DIRECTIONS FOR EACH PARTICULAR MEMBER OF THE FAMILY HOW TO SPEND EVERY
ORDINARY DAY OF THE WEEK.
IT somewhat tendeth to make a holy life more easy to us, when we know
the ordinary course and method of our duties, and every thing falleth
into its proper place; as it helpeth the husbandman or tradesman to
know the ordinary course of his work, that he need not go out of it,
unless in extraordinary cases. Therefore I shall here give you some
brief directions for the holy spending of every day.
_Direct._ I. Proportion the time of your sleep aright, (if it be
in your power,) that you waste not your precious morning hours
sluggishly in your bed. Let the time of your sleep be rationally
fitted to your health and labour, and not sensually to your slothful
pleasure. About six hours is meet for healthful people, and seven
hours for the less healthful, and eight for the more weak and aged,
ordinarily. The morning hours are to most the preciousest of all
the day, for all our duties; especially servants that are scanted of
time, must take it then for prayer, if possible, lest they have none
at all.
_Direct._ II. Let God have your first awaking thoughts: lift up
your hearts to him reverently and thankfully for the rest of the night
past, and briefly cast yourselves upon him for the following day; and
use yourselves so constantly to this, that your consciences may check
you, when common thoughts shall first intrude. And if you have a
bed-fellow to speak to, let your first speech be agreeable to your
thoughts. It will be a great help against the temptations that may
else surprise you, and a holy engagement of your hearts to God, for
all the day.
_Direct._ III. Resolve, that pride and the fashions of the times
shall never tempt you into such a garb of attire, as will make you
long in dressing you in the morning; but wear such clothing as is soon
put on. It is dear-bought bravery (or decency as they will needs call
it) which must cost every day an hour's or a quarter of an hour's time
extraordinary: I had rather go as the wild Indians, than have those
morning hours to answer for, as too many ladies and other gallants
have.
_Direct._ IV. If you are persons of quality you may employ a
child or servant to read a chapter in the Bible, while you are
dressing you, and eating your breakfast (if you eat any). Else you may
employ that time in some fruitful meditation, or conference with those
about you, as far as your necessary occasions do give leave: as, to
think or speak of the mercy of a night's rest, and of your renewed
time, and how many spent that night in hell, and how many in prison,
and how many in a colder, harder lodging, and how many in grievous
pain and sickness, weary of their beds and of their lives, and how
many in distracting terrors of their minds; and how many souls that
night were called from their bodies, to appear before the dreadful
God: and think how fast days and nights roll on! and how speedily your
last night and day will come! and observe what is wanting in the
readiness of your soul for such a time, and seek it presently without
delay.
_Direct._ V. If more necessary duties call you not away, let
secret prayer by yourself alone, or with your chamber-fellow, or both,
go before the common prayers of the family; and delay it not
causelessly, but if it may be, let it be first, before any other work
of the day. Yet be not formal and superstitious to your hours, as if
God had absolutely tied you to such a time: nor think it your duty to
pray once in secret, and once with your chamber-fellow, and once with
the family every morning, when more necessary duties call you off.
That hour is best for one, which is worst for another: to most,
private prayer is most seasonable as soon as they are up and clothed;
to others some other hour may be more free and fit. And those persons
that have not more necessary duties, may do well to pray at all the
opportunities before mentioned; but reading and meditation must be
allowed their time also; and the labours of your callings must be
painfully followed; and servants and poor people that are not at
liberty, or that have a necessity of providing for their families, may
not lawfully take so much time for prayer, as some others may;
especially the aged and weak that cannot follow a calling, may take
longer time. And ministers, that have many souls to look after, and
public work to do, must take heed of neglecting any of this, that they
may be longer and oftener in private prayer. Always remember that when
two duties are at once before you, and one must be omitted, that you
prefer that which, all things considered, is the greatest; and
understand what maketh a duty greatest. Usually that is greatest
which tendeth to the greatest good; yet sometimes that is greatest at
that time which cannot be done at another time, when others may.
Praying, in itself considered, is better than ploughing, or marketing,
or conference; and yet these may be greater than it in their proper
seasons; because prayer may be done at another time, when these
cannot.
_Direct._ VI. Let family worship be performed constantly and
seasonably, twice a day, at that hour which is freest in regard of
interruptions; not delaying it without just cause. But whenever it is
performed, be sure it be reverently, seriously, and spiritually done.
If greater duty hinder not, begin with a brief invocation of God's
name, and craving of his help and blessing through Christ; and then
read some part of the holy Scripture in order; and either help the
hearers to understand it and apply it, or if you are unable for that,
then read some profitable book to them for such ends; and sing a
psalm, (if there be enough to do it fitly,) and earnestly pour out
your souls in prayer. But if unavoidable occasions will not give way
to all this, do what you can, especially in prayer, and do the rest
another time; but pretend not necessity against any duty, when it is
but unwillingness or negligence. The lively performance of family
duties, is a principal means to keep up the power and interest of
godliness in the world; which all decays when these grow dead, and
slight, and formal.
