Show the light of thy countenance upon thy servant; and I shall be safe."

:

Direct me in thy truth, and teach me; for thou art my Saviour, and my great Master.h

Keep me from sin and death eternal, and from 'my enemies visible and invisible.

Give me grace to live a holy life, and thy favour, that I may die a godly and happy death. Lord, hear the prayer of thy servant, and give me thy Holy Spirit.

The Prayer. I.

O eternal God, merciful and gracious, vouchsafe thy favour and thy blessing to thy servant: let the love of thy mercies, and the dread and fear of thy majesty, make me careful and inquisitive to search thy will, and diligent to perform it, and to persevere in the practices of a holy life, even till the last of my days.

II.

Keep me, O Lord, for I am thine by creation; guide me, for I am thine by purchase: thou hast redeemed me by the blood of thy Son; and loved me with the love of a father, for I am thy child by adoption and grace: let thy mercy pardon my sins, thy providence secure me from the punishments and evils I have deserved, and thy care watch over me, that I may never any more offend thee: make me, in malice, to be a child; but in understanding, piety, and the fear of God, let me be a perfect man in Christ, innocent and prudent, readily furnished and instructed to every good work.

III.

Keep me, O Lord, from the destroying angel, and from the wrath of God: let thy anger never rise against me, but thy rod gently correct my follies, and guide me in thy ways, and thy staff support me in all sufferings and changes. Preserve me from fracture of bones, from noisome, infectious, and sharp sicknesses; from great violences of fortune and sudden surprises: keep all my senses entire till the day of my death, and let my death be neither sudden, untimely, nor unprovided: let it be after the common manner of men, having in it nothing extraordinary, but an extraordinary piety, and the manifestation of thy great and miraculous mercy.

V.

Give me a tender conscience; a conversation discreet and affable, modest and patient, liberal and obliging; a body chaste and healthful, competency of living according to my condition, contentedness in all estates, a resigned will and mortified affertions that I may be, as thou wouldst have me, and my portion may be in the lot of the righteous, in the brightness of thy countenance, and the glories of eternity. Amen.

Holy is our God. Holy is the Almighty. Holy is the Immortal. Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth, have mercy upon me.

A form of Prayer for the Evening, to be said by such, who have not time or opportunity to say the public prayers appointed for this office.

I.

Evening Prayer.

O eternal God, great Father of men and angels, who hast established the heavens and the earth in a wonderful order, making day and night to succeed each other; I make my humble address to thy Divine Majesty, begging of thee mercy and protection this night and ever. O Lord, pardon all my sins, my light and rash words, the vanity and impiety of my thoughts, my unjust and uncharitable actions, and whatsoever I have transgressed against thee this day, or at any time before. Behold, O God, my soul is troubled in the remembrance of my sins, in the frailty and sinfulness of my flesh, exposed to every temptation, and of itself not able to resist any. Lord God of mercy, I earnestly beg of thee to give me a great portion of thy grace, such as may be sufficient and effectual for the mortification of all my sins and vanities and disorders: that as I have formerly served my lust and unworthy desires, so now I may give myself up wholly to thy service and the studies of a holy life.

II.

Blessed Lord, teach me frequently and sadly to remember my sins; and be thou pleased to remember them no more : let me never forget thy mercies, and do thou still remember to do me good. Teach me to walk always as in thy presence; ennoble my soul with great degrees of love to thee, and consign my spirit with great fear, religion, and veneration of thy holy name and laws; that it may become the great employment of my whole life to serve thee, to advance thy glory, to root out all the accursed habits of sin; that in holiness of life, in humility, in charity, in chastity, and all the ornaments of grace, I may, by patience, wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

h Psal. xxv. 5.

III.

Teach me, O Lord, to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom; ever to remember my last end, that I may not dare to sin against thee. Let thy holy angels be ever present with me to keep me in all my ways, from the malice and violence of the spirits of darkness, from evil company, and the occasions and opportunities of evil, from perishing in popular judgments, from all the ways of sinful shame, from the hands of all mine enemies, from a sinful life, and from despair in the day of my death. Then, O brightest Jesu, chine gloriously upon me; let thy mercies and the light of thy countenance sustain me in all my agonies, weaknesses, and temptations. Give me opportunity of a prudent and spiritual guide; and of receiving the holy sacrament, and let thy loving Spirit so guide me in the ways of peace and safety, that with the testimony of a good conscience and the sense of thy mercies and refreshment, I may depart this life in the unity of the church, in the love of God, and a certain hope of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord and most blessed Saviour. Amen.

