E. Clark, D* D, 
 
 Handsomely printed and daintily bound. 
 Price, 23 cents each, postpaid. 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 Selections from the Devotional Works of 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 LIVING AND LOVING. 
 
 Selections from the Devotional Works of 
 Professor A. Tholuck. 
 
 THE GOLDEN ALPHABET. 
 
 Selections from the works of 
 Master John Tauter. 
 
 THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 
 
 Selections from " The Imitation of Christ," by 
 Thomas a Kempis. 
 
 United Society of Christian Endeavor* 
 
 Boston and Chicago. 
 
Classic* of tije (©ut'et J^our 
 
 THE PRESENCE OF GOD 
 
 aiUrtimts from tije IBriJottonal OTorfcs of 
 
 BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR 
 For Every Day of the Month 
 
 Edited and with Introduction by 
 
 FRANCIS E. CLARK, D. D. 
 
 President of the United Society 
 of Christian Endeavor 
 
 UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 
 BOSTON AND CHICAGO 
 
A^ 
 
 <b 
 
 ^ tf 
 
 Copyright^ r8g8, 
 By United Society of Christian Endeavor 
 
 COPIES RECEIVED. 
 
 Colonial Press 
 Ele^trotyped and Printed by 
 C. H. Simonds &* Co. 
 Boston, U.S.A. 
 
 \% (\TB 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor : the Man and the Author 
 
 PAGE 
 
 7 
 
 God's Inner Kingdom 
 
 How to Know God . 
 
 Love's Daughters 
 
 Meditation and Speculation 
 
 What We Should Seek . 
 
 Things Thieves Cannot Steal 
 
 How to Die 
 
 Spiritual Caution 
 
 The Rust of Time 
 
 The Greatest Thing in the World 
 
 The Key of the Day 
 
 Treading Where He Trod 
 
 A Spirit of Rejoicing 
 
 What God Requires 
 
 The Bitter Sweet 
 
 How to Reckon Life 
 
 The Chemistry of Faith 
 
 A Prayer for Guidance 
 
 Praying and Working 
 
 How to Pray 
 
 Let God Choose 
 
 Trifling Troubles 
 
 i7 
 18 
 
 19 
 20 
 21 
 22 
 
 23 
 24 
 
 25 
 26 
 27 
 28 
 29 
 30 
 3i 
 32 
 33 
 34 
 35 
 3$ 
 37 
 38 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Faith and Works 
 
 Never Despair . 
 
 Wandering Thoughts 
 
 The Lesson of Ninus 
 
 A Secret of Prayer . 
 
 God's Substitute 
 
 How to Know God's Will 
 
 Being Honest with Ourselves 
 
 How to Find Comfort in Religion 
 
 PAGE 
 
 39 
 
 40 
 
 4i 
 
 42 
 
 43 
 44 
 
 45 
 46 
 
 47 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR: 
 
 THE MAN AND THE AUTHOR 
 
 It is my purpose in editing this little volume to attract, if 
 I may, the attention of the devout reader to one of the golden 
 treasuries of devotional literature which is little drawn upon 
 in these days. The name of the author, to be sure, is toler- 
 ably familiar to the Christian public, but how small and select 
 is the circle of his readers 1 If, by these brief selections from 
 this unforgotten though unread worthy of the closet and the 
 altar, I can turn the attention of Christians who are hungering 
 and thirsting for a deeper religious life, not only to one of the 
 purest wells of English undefiled, but to one of the fountains 
 of the purest and most invigorating devotional literature, I 
 shall be more than satisfied. I have but drawn from this 
 spring a few draughts of its life-giving waters, hoping that the 
 readers will go to the well and drink for themselves. 
 
 In preparing such a series of booklets as the " Classics of 
 the Quiet Hour," the author of the " Holy Living and Dying " 
 should surely be included. He deserves a place, chiefly, to be 
 sure, because of his high and gracious thoughts of God and 
 man, but also because of his rare gift of expression, his vast 
 learning, and his poetic insight. 
 
 He has been justly called the Shakespeare of English prose 
 writers. His classical erudition was prodigious, and his writ- 
 ings are sprinkled full of quotations, not only from the 
 Scriptures, but from the widest range of classical Greek and 
 
 7 
 
8 THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 Latin authors. In his " Holy Living," we are told, he quotes 
 no fewer than two hundred Greek and Latin authors, fifty-five 
 of the Fathers, five Jewish, and twenty-five Italian authors. 
 Gems from Theocritus, Epictetus, Seneca, Themistocles, and 
 hundreds of other classical authors glitter upon his pages. 
 
 But it cannot be said that he writes merely as a scholar, 
 much less as a pedant. Out of a full heart as well as out of 
 a full mind, his chapters spring; and, while they afford 
 food for the ripest scholar, many of them are not beyond 
 the comprehension of the humblest Christian. 
 
 Many of his pages, too, bear the marks of personal experi- 
 ence, as well as of intellectual acumen. He dipped his pen 
 into his own heart's blood, evidently, as well as into his clas- 
 sical ink-well. 
 
 He lived in troublous and uncertain times, his life being 
 spanned by the revolutionary years between 1613 and 1667. 
 He was a fugitive and a wanderer from his political enemies. 
 At one period of his life he cast in his fortunes with his exiled 
 king, and left home and friends and living in following his 
 convictions. 
 
 As Dean Farrar says : " When he speaks of wounds and 
 battles and prisoners and plagues, he speaks of what he has 
 not only heard, but seen. He has learned deep and sacred 
 lessons in the hard school of affliction. The prosperity of his 
 life was brief, its sorrows severe and almost continuous. He 
 had embraced a waning cause, and followed from place to 
 place the fugitive king. His home had been pillaged, his 
 family driven out of doors. He had been in prisons and be- 
 sieged cities. He had been compelled to support himself by 
 keeping school in a humble village. Even when his long 
 and eminent services received the poor reward of expatriation 
 in an Irish bishopric, he was made the object of violent per- 
 secution and obloquy, alike by Romanists and Dissenters, so 
 that his office became to him an ' insupportable burden and 
 place of torment,' so that * it would have been better for 
 him,' he said, 'to be a poor curate in a village church.' 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. 9 
 
 Further than this, his tender heart was not only torn by the 
 early deaths of several sweet children ; but he lost two sons 
 in the prime of youth, by ways which were to him unspeak- 
 ably shocking. The elder was killed in a duel, the younger 
 died from excesses learned in the dissolute company of the 
 Duke of Buckingham. He himself died before his time, at 
 the early age of fifty-five. His teachings were not the out- 
 come of mere holiday experience, but were the result of all 
 that he had learned in a tried and suffering life." 
 