_Direct._ VII. Renew the actual intention and remembrance of your
ultimate end, when you set yourselves to your day's work, or set upon
any notable business in the world. Let HOLINESS TO THE LORD be written
upon your hearts in all that you do. Do no work which you cannot
entitle God to, and truly say he set you about; and do nothing in the
world for any other ultimate end, than to please, and glorify, and
enjoy him. And remember that whatever you do, must be done as a means
to these, and as by one that is that way going on to heaven. All your
labour must be as the labour of a traveller, which is all for his
journey's end; and all your respect or affection to any place or thing
in your way, must be in respect to your attainment of the end; as a
traveller loveth a good way, a good horse, a good inn, a dry cloak, or
good company; but nothing must be loved here as your end or home. Lift
up your hearts to heaven and say, If this work and way did not tend
thither directly or indirectly, it were no work or way for me.
Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, 1 Cor. x. 31.
_Direct._ VIII. Follow the labours of your calling painfully and
diligently. From hence will follow many commodities. 1. You will show
that you are not sluggish, and servants to your flesh, as those that
cannot deny its ease; and you will further the mortification of all
fleshly lusts and desires, which are fed by ease and idleness. 2. You
will keep out idle thoughts from your mind, which swarm in the minds
of idle persons. 3. You will escape the loss of precious time, which
idle persons are daily guilty of. 4. You will be in a course of
obedience to God, when the slothful are in a constant sin of omission.
5. You may have the more time to spare for holy exercises, if you
follow your labour close when you are at it; when idle persons can
have no time for prayer or reading, because they lose it by loitering
at their work, and leave their business still behind-hand. 6. You may
expect God's blessing for the comfortable provision for yourselves and
families, and to have to give to them that need, when the slothful are
in want themselves, and cast by their want into abundance of
temptations, and have nothing to do good with. 7. And it will also
tend to the health of your bodies, which will make them the fitter for
the service of your souls. When slothfulness wasteth time, and health,
and estate, and wit, and grace, and all.[40]
_Direct._ IX. Be thoroughly acquainted with your corruptions and
temptations, and watch against them all the day; especially the most
dangerous sort of your corruptions, and those temptations which your
company or business will unavoidably lay before you.[41] Be still
watching and working against the master, radical sins of unbelief,
hypocrisy, selfishness, pride, sensuality, or flesh-pleasing, and the
inordinate love of earthly things. Take heed lest, under pretence of
diligence in your calling, you be drawn to earthly-mindedness, and
excessive cares or covetous designs for rising in the world. If you
are to trade or deal with others, take heed of selfishness, which
desireth to draw or save from others, as much as you can for
yourselves and your own advantage; take heed of all that savoureth of
injustice or uncharitableness in all your dealings with others. If you
converse with vain talkers, be still provided against the temptation
of vanity of talk. If you converse with angry persons, be still
fortified against their provocations. If you converse with wanton
persons, or such as are tempting those of the other sex, maintain that
modesty and necessary distance and cleanness of speech which the laws
of chastity require. If you have servants that are still faulty, be so
provided against the temptation, that their faults may not make you
faulty, and you may do nothing that is unseemly or unjust, but only
that which tendeth to their amendment. If you are poor, be still
provided against the temptations of poverty, that it bring not upon
you an evil far greater than itself. If you are rich, be most diligent
in fortifying your hearts against those more dangerous temptations of
riches, which very few escape. If you converse with flatterers or
those that much admire you, be fortified against swelling pride. If
you converse with those that despise and injure you, be fortified
against impatient, revengeful pride. These works at first will be very
difficult, while sin is in any strength; but when you have got an
habitual apprehension of the poisonous danger of every one of these
sins, and of the tendency of all temptations, your hearts will readily
and easily avoid them, without much tiring, thoughtfulness, and care;
even as a man will pass by a house infected with the plague, or go out
of the way, if he meet a cart or any thing that would hurt him.
_Direct._ X. When you are alone in your labours, improve the time
in practical, fruitful (not speculative and barren) meditations;
especially in heart work and heaven work: let your chiefest
meditations be on the infinite goodness and perfections of God, and
the life of glory, which in the love and praise of him you must live
for ever; and next let Christ, and the mysteries of grace in man's
redemption, be the matter of your thoughts; and next that your own
hearts and lives, and the rest before expressed, chap. xvi. direct.
vi. If you are able to manage meditations methodically it will be
best; but if you cannot do that, without so much striving as will
confound you, and distract you, and cast you into melancholy, it is
better let your meditations be more short and easy, like ejaculatory
prayers; but let them usually be operative to do some good upon your
hearts.