Our Father, &c.

II.

Into thy hands, most blessed Jesu, I commend my soul and body, for thou hast redeemed both with thy precious blood. So bless and sanctify my sleep unto me, that it may be temperate, holy, and safe, a refreshment to my wearied body, to enable it so to serve my soul, that both may serve thee with a never-failing duty. O let me never sleep in sin or death eternal, but give me a watchful and a prudent spirit, that I may omit no opportunity of serving thee; that whether I sleep or wake, live or die, I may be thy servant and thy child: that when the work of my life is done, I may rest in the bosom of my Lord, till by the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, I shall be awakened, and called to sit down and feast in the eternal supper of the Lamb. Grant this, O Lamb of God, for the honour of thy mercies, and the glory of thy name, O most merciful Saviour and Redeemer Jesus. Amen.

III.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who hath sent his angels, and kept me this day from the destruction that walketh at noon, and the arrow that flieth by day; and hath given me his Spirit to restrain me from those evils, to which my own

used at bed-time.

Our Father, &c.

enemies, would easily betray me. Blessed and for ever hallowed be thy name for that never-ceasing shower of blessing, by which I live, and am content

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee, will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is thy keeper, the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, neither the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul.

Glory be to the Father, &c.

I.

Visit, I beseech thee, O Lord, this habitation with thy mercy, and me with thy grace and salvation. Let thy holy angels pitch their tents round about and dwell here, that no illusion of the night may abuse me, the spirits of darkness may not come near to hurt me, no evil or sad accident oppress me; and let the eternal Spirit of the Father dwell in my soul and body, filling every corner of my heart with light and grace. Let no deed of darkness overtake me; and let thy blessing, most blessed God, be upon me for ever, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

makest me to dwell in safety.

O Father of spirits, and the God of all flesh, have mercy and pity upon all sick and dying christians, and receive the souls which thou hast redeemed returning unto thee.

Blessed are they that dwell in the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God does lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.1 And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle; for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.m

Meditate on Jacob's wrestling with the angel all night: be thou also importunate with God for a blessing, and give not over till he hath blessed thee. Meditate on the angel passing over the children of Israel, and destroying the Egyptians for disobe1 Rev. xxi. 23. m Rev. xxii. 5.

dience and oppression. Pray for the grace of obedience and charity, and for the Divine protection.

Meditate on the angel, who destroyed in a night the whole army of the Assyrians for fornication. Call to mind the sins of thy youth, the sins of thy bed; and say with David, "My reins chasten me in the night season, and my soul refuseth comfort." Pray for pardon and the grace of chastity.

Meditate on the agonies of Christ in the garden, his sadness and affliction all that night; and thank and adore him for his love, that made him suffer so much for thee; and hate thy sins, which made it necessary for the Son of God to suffer so much.

Meditate on the four last things. 1. The certainty of death. 2. The terrors of the day of judgment. 3. The joys of heaven. 4. The pains of hell; and the eternity of both.

Think upon all thy friends, who are gone before thee; and pray that God would grant to thee to meet them in a joyful resurrection.

Ad Sect. 2.

A Prayer for holy intention in the beginning and pursuit of any considerable action, as Study, Preaching, &c.

O eternal God, who hast made all things for man, and man for thy glory, sanctify my body and soul, my thoughts and my intentions, my words and actions, that whatsoever I shall think, or speak, or do, may be by me designed to the glorification of thy name; and by thy blessing it may be effective and successful 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, subordinate, and profitable, to ends beyond their own proper efficacy: and let no pride or self-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 glory here, I may be partaker of thy glory hereafter, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lord, in mercy remember thy servant in the day of judgment.

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

:

I desire the christian reader to observe, that all these 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 mayest have the comforts and rewards of devotion. But he that thinks this is too much, either is very busy in the world, or very careless of heaven. I have parted the prayers into smaller portions, that he may use which and how many he please in any one of the forms.

Ad Sect. 3.

presence.

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

O Almighty God, infinite and eternal, thou fillest all things with thy presence; thou art every where by thy essence 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 as in thy presence, to fear thy majesty, to reverence thy wisdom and omniscience; that I may never dare to commit any indecency in the eye of my Lord and my Judge; but that I may, with so much care and reverence, demean myself, 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 Christ. Amen.

cording to the apostle's arithmetic, hath but these three parts of it; 1. Sobriety, 2. Justice, 3. Religion. "For the grace of God bringing salvation hath 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 our Saviour Jesus Christ." The first contains all our deportment in our personal and private capacities, the fair treating of our bodies and our spirits. The second enlarges our duty in all relations to our neighbour. The third contains the offices of direct religion, and intercourse with God.