 It is worth noting in this connection that there is a republic 
 of the Quiet Hour as well as a republic of letters. Men of 
 very different political conceptions and views have contrib- 
 uted to the world's great religious works. Thomas a Kempis, 
 the strict follower of the pope, and John Tauler, who for a 
 long life defied and disobeyed the pope; John Milton the 
 republican, and Jeremy Taylor the royalist ; John Bunyan the 
 Dissenter, and Keble the Churchman, ail belong to the same 
 party so far as after ages are concerned ; for they all declared 
 in unmistakable terms that they sought another country ; that 
 is, a heavenly. They have all drawn to themselves the loving 
 admiration of devout souls in every land and in every subse- 
 quent age. 
 
 Bishop Taylor's fame is another illustration of the fact that 
 men seldom know when they are accomplishing their greatest 
 work. He was a most voluminous author, leaving behind 
 him huge tomes of sermons and addresses, which he doubt- 
 less thought were the chief monument to his fame, but the 
 " Holy Living " and " Holy Dying," the works by which he 
 is largely known to-day, were doubtless reckoned by him 
 among his slighter and less important volumes. The latter 
 was written to console a friend for the death of his wife ; the 
 former, in the days of England's Revolution and civil war, as 
 he says, to supply " to the few good people who still remain 
 a collection of holy precepts, which might less make them 
 feel the want of personal guidance, since they could not 
 always have a prophet at their needs, nor be suffered to go 
 
IO THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 up to the house of the Lord to inquire of the appointed 
 oracles." 
 
 Christians of the present day, doubtless, are most attracted 
 by the volume entitled " Holy Living," and it would be well 
 indeed if every one took into mind and heart the rules and 
 exercises which the good bishop gives. Let me briefly 
 rehearse them. 
 
 THE CARE OF OUR TIME. 
 
 I. The first general exercise of holy living which he sug- 
 gests is the Care of our Time. 
 
 " In the morning, when you awake," he says, " accustom 
 yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to his 
 service, and at night, also, let him close thine eyes ; and let 
 your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive 
 of time, beyond the needs and conveniences of nature." 
 " Sometimes," he adds, in one of those characteristic turns of 
 thought which add so much quaintness and piquancy to his 
 style, "be curious to see the preparation which the sun 
 makes when he is coming forth from his chambers of the 
 east." 
 
 Bishop Taylor evidently had no sympathy with the luxu- 
 rious butterfly existence whose chief object is to kill time. 
 
 "Never talk with any man," he says, "or undertake any 
 trifling employment, merely to pass the time away, for every 
 day well spent may become a ' day of salvation,' and time 
 rightly employed is ' an acceptable time.' Remember that the 
 time thou triflest away was given thee to repent in, to pray 
 for pardon of sins, to work out thy salvation, to do the work 
 of grace, to lay up against the day of judgment a treasure of 
 good works that thy time may be crowned with eternity." 
 
 Another of his quaint and sensible suggestions on this 
 subject is as follows : " When the clock strikes, or however 
 else you shall measure the day, it is good to say a short ejac- 
 ulation every hour, that the parts and returns of devotion 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. II 
 
 may be the measure of your time ; and do so also in all the 
 breaches of thy sleep, that those spaces which have in them 
 no direct business of the world may be filled with religion." 
 
 In these days it is the constantly increasing custom for men 
 who would commune with God to go by themselves, not for a 
 passing half -hour, but for one day, or two or three, if possible. 
 These " retreats," as they are called, to many have become 
 seasons of special soul-refreshing. But Bishop Taylor more 
 than two centuries ago suggested to busy men this same idea. 
 " Let him that is most busied," he said, " set apart some 
 solemn time every year, in Which, for the time quitting all 
 worldly business, he may attend wholly to fasting and prayer, 
 and the dressing of his soul by confessions, meditations, and 
 attendance upon God; that he may make up his accounts, 
 renew his vows, and make amends for his carelessness." 
 
 PURITY OF INTENTION. 
 
 II. The second " instrument " of holy living on which 
 our author dwells is Purity of Intention, and one of the rules 
 that he recommends is, " Begin every action in the name of 
 the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the meaning 
 of which is that we be careful that we do not the action with- 
 out the permission or warrant of God." 
 
 A hard rule this may seem for every-day living, but not 
 different from what many a modern saint would give in speak- 
 ing out of his own personal experience. Said General Stone- 
 wall Jackson : " I never undertake any action without direct 
 prayer to God. When I seal a letter, I put a prayer for 
 God's blessing upon the letter under the seal. When I open 
 a letter, I pray for God's blessing upon its contents and upon 
 the writer. When I dismiss my class of cadets in the military 
 school, I pray that God would go with them. When a new 
 class comes into the recitation-room, I pray that God would 
 come with them and abide throughout the hour." 
 
 Not very different is this from Jeremy Taylor's third rule 
 
 k 
 
12 THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 concerning purity of intention. " Let every action of concern- 
 ment be begun with prayer that God would not only bless the 
 action, but sanctify your purpose. ... In the prosecution of 
 the action renew and re-enkindle your purpose by short ejacula- 
 tions to these purposes : ' Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, 
 but unto thy name let all praise be given ' ; and consider, 
 * Now I am working the work of God, I am his servant, I am 
 in a happy employment, I am doing my Master's business. 
 I am not at my own dispose. I am using his talents, and all 
 the gain must be his ; ' for then be sure, as the glory is his, so 
 the reward shall be thine." 
 
 I cannot refrain from quoting a few lines which tell the 
 signs of purity of intention. 
 
 " He that does his recreation or his merchandise cheerfully, 
 promptly, readily, and busily, and the works of religion slowly, 
 flatly, and without appetite, and the spirit moves like Pha- 
 raoh's chariots when the wheels were off, it is a sign that his 
 heart is not right with God, but it cleaves too much to the 
 world." But " he that does as well in private, between God 
 and his own soul, as in public, in pulpits, in theatres and 
 market-places, hath given himself a good testimony that his 
 purposes are full of honesty, nobleness, and integrity. For 
 what Elkanah said to the mother of Samuel, * Am not I better 
 to thee than ten sons ? ' is most certainly verified concerning 
 God, that he who is to be our judge is better than ten thou- 
 sand witnesses." 
 
 PRACTISING THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 III. To the third means of holy living I would call especial 
 attention. It seems to me that its very title is enough to 
 arrest the notice of any Christian who desires a deeper spir- 
 itual life. In fact, in more than one instance have I known 
 this pregnant phrase, which, I think, was first used by this 
 author, to work almost a revolution in the life of him who 
 heard it. 
 
 The third general means of holy living, says Bishop Taylor, 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR, 1 3 
 
 is the practice of the presence of God. " God is wholly in every 
 place, included in no place, not divided into parts, not change- 
 able into several shapes, filling heaven and earth with his 
 present power, and with his never absent nature." 
 