_Direct._ XI. If you labour in company with others, be provided with
matter, skill, resolution, and zeal, to improve the time in profitable
conference, and to avoid diversions, as is directed, chap. xvi.
_Direct._ XII. Whatever you are doing, in company or alone, let
the day be spent in the inward excitation and exercise of the graces
of the soul, as well as in external bodily duties. And to that end
know, that there is no external duty, but must have some internal
grace to animate it, or else it is but an image or carcass, and
unacceptable to God. When you are praying and reading, there are the
graces of faith, desire, love, repentance, &c. to be exercised there:
when you are alone, meditation may help to actuate any grace as you
find most needful: when you are conferring with others, you must
exercise love to them, and love to that truth about which you do
confer, and other graces as the subject shall require: when you are
provoked or under suffering you have patience to exercise. But
especially it must be your principal daily business, by the exercise
of faith, to keep your hearts warm in the love of God and your dear
Redeemer, and in the hopes and delightful thoughts of heaven. As the
means are various and admit of deliberation and choice, because they
are to be used but as means, and not all at once, but sometimes one,
and sometimes another, when the end is still the same and past
deliberation or choice; so all those graces which are but means, must
be used thus variously, and with deliberation and choice; when the
love of God and of eternal life must be the constant tenor and
constitution of the mind, as being the final grace, which consisteth
with the exercise of every other mediate grace. Never take up with
lip-labour or bodily exercise alone, nor barren thoughts, unless your
hearts be also employed in a course of duty, and holy breathings after
God, or motion towards him, or in the sincere internal part of the
duty which you perform to men: justice and love are graces which you
must still exercise towards all that you have to deal with in the
world. Love is called the fulfilling of the law, Rom. xiii. 10;
because the love of God and man is the soul of every outward duty, and
a cause that will bring forth these as its effects.
_Direct._ XIII. Keep up a high esteem of time; and be every day
more careful that you lose none of your time, than you are that you
lose none of your gold or silver; and if vain recreations, dressings,
feastings, idle talk, unprofitable company, or sleep, be any of them
temptations to rob you of any of your time, accordingly heighten your
watchfulness and firm resolutions against them. Be not more careful to
escape thieves and robbers, than to escape that person, or action, or
course of life, that would rob you of any of your time. And for the
redeeming of time, especially see, not only that you be never idle,
but also that you be doing the greatest good that you can do, and
prefer not a less before a greater.
_Direct._ XIV. Eat and drink with temperance and thankfulness;
for health, and not for unprofitable pleasure. For quantity, most
carefully avoid excess; for many exceed, for one that taketh too
little. Never please your appetite in meat or drink, when it tendeth
to the detriment of your health. Prov. xxxi. 4, 6, "It is not for
kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink.--Give strong drink
to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of heavy
hearts." Eccles. x. 16, 17, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a
child, and thy princes eat in the morning! Blessed art thou, O land,
when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season,
for strength and not for drunkenness!" Then must poorer men also take
heed of intemperance and excess. Let your diet incline rather to the
coarser than the finer sort, and to the cheaper than the costly sort,
and to sparing abstinence than to fulness. I would advise rich men
especially, to write in great letters on the walls of their
dining-rooms or parlours these two sentences: Ezek. xvi. 49, "BEHOLD,
THIS WAS THE INIQUITY OF SODOM, PRIDE, FULNESS OF BREAD, AND ABUNDANCE
OF IDLENESS WAS IN HER, neither did she strengthen the hand of the
poor and needy." Luke xvi. 19, 25, "There was a certain rich man which
was CLOTHED IN PURPLE AND SILK, AND FARED SUMPTUOUSLY every day.--Son,
remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things." Paul
wept when he mentioned them, "whose end is destruction, whose god is
their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly
things, being enemies to the cross," Phil. iii. 18, 19.[42] O live not
after the flesh, lest ye die, Rom. viii. 13; Gal. vi. 8; v. 21, 23, 24.
_Direct._ XV. If any temptation prevail against you, and you fall
into any sins besides common infirmities, presently lament it, and
confess not only to God, but to men, when confession conduceth more to
good than harm; and rise by a true and thorough repentance,
immediately without delay. Spare not the flesh, and daub not over the
breach, and do not by excuses palliate the sore, but speedily rise,
whatever it cost; for it will certainly cost you more to go on or to
remain impenitent. And for your ordinary infirmities, make not too
light of them, but confess them, and daily strive against them; and
examine what strength you get against them, and do not aggravate them
by impenitence and contempt.
_Direct._ XVI. Every day look to the special duties of your
several relations: whether you are husbands, wives, parents, children,
masters, servants, pastors, people, magistrates, subjects, remember
that every relation hath its special duty, and its advantage for the
doing of some good; and that God requireth your faithfulness in these,
as well as in any other duty. And that in these a man's sincerity or
hypocrisy is usually more tried, than in any other parts of our lives.
_Direct._ XVII. In the evening return to the worshipping of God,
in the family and in secret, as was directed for the morning. And do
all with seriousness, as in the sight of God, and in the sense of your
necessities; and make it your delight to receive instructions from the
holy Scripture, and praise God, and call upon his name through Christ.
_Direct._ XVIII. If you have any extraordinary impediments one
day to hinder you in your duty to God and man, make it up by diligence
the next; and if you have any extraordinary helps, make use of them,
and let them not overslip you. As, if it be a lecture-day, or a
funeral sermon, or you have opportunity of converse with men of
extraordinary worth; or if it be a day of humiliation or thanksgiving;
it may be expected that you gather a double measure of strength by
such extraordinary helps.
_Direct._ XIX. Before you betake yourselves to sleep, it is
ordinarily a safe and needful course, to take a review of the actions
and mercies of the past day; that you may be specially thankful for
all special mercies, and humbled for your sins, and may renew your
repentance and resolutions for obedience, and may examine yourselves,
whether your souls grow better or worse, and whether sin go down and
grace increase, and whether you are any better prepared for
sufferings and death. But yet waste not too much time in the ordinary
accounts of your life, as those that neglect their duty while they are
examining themselves how they perform it, and perplexing themselves
with the long perusal of their ordinary infirmities. But by a general
(yet sincere) repentance, bewail your unavoidable daily failings, and
have recourse to Christ for a daily pardon and renewed grace; and in
case of extraordinary sins or mercies, be sure to be extraordinarily
humbled or thankful. Some think it best to keep a daily catalogue or
diurnal of their sins and mercies. If you do so, be not too particular
in the enumeration of those that are the matter of every day's return;
for it will be but a temptation to waste your time, and neglect
greater duty, and to make you grow customary and senseless of such
sins and mercies, when the same come to be recited over and over from
day to day. But let the common mercies be more generally recorded, and
the common sins generally confessed (yet neither of them therefore
slighted); and let the extraordinary mercies, and greater sins, have a
more particular observation. And yet remember, that sins and mercies,
which it is not fit that others be acquainted with, are safelier
committed to memory than to writing: and methinks, a well humbled and
a thankful heart should not easily let the memory of them slip.
_Direct._ XX. When you compose yourselves to sleep, again commit
yourselves to God through Christ, and crave his protection, and close
up the day with some holy exercise of faith and love. And if you are
persons that must needs lie waking in the night, let your meditations
be holy, and exercised upon that subject that is profitablest to your
souls. But I cannot give this as an ordinary direction, because that
the body must have sleep, or else it will be unfit for labour, and all
thoughts of holy things must be serious; and all serious thoughts will
hinder sleep, and those that wake in the night, do wake unwillingly,
and would not put themselves out of hopes of sleep; which such serious
meditations would do. Nor can I advise you (ordinarily) to rise in the
night to prayer, as the papists' votaries do. For this is but to serve
God with irrational and hurtful ceremony; and it is a wonder how far
such men will go in ceremony, that will not be drawn to a life of love
and spiritual worship. Unless men did irrationally place the service
of God in praying this hour rather than another, they might see how
improvidently and sinfully they lose their time, in twice dressing and
undressing, and in the intervals of their sleep, when they might spare
all that time, by sitting up the longer, or rising the earlier, for
the same employment. Besides what tendency it hath to the destruction
of health, by cold and interruption of necessary rest; when God
approveth not of the disabling of the body, or destroying our health,
or shortening life (no more than of murder or cruelty to others); but
only calleth us to deny our unnecessary, sensual delights, and use the
body so as it may be most serviceable to the soul and him.
I have briefly laid together these twenty directions for the right
spending of every day, that those that need them, and cannot remember
the larger more particular directions, may at least get these few
engraven on their minds, and make them the daily practice of their
lives; which if you will sincerely do, you cannot conceive how much it
will conduce to the holiness, fruitfulness, and quietness of your
lives, and to your peaceful and comfortable death.
[40] Eph. iv. 28; Prov. x. 4; xii. 24, 27; xiii. 4; xxi. 5; xxii. 29;
xviii. 9; xxi. 25; xxiv. 30.
[41] Antequam domo quis exeat, quid acturus sit, apud se pertractet.
Rursus cum redierit, quid egerit, recogitet. Cleobulus in Laert. p. 59.
[42] See Dr. Hammond's Annotat.