Christian sobriety is all that duty, that concerns ourselves 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 is a using severity, denial, and frustration of our appetite, when it grows unreasonable in any of these instances: the necessity of which we shall to best purpose understand, by considering the evil consequences of sensuality, effeminacy, or fondness after carnal pleasures.

Evil consequences 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 wandering; unapt for noble, wise, or spiritual employments; because the principles, upon which pleasure is chosen and pursued, are sottish, weak, and unlearned, such as prefer the body before the soul, the appetite before reason, sense before the spirit, the pleasures of a short abode before the pleasures of eternity.

2. The nature of sensual pleasure is vain, empty, and unsatisfying, biggest always in expectation, and a mere vanity in the enjoying, 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 sigh; and all the instances of pleasure have a sting in the tail, though they carry beauty on the face, and sweetness on the lip.

3. Sensual 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 freedom of his soul to be entangled and rifled.P

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 argument the apostle intimated: "He that striveth for masteries is temperate in all things: now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we, an incorruptible."

• Tu si animum vicisti potiùs quàm animus te, est quod gaudeas. Qui animum vincunt, quam quos animus, semper probiores cluent.-TRINUM. 2. 2. 29.

• Μόνον σκέψαι ποσου πωλεῖς τὴν σεαυτοῦ προαίρεσιν, ἄνθρωπε εἰ μηδὲν ἄλλο, μὴ ὀλίγου αὐτὴν πωλήσῃς.-ΑκRIAN. c. 2. 1. i.

5. It is by a certain consequence the greatest impediment in the world to martyrdom: 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.

Against 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 sensuality: and it consists in the internal faculties of will and understanding, decreeing and declaring against them, disapproving and disliking 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 consists in prayer, in fasting, in cheap diet, and hard lodging, and laborious exercises, and avoiding occasions, and using all arts and industry of fortifying the spirit, and making it severe, manly, and christian.

S

3. Spiritual pleasure is the highest degree of sobriety and in the same degree, in which we relish and are in love with spiritual delights, the hidden manna, with the sweetness of devotion, with the joys of thanksgiving, with rejoicing in the Lord, with the comforts of hope, with the deliciousness of charity and alms-deeds, with the sweetness of a good conscience, with the peace of meekness, and the felicities of a contented spirit: in the same degree we disrelish and loathe the husks of swinish lusts, and the parings of the apples of Sodom; and the taste of sinful pleasures is unsavoury as the drunkard's vomit.

Rules for suppressing Voluptuousness.

The precepts and advices, which are of best and of general use in the curing of sensuality, are these:

1. Accustom thyself to cut off all superfluity in the provisions of thy life, for our desires will enlarge beyond the present possession, so long as all the things of this world are unsatisfying: if therefore you suffer them to extend beyond the measures of necessity or moderated conveniency, they will still swell: but you reduce them to a little compass, when you make nature to be your limit. We must more take care that our desires should cease, than that they should be satisfied: and therefore reducing them to narrow scantlings and small proportions is the best instrument to redeem their trouble, and prevent the dropsy, because that is next to a universal denying them it is certainly a paring off from them all unreasonableness and irregularity. "For whatsoever covets unseemly things, and is apt to swell into an inconvenient bulk, is to be chastened

:

4 θέλεις ὀλύμπια νικῆσαι; Δεῖ σ' εὐτακτεῖν, ἀναγκοτροφεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι πεμμάτων γυμνάζεσθαι πρὸς ἀνάγκην, &c. -EPICT. C. 29. 2. ed. Schw.

1 Cor. ix. 25. Apoc. ii. 17. Desideria tua parvo redime; hoc enim tantum curare debes, ut desinant.-SENEC.

and tempered and such are sensuality, and a boy," u said the philosopher.