 " So Saint Augustine expresses this article so that we may 
 imagine God to be as the air and the sea, and we all enclosed 
 in his circle, wrapped up in the lap of his infinite nature, or 
 as infants in the wombs of their mothers ; and we can no 
 more be removed from the presence of God than from our 
 own being. . . . God is everywhere present by his power. 
 He rolls the orbs of heaven with his hands ; he fixes the earth 
 with his foot ; he guides all the creatures with his eye." 
 
 " He is to be feared in public, he is to be feared in private ; 
 if you go forth, he spies you ; if you go in, he sees you ; when 
 you light the candle, he observes you ; when you put it out, 
 then also God marks you. But if you will sin, retire yourself 
 wisely, and go where God cannot see you ; for nowhere else 
 can you be safe. 
 
 " Certainly if men would always actually consider and 
 really esteem this truth, that God is the great eye of the 
 world, always watching over our actions, and an ever open 
 ear to hear all our words, it would be the readiest way in the 
 world to make sin cease from among the children of men, 
 and for men to approach to the blessed estate of the saints in 
 heaven who cannot sin, for they always walk in the presence 
 and behold the face of God." 
 
 HOW TO PRACTISE THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 Naturally the question arises, How shall we practise the 
 presence of God? The good bishop goes into this ques- 
 tion somewhat fully, and we see from his answers that he was 
 no mere dreamy mystic ; that he sought not to " hypnotize 
 himself," or to " realize his astral body," but in ways most 
 sensible and natural to commune with God. But let us hear 
 what he has to say on this all-important subject. 
 
14 THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 " In the beginning of actions of religion, make an act of 
 adoration ; that is, solemnly worship God, and place thyself in 
 God's presence, and behold him with the eye of faith, and let 
 thy desires actually fix on him as the object of thy worship, 
 and the reason of thy hope, and the fountain of thy blessing. 
 For when thou hast placed thyself before him, and kneelest 
 in his presence, it is most likely all the following parts of thy 
 devotion will be answerable to the wisdom of such an appre- 
 hension and the glory of such a presence. 
 
 " Let everything you see represent to your spirit the pres- 
 ence, the excellency, and the power of God, and let your 
 conversation with the creatures lead you unto the Creator ; 
 for so shall your actions be done more frequently with an 
 actual eye to God's presence, by your often seeing him in the 
 glass of the creation. In the face of the sun you may see 
 God's beauty ; in the fire you may feel his heat warming ; in 
 the water, his gentleness to refresh you; it is the dew of 
 heaven that makes your field give you bread; and the breasts 
 of God are the bottles that minister drink to your necessities. 
 This philosophy, which is obvious to every man's experience, 
 is a good advantage to our piety, and by this act of under- 
 standing our wills are checked from violence and misde- 
 meanor." 
 
 " In your retirement make frequent colloquies or short dis- 
 coursings between God and thy own soul. * Seven times a 
 day do I praise thee : and in the night season also I thought 
 upon thee while I was waking.' So did David ; and every act 
 of complaint or thanksgiving, every act of rejoicing or of 
 mourning, every petition and every return of the heart in 
 these intercourses, is a going to God, an appearing in his 
 presence, and a representing him present to thy spirit and to 
 thy necessity. This was long since by a spiritual person 
 called * building to God a chapel in our heart.' It recon- 
 ciles Martha's employment with Mary's devotion, charity, and 
 religion ; the necessities of our calling and the employments 
 of devotion. For thus in the midst of the works of your 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR. 1 5 
 
 trade you may retire into your chapel, — your heart, — and 
 converse with God by frequent addresses and returns." 
 
 " Let us remember that God is in us, and that we are in 
 him : we are his workmanship, let us not deface it ; we are in 
 his presence, let us not pollute it by unholy and impure actions. 
 ' God hath also wrought all our works in us ' : and because he 
 rejoices in his own works, if we defile them, and make them 
 unpleasant to him, we walk perversely with God, and he will 
 walk crookedly towards us." 
 
 " God is in every creature : be cruel towards none, neither 
 abuse any by intemperance. Remember that the creatures, 
 and every member of thy own body, is one of the lesser 
 cabinets and receptacles of God. They are such which God 
 hath blessed with his presence, hallowed by his touch, and 
 separated from unholy use by making them to belong to his 
 dwelling. 
 
 " He walks as in the presence of God, that converses 
 with him in frequent prayer and frequent communion ; that 
 runs to him in all his necessities ; that asks counsel of him in 
 all his doubtings ; that opens all his wants to him ; that weeps 
 before him for his sins ; that asks remedy and support for his 
 weakness ; that fears him as a judge, reverences him as a 
 lord, and obeys him as a father." 
 
 THE RESULTS OF PRACTISING GOD'S PRESENCE. 
 
 The results of this blessed confidential communion with 
 God are thus beautifully set forth by Bishop Taylor : — 
 
 " It produces a confidence in God, and fearlessness of our 
 enemies, patience in trouble, and hope of remedy, since God 
 is so nigh in all our sad accidents ; he is a disposer of the 
 hearts of men, and events of things ; he proportions out our 
 trials, and supplies us with remedy, and where his rod strikes 
 us, his staff supports us. To which we may add this, that 
 God, who is always with us, is especially by promise with us 
 in tribulation, to turn the misery into a mercy ; and that our 
 
1 6 THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 
 
 greatest trouble may become our advantage, by entitling us to 
 a new manner of the divine presence." 
 
 It produces " joy and rejoicing in God, we being more apt to 
 delight in the partners and witnesses of our conversation ; 
 every degree of mutual abiding and conversing being a 
 relation and an endearment. We are of the same household 
 with God ; he is with us in our natural actions to preserve us ; 
 in our recreation to restrain us ; in our public actions to ap- 
 plaud or reprove us ; in our private to observe us ; in our 
 sleep to watch by us ; in our watchings to refresh us ; and if 
 we walk with God in all his ways, as he walks with us in all 
 ours, we shall find perpetual reasons to enable us to keep that 
 rule of God, 'Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, 
 Rejoice.' " 
 
 In this connection I will not quote further from this most 
 suggestive and fruitful chapter. I would ask my reader 
 prayerfully to consider this wondrous expression, to realize 
 this tremendous truth, that it is possible for mortal men to 
 come into immediate contact with Jehovah, — to practise his 
 presence, — there is no other phrase so good. It seems to 
 open to us new continents of meaning the more we study it. 
 
 I pray that each of the following selections may be read 
 with peculiar care, and with an earnest petition for enlight- 
 enment ; that we may learn from blessed experience what it 
 is, morning by morning in the Silent Hour, to talk directly 
 with our Father, and to hear his answering voice. 
 
 Francis E. Clark. 
 
3fft0t2>aie 17 
 
 GOD'S INNER KINGDOM. 
 
 OD reigns in the hearts of his servants ; there 
 is his kingdom. The power of grace hath 
 subdued all his enemies ; there is his power. 
 They serve him night and day, and give him 
 thanks and praise ; that is his glory. This is the religion 
 and worship of God in the temple. The temple itself 
 is the heart of man; Christ is the high priest, who 
 from thence sends up the incense of prayers, and joins 
 them to his own intercession, and presents all together 
 to his Father ; and the Holy Ghost, by his dwelling 
 there, hath also consecrated it into a temple ; and God 
 dwells in our hearts by faith, and Christ by his Spirit, 
 and the Spirit by his purities ; so that we are also cabi- 
 nets of the mysterious Trinity. And what is this short 
 of heaven itself, but as infancy is short of manhood, and 
 letters of words ? The same state of life it is, but not 
 the same age. It is heaven in a looking-glass, dark, but 
 yet true ; representing the beauties of the soul, and the 
 graces of God, and the images of his eternal glory, by 
 the reality of a special presence. 
 
1 8 SeconD 2)ay 
 
 HOW TO KNOW GOD. 
 
 GOOD life is the best way to understand 
 wisdom and religion, because by the experi- 
 ences and relishes of religion there is con- 
 veyed to them such a sweetness, to which 
 all wicked men are strangers. There is in the things of 
 God, to them which practise them, a deliciousness that 
 makes us love them, and that love admits us into God's 
 cabinet, and strangely clarifies the understanding by the 
 purification of the heart. For when our reason is raised 
 up by the spirit of Christ, it is turned quickly into experi- 
 ence ; when our faith relies upon the principles of Christ, 
 it is changed into vision ; and so long as we know God 
 only in the ways of man, — by contentious learning, by 
 arguing and dispute, — we see nothing but the shadow of 
 him ; and in that shadow we meet with many dark ap- 
 pearances, little certainty and much conjecture. But 
 when we know him with the eyes of holiness and the in- 
 tuition of gracious experiences, with a quiet spirit and 
 the peace of enjoyment, then we shall hear what we 
 never heard, and see what our eyes never saw. 
 
ttbttt) S>a£ 19 
 
 LOVE'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 |OVE hath four daughters. Their names are, 
 1. Mercy; 2. Beneficence, or well-doing ; 3. 
 Liberality ; and, 4. Alms ; which, by a spe- 
 cial privilege hath obtained to be called after 
 the mother's name, and is commonly called Charity. 
 The first, or eldest, is seated in the affection : and it is 
 that which all the other must attend ; for mercy without 
 alms is acceptable when the person is disabled to ex- 
 press outwardly what he heartily desires. But alms 
 without mercy are like prayers without devotion, or reli- 
 gion without humility. 2. Beneficence, or well-doing, is 
 a promptness and nobleness of mind, making us to da 
 offices of courtesy and humanity to all sorts of persons 
 in their need, or out of their need. 3. Liberality is a 
 disposition of mind opposite to covetousness, and con- 
 sists in the despite and neglect of money upon just oc- 
 casions, and relates to our friends, children, kindred, 
 servants, and other relatives. 4. But alms is a relieving 
 the poor and needy. — The first and the last only are 
 duties of Christianity. The second and third are cir- 
 cumstances and adjuncts of these duties ; for liberality 
 increases the degree of alms, making our gift greater; 
 and beneficence extends it to more persons and orders 
 of men, spreading it wider. 
 
20 jfouttb 2>a£ 
 
 MEDITATION AND SPECULATION. 
 
 ;EDITATION is the duty of all ; and there- 
 fore God hath fitted such matter for it 
 which is proportioned to every understand- 
 ing ; and the greatest mysteries of Christian- 
 ity are plainest, and yet most fruitful of meditation, and 
 most useful to the production of piety. High specula- 
 tions are as barren as the tops of cedars ; but the funda- 
 mentals of Christianity are fruitful as the valleys or the 
 creeping vine. For know that it is no meditation, but it 
 may be an illusion, when you consider mysteries to be- 
 come more learned, without thoughts of improving piety. 
 Let your affections be as high as they can climb towards 
 God, so your considerations be humble, fruitful, and 
 practically mysterious. " O that I had the wings of a 
 dove, that I might fly away and be at rest ! " said David. 
 The wings of an eagle would have carried him higher, 
 but yet the innocent dove did furnish him with the better 
 emblem to represent his humble design ; and lower med- 
 itations might sooner bring him to rest in God. 
 
fittb 2>as 21 
 
 WHAT WE SHOULD SEEK. 
 
 O not seek for deliciousness and sensible con- 
 solations in the actions of religion, but only- 
 regard the duty and the conscience of it ; for 
 although, in the beginning of religion most 
 frequently, and at some other times irregularly, God com- 
 plies with our infirmity, and encourages our duty with 
 little overflowings of spiritual joy, and sensible pleasure, 
 and delicacies in prayer, so as we seem to feel some little 
 beam of heaven and great refreshments from the spirit 
 of consolation, yet this is not always safe for us to have, 
 neither safe for us to expect and look for ; and when we 
 do, it is apt to make us cool in our inquiries and wait- 
 ings upon Christ when we want them : it is a running 
 after him, not for the miracles, but for the loaves ; not 
 for the wonderful things of God, and the desires of 
 pleasing him, but for the pleasures of pleasing ourselves. 
 And as we must not judge our devotion to be barren or 
 unfruitful when we want the overflowings of joy running 
 over, so neither must we cease for want of them. If our 
 spirits can serve God choosingly and greedily out of 
 pure conscience of our duty, it is better in itself and 
 more safe to us. 
 
22 Sijtb 2>a£ 
 
 THINGS THIEVES CANNOT STEAL. 
 
 F I did fall into the hands of thieves, yet 
 they did not steal my land. Or, I am fallen 
 into the hands of publicans or seques- 
 trators, and they have taken all from me : 
 what now ? let me look about me. They have left me 
 the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and 
 many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me, and I 
 can still discourse ; and, unless I list, they have not 
 taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful 
 spirit, and a good conscience : they still have left me 
 the providence of God, and all the promises of the 
 gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and 
 my charity to them, too ; and still I sleep and digest, I 
 eat and drink, I read and meditate ; I can walk in my 
 neighbor's pleasant fields, and see the varieties of natu- 
 ral beauties, and delight in all that in which God de- 
 lights ; that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole 
 creation, and in God himself. And he that has so 
 many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love 
 with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleas- 
 ures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of 
 thorns. 
 
Seventb 2>a£ 23 
 
 HOW TO DIE. 
 
 ND how if you were to die yourself? You 
 know you must. Only be ready for it by 
 the preparations of a good life ; and then it 
 is the greatest good that ever happened to 
 you; else there is nothing that can comfort you. But 
 if you have served God in a holy life, send away the 
 women and the weepers ; tell them it is as much intem- 
 perance to weep too much as to laugh too much ; and 
 when thou art alone, or with fitting company, die as 
 thou shouldest, but do not die impatiently, or like a fox 
 catched in a trap. For, if you fear death, you shall 
 never the more avoid it, but you make it miserable. 
 Fannius, that killed himself for fear of death, died as 
 certainly as Portia, that ate burning coals, or Cato, that 
 cut his own throat. To die is necessary and natural, 
 and it may be honorable ; but to die poorly and basely 
 and sinfully, that alone is it that can make a man unfor- 
 tunate. No man can be a slave but he that fears pain, 
 or fears to die. To such a man nothing but chance and 
 peaceable times can secure his duty, and he depends 
 upon things without for his felicity; and so it is well 
 but during the pleasure of his enemy, or a thief, or a 
 tyrant, or it may be of a dog or a wild bull. 
 
24 JBlgbtb 2>a£ 
 
 SPIRITUAL CAUTION. 
 
 ,ISE men do not often cut their fingers, and 
 yet every day they use a knife ; and a man's 
 eye is a tender thing, and everything can do 
 it wrong, and everything can put it out ; yet, 
 because we love our eyes so well, in the midst of so 
 many dangers, by God's providence, and a prudent 
 natural care, by winking when anything towards comes 
 against them, and by turning aside when a blow is offered, 
 they are preserved so certainly that not one man in ten 
 thousand does, by a stroke, lose one of his eyes in all his 
 lifetime. If we would transplant our natural care to a 
 spiritual caution, we might, by God's grace, be kept from 
 losing our souls as we are from losing our eyes; and, 
 because a perpetual watchfulness is our great defence, 
 and the perpetual presence of God's grace is our great 
 security, and that this grace never leaves us unless we 
 leave it, and the precept of a daily watchfulness is a 
 thing not only so reasonable, but in so many easy ways to 
 be performed, — we see upon what terms we may be 
 quit of our sins. 
 
*Untb 2>a£ 25 
 
 THE RUST OF TIME. 
 
 lET your employment be fitted to your person 
 and calling. Some there are that employ 
 their time in affairs infinitely below the dig- 
 nity of their person ; and, being called by 
 God or by the republic to help to bear great burdens, 
 and to judge a people, do enfeeble their understandings 
 and disable their persons by sordid and brutish business. 
 Thus Nero went up and down Greece, and challenged 
 the fiddlers at their trade. Acropus, a Macedonian 
 king, made lanterns. Harcatius, the king of Parthia, 
 was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed 
 needles. He that is appointed to minister in holy 
 things must not suffer secular affairs and sordid arts to 
 eat up great portions of his employment ; a clergyman 
 must not keep a tavern, nor a judge be an innkeeper; 
 and it was a great idleness in Theophylact, the patri- 
 arch, to spend his time in his stable of horses, when he 
 should have been in his study or the pulpit, or saying 
 his holy offices. Such employments are diseases of 
 labor, and the rust of time, which it contracts not by 
 lying still, but by dirty employment. 
 
26 Gentb 2>ag 
 
 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 ^^HERE is no greater charity in the world 
 than to save a soul, nothing that pleases God 
 better, nothing that can be in our hands 
 greater or more noble, nothing that can be 
 a more lasting and delightful honor, than that a perish- 
 ing soul — snatched from the flames of an intolerable 
 hell, and borne to heaven upon the wings of piety and 
 mercy by the ministry of angels and the graces of the 
 Holy Spirit — shall to eternal ages bless God and bless 
 thee ; him for the author and finisher of salvation, and 
 thee for the minister and charitable instrument. That 
 bright star must needs look pleasantly upon thy face 
 forever, which was by thy hand placed there, and, had 
 it not been for thy ministry, might have been a sooty 
 coal in the regions of sorrow. God hath given us all 
 some powers and ministries, by which we may promote 
 the great interest of souls : counsels and prayers, 
 preaching and writing, passionate desires and fair exam- 
 ples, going before others in the way of godliness, and 
 bearing the torch before them, that they may see the 
 way and walk in it. 
 
Bleventb Da£ 27 
 
 THE KEY OF THE DAY. 
 
 LL that have a care to walk with God fill 
 their vessels more largely as soon as they 
 rise, before they begin the work of the day, 
 and before they lie down again at night : 
 which is to observe what the Lord appointed in the 
 Levitical ministry, a morning and an evening lamb to be 
 laid upon the altar. So with them that are not stark ir- 
 religious, prayer is the key to open the day, and the bolt 
 to shut in the night. But as the skies drop the early 
 dew and the evening dew upon the grass, — yet it would 
 not spring and grow green by that constant and double 
 falling of the dew, unless some great showers, at certain 
 seasons, did supply the rest, — so the customary devotion 
 of prayer, twice a day, is the falling of the early and the 
 latter dew ; but if you will increase and flourish in the 
 works of grace, empty the great clouds sometimes, and 
 let them fall into a full shower of prayer : choose out the 
 seasons in your own discretion, when prayer shall over- 
 flow like Jordan in the time of harvest. 
 
28 Gwelftb S)a£ 
 
 TREADING WHERE HE TROD. 
 
 T is reported that St. Wenceslaus, one winter 
 night going to his devotions, in a remote 
 church, barefooted in the snow and sharp- 
 ness of unequal and pointed ice, his servant 
 Podavivus, who waited upon his master's piety, and 
 endeavored to imitate his affections, began to faint 
 through the violence of the snow and cold, till the king 
 commanded him to follow him, and set his feet in the 
 same footsteps, which his feet should mark for him. 
 The servant did so, and either fancied a cure, or found 
 one ; for he followed his prince, helped forward with 
 shame and zeal to his imitation, and by the forming 
 footsteps for him in the snow. In the same manner does 
 the blessed Jesus ; for, since our way is troublesome, 
 obscure, full of objection and danger, apt to be mis- 
 taken and to affright our industry, he commands us to 
 mark his footsteps, to tread where his feet have stood, 
 and not only invites us forward by the argument of his 
 example ; but he hath trodden down much of the 
 difficulty, and made the way easier, and fit for our feet. 
 
Gbtrteentb Dae 29 
 
 A SPIRIT OF REJOICING. 
 
 HE hope of life eternal can never fail us, and 
 the joy of that is great enough to make us 
 suffer anything, or to do anything. To 
 death, to bands, to poverty, to banishment, 
 to tribunals, any whither in hope of life eternal ; as long 
 as this anchor holds, we may suffer a storm, but cannot 
 suffer shipwreck. And I desire you, by the way, to 
 observe how good a God we serve, and how excellent 
 a religion Christ taught, when one of his great precepts 
 is, that we should "rejoice and be exceeding glad." 
 And God hath given us the spirit of rejoicing, not a 
 sullen, melancholy spirit, not the spirit of bondage or of 
 a slave, but the spirit of his Son, consigning as by a 
 holy conscience to " joys unspeakable and full of glory." 
 And from hence you may also infer that those who sink 
 under a persecution, or are impatient in a sad accident, 
 they put out their own fires which the Spirit of the Lord 
 hath kindled, and lose those glories which stand behind 
 the cloud. 
 
3° JPourteentb 2>a£ 
 
 WHAT GOD REQUIRES. 
 
 HAT would you do if God should command 
 you to kill your eldest son, or to work in the 
 mines for a thousand years together, or to 
 fast all your lifetime with bread and water ? 
 Were not heaven a very great bargain even after all this ? 
 And, when God requires nothing of us but to live 
 soberly, justly, and godly (which things themselves are 
 to a man a very great felicity, and necessary to our 
 present well-being), shall we think this to be an intoler- 
 able burden, and that heaven is too little a purchase at 
 that price ; and that God, in mere justice, will take a 
 deathbed sigh or groan, and a few unprofitable tears 
 and promises, in exchange for all our duty ? 
 
 If these motives, joined together with our own interest 
 (even as much as felicity, and the sight of God, and the 
 avoiding the intolerable pains of hell, and many inter- 
 medial judgments, come to), will not move us to leave, 
 t. the filthiness, and, 2. the trouble, and, 3. the uneasi- 
 ness, and, 4. the unreasonableness of sin, and turn to 
 God, there is no more to be said ; we must perish in our 
 folly. 
 
f iftcentb B)a^ 3 1 
 
 THE BITTER SWEET. 
 
 ,HEN anything happens to our displeasure, 
 let us endeavor to take off its trouble by 
 turning it into spiritual or artificial advan- 
 tage, and handle it on that side in which it 
 may be useful to the designs of reason ; for there is 
 nothing but hath a double handle, or at least we have 
 two hands to apprehend it. When an enemy reproaches 
 us, let us look on him as an impartial relator of our 
 faults, for he will tell thee truer than thy fondest friend 
 will. " The ox, when he is weary, treads surest ; " and, 
 if there be nothing else in the disgrace but that it 
 makes us to walk warily, and tread sure for fear of our 
 enemies, that is better than to be flattered into pride 
 and carelessness. This is the charity of Christian phil- 
 osophy, which expounds the sense of the divine provi- 
 dence fairly, and reconciles us to it by a charitable 
 construction ; and we may as well refuse all physic, if 
 we consider it only as unpleasant in the taste ; but so, 
 also, we may be in charity, with every unpleasant acci- 
 dent, because, though it taste bitter, it is intended for 
 health and medicine. 
 
32 
 
 Sfjteentb 2>a& 
 
 HOW TO RECKON LIFE. 
 
 E that can look upon death, and see its face 
 with the same countenance with which he 
 hears its story ; that can endure all the la- 
 bors of his life with his soul supporting his 
 body ; that can equally despise riches when he hath them 
 and when he hath them not; that never thinks his char- 
 ity expensive if a worthy person be the receiver ; he that 
 does nothing for opinion's sake, but everything for con- 
 science, being as curious of his thoughts as of his act- 
 ings in markets and theatres, and is as much in awe of 
 himself as of an whole assembly; he that knows God 
 looks on, and contrives his secret affairs as in the pres- 
 ence of God and his holy angels ; that eats and drinks 
 because he needs it, not that he may serve a lust or load 
 his belly ; he that is bountiful and cheerful to his 
 friends, and charitable and apt to forgive his enemies ; 
 that loves his country, and obeys his prince, and desires 
 and endeavors nothing more than that he may do honor 
 to God, this person may reckon his life to be the life of 
 a man, and compute his months, not by the course of the 
 sun, but by the zodiac and circle of his virtues. 
 
Seventeentb 2>a£ 
 
 33 
 
 fs& 
 
 THE CHEMISTRY OF FAITH. 
 
 ( E that gave us Christ hath given us all things 
 with him. As it is true to say that Mat- 
 thew left all to follow Christ, so it is as 
 true that he got all that can be wished by 
 following him. 
 
 It is the chemistry of faith (let me use that word) to 
 turn all things into good and precious ore. It is Abra- 
 ham's country in a strange land ; Jacob's wages, when 
 Laban defrauded him ; Moses' honor, when he refused 
 to be the son-in-law of Pharaoh's daughter ; Rahab's se- 
 curity, when all Jericho besides did perish ; David's 
 rescue, when there was but a step between him and 
 death ; the power of the apostles, to be able to cast out 
 devils ; Mary Magdalen's sweet ointment, to take away 
 the ill savor of her sins. Plead, therefore, with the ora- 
 tory of faith, and say, " Lord, I have no life but in thee ; 
 I have no joy but in thee, no salvation but in thee ; but 
 I have all these in thee, and how can my soul refuse to 
 be comforted ? " 
 
34 JEtgbteentb £>a£ 
 
 A PRAYER FOR GUIDANCE. 
 
 E ARE ST Jesus, suffer no unclean spirit or 
 unholy thought to come near thy dwelling, 
 lest it defile the ground where thy holy feet 
 have trod. O teach me so to walk that I 
 may never disrepute the honor of my religion, or stain 
 the holy robe which thou hast now put upon my soul, 
 nor break my holy vows, which I have made and thou 
 hast sealed, nor lose my right of inheritance, my privi- 
 lege of being co-heir with Jesus, into the hope of which 
 I have now further entered. But be thou pleased to 
 love me with the love of a father and a brother and a 
 husband and a lord ; and make me to serve thee in the 
 communion of saints, in receiving the sacrament, in the 
 practice of all holy virtues, in the imitation of thy life 
 and conformity to thy sufferings ; that I, having now 
 put on the Lord Jesus, may marry his loves and his en- 
 mities, may desire his glory, and may obey his laws, and 
 be united to his spirit, and in the day of the Lord I may 
 be found having on the wedding garment, and bearing 
 in my body and soul the marks of the Lord Jesus, that I 
 may enter into the joy of my Lord, and partake of his 
 glories forever and ever. Amen. 
 
Iftfneteentb 5>a£ 35 
 
 PRAYING AND WORKING. 
 
 HATEVER we beg of God, let us also work 
 for it, if the thing be a matter of duty, or a 
 consequent to industry; for God loves to 
 bless labor and to reward it, but not to sup- 
 port idleness. And therefore our blessed Saviour in his 
 sermons joins watchfulness with prayer, for God's graces 
 are but assistances, not new creations of the whole habit, 
 in every instant or period of our life. Read Scriptures, 
 and then pray to God for understanding. Pray against 
 temptation ; but you must also resist the devil, and then- 
 he will flee from you. Ask of God competency of living ; 
 but you must also work with your hands the things that 
 are honest, that ye may have to supply in time of need. 
 We can but do our endeavor, and pray for blessing, and 
 then leave the success with God ; and beyond this we 
 cannot deliberate, we cannot take care ; but, so far, we 
 must. 
 
 To this purpose let every man study his prayers and 
 read his duty in his petitions. For the body of our 
 prayer is the sum of our duty, and as we must ask of 
 God whatsoever we need, so we must labor for all that 
 we ask. 
 
3 6 Gwentietb 2>ac 
 
 HOW TO PRAY. 
 
 E is rightly modest towards God, who, with- 
 out confidence in himself, but not without 
 confidence in God's mercy, or without 
 great humility of person and reverence of 
 address, presents his prayers to God as earnestly 
 as he can; provided always that in the greatest of 
 our desires and holy violence we submit to God's 
 will, and desire him to choose for us. Our modesty to 
 God in prayers hath no other measures but these: i. 
 Distrust of ourselves ; 2. Confidence in God; 3. Humil- 
 ity of person; 4. Reverence of address; and, 5. bub- 
 mission to God's will. These are all, unless you also will 
 add that of Solomon, " Be not rash with thy mouth, and 
 let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God ; 
 for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth : therefore let 
 thy words be few." These things being observed, let 
 your importunity be as great as it can ; it is still the 
 more likely to prevail, by how much it is the more ear- 
 nest, and signified and represented by the most offices 
 extraordinary. 
 
Gwent^fftst 2>a£ 37 
 
 LET GOD CHOOSE. 
 
 I S not all the world God's family ? Are not 
 we his creatures ? Are we not as clay in the 
 hand of the potter? Do we not live upon 
 his meat, and move by his strength, and do 
 our work by his light ? Are we anything but what we 
 are from him ? And shall there be a mutiny among the 
 flocks and herds because their lord or their shepherd 
 chooses their pastures, and suffers them not to wander 
 into deserts and unknown ways ? If we choose, we do 
 it so foolishly that we cannot like it long, and most 
 commonly not at all : but God, who can do what he 
 pleases, is wise to choose safely for us, affectionate to 
 comply with our needs, and powerful to execute all his 
 wise decrees. Here, therefore, is the wisdom of the 
 contented man, to let God choose for him ; for, when 
 we have given up our wills to him, and stand in that 
 station of the battle where our great General hath 
 placed us, our spirits must needs rest while our condi- 
 tions have for their security the power, the wisdom, and 
 the charity of God. 
 
 Contentedness in all accidents brings great peace of 
 spirit, and is the great and only instrument of temporal 
 felicity. 
 
38 - Gwent^seconD 2>a£ 
 
 TRIFLING TROUBLES. 
 
 ID ever any man upon the rack afflict him- 
 self because he had received a cross answer 
 from his mistress ? or call for the particulars 
 of a purchase upon the gallows? If thou 
 dost really believe thou shalt be damned, I do not say it 
 will cure the sadness of thy poverty, but it will swallow 
 it up. But if thou belie vest thou shalt be saved, con- 
 sider how great is that joy, how infinite is that change, 
 how unspeakable is the glory, how excellent is the rec- 
 ompense for all the sufferings in the world, if they 
 were all laden upon the spirit ! So that, let thy condi- 
 tion be what it will, if thou considerest thy own present 
 condition, and comparest it to thy future possibility, 
 thou canst not feel the present smart of a cross fortune 
 to any great degree, either because thou hast a far big- 
 ger sorrow or a far bigger joy. Here thou art but a 
 stranger travelling to thy country, where the glories of 
 a kingdom are prepared for thee ; it is therefore a huge 
 folly to be much afflicted because thou hast a less con- 
 venient inn to lodge in by the way. 
 
GwentiMbirD 2>a£ 39 
 
 FAITH AND WORKS. 
 
 !T. JAMES'S sign is the best : " Show me 
 thy faith by thy works." Faith makes the 
 merchant diligent and venturous, and that 
 makes him rich. Ferdinando of Arragon 
 believed the story told him by Columbus, and therefore 
 he furnished him with ships, and got the West Indies 
 by faith in the undertaker. But Henry the Seventh of 
 England believed him not; and therefore trusted him 
 not with shipping, and lost all the purchase of that 
 faith. It is told us by Christ, " He that forgives shall 
 be forgiven " ; if we believe this, it is certain we shall 
 forgive our enemies, for none of us all but need and 
 desire to be forgiven. No man could work a day's 
 labor without faith ; but because he believes he shall 
 have his wages at the day's or week's end, he does his 
 duty. But he only believes who does that thing which 
 other men, in like cases, do when they do believe. He 
 that believes money gotten with danger is better than pov- 
 erty with safety, will venture for it in unknown lands or 
 seas ; and so will he that believes it better to get to 
 heaven with labor than to go to hell with pleasure. 
 
4° Gwent^tourtb 2)a^ 
 
 NEVER DESPAIR. 
 
 EMEMBER that despair belongs only to 
 passionate fools or villains, such as were 
 Achitophel and Judas, or else to devils and 
 damned persons ; and, as the hope of salva- 
 tion is a good disposition toward it, so is despair a 
 certain consignation to eternal ruin. A man may be 
 damned for despairing to be saved. Despair is the 
 proper passion of damnation. " God hath placed truth 
 and felicity in heaven, curiosity and repentance upon 
 earth ; but misery and despair are the portions of hell." 
 Gather together into your spirit and its treasure-house, 
 the memory, not only all the promises of God, but also 
 the remembrances of experience and the former senses 
 of divine favors, that from thence you may argue from 
 times past to the present, and enlarge to the future and 
 to greater blessings. For, although the conjectures and 
 expectations of hope are not like the conclusions of 
 faith, yet they are a helmet against the scorchings of 
 despair in temporal things, and an anchor of the soul, 
 sure and steadfast, against the fluctuations of the spirit 
 in matters of the soul. 
 
GwentiHiftb 2>a£ 41 
 
 WANDERING THOUGHTS. 
 
 F we feel our spirits apt to wander in our 
 prayers, and to retire into the world, or to 
 things unprofitable, or vain and impertinent, 
 use prayer to be assisted in prayer. Pray 
 for the spirit of supplication, for a sober, fixed, and re- 
 collected spirit ; and when to this you add a moral 
 industry to be steady in your thoughts, whatsoever wan- 
 derings after this do return irremediably are a misery of 
 nature and an imperfection, but no sin, while it is not 
 cherished and indulged to. 
 
 In private it is not amiss to attempt the cure by re- 
 ducing your prayers into collects and short forms of 
 prayers, making voluntary interruptions, and beginning 
 again, that the want of spirit and breath may be sup- 
 plied by the short stages and periods. 
 
 When you have observed any considerable wander- 
 ings of your thoughts, bind yourself to repeat that 
 prayer again with actual attention, or else revolve the 
 full sense of it in your spirit, and repeat it in all the 
 effect and desires of it : and possibly the tempter may 
 be driven away with his own art. 
 
4 2 GwentE*sf£tb Da? 
 
 THE LESSON OF NINUS. 
 
 O my apprehension, it is a sad record which 
 jj| is left by Athenaeus concerning Ninus, the 
 great Assyrian monarch, whose life and 
 death are summed up in these words: "Ni- 
 nus, the Assyrian, had an ocean of gold, and other 
 riches, more than the sand in the Caspian Sea ; he 
 never saw the stars, and perhaps he never desired it; 
 he never stirred up the holy fire among the Magi, nor 
 touched his god with the sacred rod according to the 
 laws; he never offered sacrifice, nor worshipped the 
 deity, nor administered justice, nor spake to his people, 
 nor numbered them ; but he was most valiant to eat and 
 drink, and, having mingled his wines, he threw the rest 
 upon the stones. This man is dead ; behold his sepul- 
 chre ; and now hear where Ninus is. Sometime I was 
 Ninus, and drew the breath of a living man; but now 
 am nothing but clay. I have nothing but what I did 
 eat, and what I served to myself in lust ; that was and 
 is all my portion. The wealth with which I was es- 
 teemed blessed, my enemies, meeting together, shall 
 bear away. I am gone to hell; and, when I went 
 thither, I neither carried gold, nor horse, nor silver 
 chariot. I that wore a mitre am now a little heap of 
 dust." 
 
GwentE^seventb Ba£ 43 
 
 A SECRET OF PRAYER. 
 
 RAY often, and you shall pray oftener ; and, 
 when you are accustomed to a frequent de- 
 votion, it will so insensibly unite to your 
 nature and affections that it will become 
 trouble to omit your usual or appointed prayers; and 
 what you obtain at first by doing violence to your incli- 
 nations, at last will not be left without as great unwilling- 
 ness as that by which at first it entered. This rule 
 relies not only upon reason derived from the nature of 
 habits, which turn into a second nature, and make their 
 actions easy, frequent, and delightful ; but it relies upon 
 a reason depending upon the nature and constitution of 
 grace, whose productions are of the same nature with 
 the parent, and increases itself, naturally growing from 
 grains to huge trees, from minutes to vast proportions, 
 and from moments to eternity. But be sure not to omit 
 your usual prayers without great reason, because after 
 you have omitted something, in a little while you will be 
 past the scruple of that, and begin to be tempted to 
 leave out more. Keep yourself up to your usual forms ; 
 you may enlarge when you will ; but do not contract or 
 lessen them without a very profitable reason. 
 
44 XLvoenty*eiQbtb JDav 
 
 GOD'S SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 HAT providence which governs all the world 
 is nothing else but God present by his prov- 
 idence, and God is in our hearts by his 
 laws ; he rules in us by his substitute, our 
 conscience. God sits there and gives us laws ; and, as 
 God said to Moses, " I have made thee a god to Pha- 
 raoh," that is, to give him laws, and to minister in the 
 execution of those laws, and to inflict angry sentences 
 upon him ; so hath God done to us. He hath given us 
 conscience to be in God's stead to us, to give us laws, 
 and to exact obedience to those laws, to punish them 
 that prevaricate, and to reward the obedient. And 
 therefore conscience is called " the household guard- 
 ian," " the domestic god," " the spirit or angel of the 
 place " ; and, when we call God to witness, we only 
 mean that our conscience is right, and that God and 
 God's vicar, our conscience, know it. So Lactantius : 
 " Let him remember that he hath God for his witness, 
 that is, as I suppose, his mind ; than which God hath 
 given to man nothing that is more divine." In sum, it 
 is the image of God. 
 
Gwent^nintb 2>ai> 45 
 
 HOW TO KNOW GOD'S WILL. 
 
 |E find in Holy Scripture that to obey God, 
 and to love him, is the way to understand 
 the mysteries of the kingdom. If ye will 
 obey, then shall ye understand ; and it was 
 a rare saying of our blessed Saviour, and is of great 
 use and confidence to all who inquire after the truth of 
 God, in the midst of these sad divisions of Christendom, 
 " If any man will do his will, he shall know whether the 
 doctrine be of God or no." It is not fineness of dis- 
 course, nor the sharpness of arguments, nor the witty 
 rencounters of disputing men, that can penetrate into 
 the mysteries of faith ; the poor humble man that prays 
 and inquires simply, and listens attentively, and sucks in 
 greedily, and obeys diligently, he is the man that shall 
 know the mind of the Spirit. And therefore St. Paul 
 observes that the sermons of the cross were " foolish- 
 ness to the Greeks " ; and consequently, by way of up- 
 braiding, he inquires, " Where is the wise man ? where 
 is the scribe ? where is the disputer of the world ? God 
 hath made the wisdom of the world foolishness." 
 
46 Gbirtietb ©as 
 
 BEING HONEST WITH OURSELVES. 
 
 ,E are to suspect our conscience to be misin- 
 formed when we are not willing to inquire 
 into the particulars. He that searches, de- 
 sires to find, and so far takes the right 
 course ; for truth can never hurt a man, though it may- 
 prejudice his vice and his affected folly. In the in- 
 quiries after truth every man should have a traveller's 
 indifferency, wholly careless whether this or that be the 
 right way, so he may find it. For we are not to choose 
 the way because it looks fair, but because it leads surely. 
 And to this purpose, the most hearty and particular in- 
 quest is most prudent and effective. But we are afraid 
 of truth when we will not inquire ; that is, when the 
 truth is against our interest or passion, our lust or folly, 
 seemingly against us, in the present indisposition of our 
 affairs. 
 
 He that resolves upon the conclusion before the prem- 
 ises, inquiring into particulars to confirm his opinion at 
 a venture, not to shake it if it be false, or to establish it 
 only in case it be true, unless he be defended by chance, 
 is sure to mistake, or at least can never be sure whether 
 he does or no. 
 
Gbfrt^ffrst 2>a£ 47 
 
 HOW TO FIND COMFORT IN RELIGION. 
 
 ,OME persons there are who dare not sin ; 
 they dare not omit their hours of prayer, 
 and they are restless in their spirits till they 
 have done ; but they go to it as to execution. 
 They stay from it as long as they can, and they drive, 
 like Pharaoh's chariots, with the wheels off, sadly and 
 heavily. And, besides that, such persons have reserved 
 to themselves the best part of their sacrifice, and do 
 not give their will to God ; they do not love him with 
 all their heart ; they are, also, soonest tempted to retire 
 and fall off. But he that is " grown in grace," and hath 
 made religion habitual to his spirit, is not at ease but 
 when he is doing the works of the new man. He rests 
 in religion, and comforts his sorrows with thinking of 
 his prayers ; and in all crosses of the world he is 
 patient, because his joy is at hand to refresh him when 
 he list, for he cares not, so he may serve God ; and, if 
 you make him poor here, he is rich there, and he counts 
 that to be his proper service, his work, his recreation, 
 and reward. 
 

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