V

2. Suppress your sensual desires in their first approach; for then they are least, and thy faculties and election are stronger: but if they, in their weakness, prevail upon thy strengths, there will be no resisting them, when they are increased and thy abilities lessened. "You shall scarce obtain of them to end, if you suffer them to begin." 3. Divert them with some laudable employment, and take off their edge by inadvertency, or a not attending to them. For since the faculties of a man cannot, at the same time, with any sharpness, attend to two objects, if you employ your spirit upon a book or a bodily labour, or any innocent and indifferent employment, you have no room left for the present trouble of a sensual temptation. For to this sense it was, that Alexander told the queen of Caria, that his tutor Leonidas had provided two cooks for him;w "Hard marches all night, and a small dinner the next day" these tamed his youthful aptnesses to dissolution, so long as he ate of their provisions.

4. Look upon pleasures, not upon that side that is next the sun, or where they look beauteously; that is, as they come towards you to be enjoyed, for then they paint, and smile, and dress themselves up in tinsel and glass, gems and counterfeit imagery: but when thou hast rifled and discomposed them with enjoying their false beauties, and that they begin to go off, then behold them in their nakedness and weariness. See what a sigh and sorrow, what naked unhandsome proportions, and a filthy carcass, they discover; and the next time they counterfeit, remember what you have already discovered, and be no more abused. And I have known some wise persons have advised to cure the passions and longings of their children by letting them taste of every thing they passionately fancied for they should be sure to find less in it than they looked for, and the impatience of their being denied would be loosened and made slack: and when our wishings are no bigger than the thing deserves, and our usages of them according to our needs, (which may be obtained by trying what they are, and what good they can do us,) we shall find in all pleasures so little entertainment, that the vanity of the possession will soon reprove the violence of the appetite. And if this permission be in innocent instances, it may be of good use: but Solomon tried it in all things, taking his fill of all pleasures, and soon grew weary of them all. The same thing we may do by reason, which we do by experience, if either we will look upon pleasures, as we are sure they look when they go off; after their enjoyment; or if we will credit the experience of those men, who have tasted them and loathed them.

5. Often consider and contemplate the joys of heaven, that, when they have filled thy desires which are the sails of the soul, thou mayest steer only thither, and never more look back to Sodom.

Lib. iii. Eth. c. 12. p. 129. ed Wilk.

Facilius est initia affectuum prohibere, quam impetum regere.-SENEC. ep. 86. * Νυκτιπορίαν καὶ ἐλιγαριστίαν.

And when thy soul dwells above, and looks down upon the pleasures of the world, they seem like things at distance, little and contemptible: and men running after the satisfaction of their sottish appetites seem foolish as fishes, thousands of them running after a rotten worm, that covers a deadly hook; or at the best but like children, with great noise pursuing a bubble rising from a walnut-shell, which ends sooner than the noise.

6. To this, the example of Christ and his apostles, of Moses, and all the wise men of all ages of the world, will much help; who understanding how to distinguish good from evil, did choose a sad and melancholy way to felicity, rather than the broad, pleasant, and easy path to folly and misery.

But this is but the general. Its first particular is temperance.

SECTION II.

Of Temperance in Eating and Drinking.

SOBRIETY is the bridle of the passions of desire, and temperance is the bit and curb of that bridle, a restraint put into a man's mouth, a moderate use of meat and drink, so as may best consist with our health, and may not hinder but help the works of the soul by its necessary supporting us, and ministering cheerfulness and refreshment.

Temperance consists in the actions of the soul principally; for it is a grace that chooses natural means in order to proper, and natural, and holy ends it is exercised about eating and drinking, because they are necessary; but therefore it permits the use of them, only as they minister to lawful ends; it does not eat and drink for pleasure, but for need, and for refreshment, which is a part or a degree of need. I deny not that eating and drinking may be, and in healthful bodies, always is, with pleasure; because there is in nature no greater pleasure, than that all the appetites, which God hath made, should be satisfied: and a man may choose a morsel that is pleasant, the less pleasant being rejected as being less useful, less apt to nourish, or more agreeing with an infirm stomach, or when the day is festival by order, or by private joy. In all these cases it is permitted to receive a more free delight, and to design it too, as the less principal: that is, that the chief reason why we choose the more delicious, be the serving that end, for which such refreshments and choices are permitted. But when delight is the only end, and rests itself, and dwells there long, then eating and drinking is not a serving of God, but an inordinate action; because it is not in the way to that end whither God directed it. But the choosing of a delicate before a more ordinary dish is to be done, as other human actions are, in which there are no degrees and pre

x Voluptates abeuntes fessas et pœnitentia plenas, animis nostris natura subjecit, quo minus cupide repetantur.-SENECA. Læta venire Venus, tristis abire solet.

* Εγκράτεια, ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐν κράτει ἔχειν τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν.