enough, and there will be no harm in thy error, if any should happen.

4. If thou intendest heartily to serve God, and to avoid sin in any one instance, refuse not the hardest and most severe advice that is prescribed in order to it, though possibly it be a stranger to thee; for whatsoever it be, custom will make it easy.

5. When any instruments for the obtaining any virtue or restraining any vice are propounded, observe which of them fits thy person, or the circumstances of thy need, and use it rather than the other; that by this means thou mayest be engaged to watch and use spiritual arts and observation about thy soul. Concerning the managing of which as the interest is greater, so the necessities are more, and the cases more intricate, and the accidents and dangers greater and more importunate; and there is greater skill required than in the securing an estate, or restoring health to an infirm body. I wish all men in the world did heartily believe so much of this as is true; it would very much help to do the work of God.

Thus (my Lord) I have made bold by your hand to reach out this little scroll of cautions to all those who, by seeing your honoured name set before my book, shall by the fairness of such a frontispiece be invited to look into it. I must confess it cannot but look like a design in me, to borrow your name and beg your patronage to my book, that if there be no other worth in it, yet at least it may have the splendour and warmth of a burning-glass, which, borrowing a flame from the eye of heaven, shines and burns by the rays of the sun its patron. I will not quit myself from the suspicion : for I cannot pretend it to be a present either of itself fit to be offered to such a personage, or any part of a just return, (but I humbly desire you would own it for an acknowledgment) of those great endearments and noblest usages you have past upon me. But so, men in their religion give a piece of gum, or the fat of a cheap lamb, in sacrifice

to him that gives them all that they have or need : and unless He who was pleased to employ your Lordship as a great minister of his Providence in making a promise of his good to me, the meanest of his servants, "that he would never leave me nor forsake me," shall enable me by greater services of religion to pay my great debt to your Honour, I must still increase my score, since I shall now spend as much in my needs of pardon for this boldness, as in the reception of those favours by which I stand accountable to your Lordship in all the bands of service and gratitude; though I am in the deepest sense of duty and affection,

My most Honoured Lord,

Your Honour's most obliged and

most humble Servant,

JER. TAYLOR.

THE

RULE AND EXERCISES

OF

HOLY LIVING,

&.c.

CHAP. I.

CONSIDERATION OF THE GENERAL INSTRUMENTS AND MEANS SERVING TO A HOLY LIFE, BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.

It is necessary that every man should consider, that since God hath given him an excellent nature, wisdom and choice, an understanding soul, and an immortal spirit, having made him lord over the beasts, and but a little lower than the angels; he hath also appointed for him a work and a service great enough to employ those abilities, and hath also designed him to a state of life after this, to which he can only arrive by that service and obedience. And therefore as every man is wholly God's own portion by the title of Creation so all our labours and care, all our powers and faculties must be wholly employed in the service of God, even all the days of our life, that this life being ended, we may live with him for ever.

Neither is it sufficient, that we think of the service of God as a work of the least necessity, or of small employment, but that it be done by us as God intended it; that it be done with great earnestness and

B

passion, with much zeal and desire; that we refuse no labour; that we bestow upon it much time, that we use the best guides, and arrive at the end of glory by all the ways of grace, of prudence, and religion.

And indeed if we consider how much of our lives is taken up by the needs of nature; how many years are wholly spent before we come to any use of reason; how many years more before that reason is useful to us to any great purposes; how imperfect our discourse is made by our evil education, false principles, ill company, bad examples, and want of experience; how many parts of our wisest and best years are spent in eating and sleeping, in necessary businesses and unnecessary vanities, in worldly civilities and less useful circumstances, in the learning arts and sciences, languages or trades; that little portion of hours that is left for the practices of piety and religious walking with God is so short and trifling, that were not the goodness of God infinitely great, it might seem unreasonable or impossible for us to expect of him eternal joys in Heaven, even after the well spending those few minutes which are left for God and God's service, after we have served ourselves and our own occasions.

And yet it is considerable, that the fruit which comes from the many days of recreation and vanity is very little, and although we scatter much, yet we gather but little profit: but from the few hours we spend in prayer and the exercises of a pious life, the return is great and profitable; and what we sow in the minutes and spare portions of a few years, grows up to crowns and sceptres in a happy and a glorious eternity.

1. Therefore, although it cannot be enjoined, that the greatest part of our time be spent in the direct actions of devotion and religion, yet it will become, not only a duty, but also a great providence, to lay aside for the services of God and the businesses of the Spirit as much as we can: because God rewards our minutes with long and eternal happiness; and the

greater portion of our time we give to God, the more we treasure up for ourselves; and no man is a better merchant than he that lays out his time upon God, and his money upon the poor.

2. Only it becomes us to remember and to adore ( + } God's goodness for it, that God hath not only permitted us to serve the necessities of our nature, but hath made them to become parts of our duty; that if we by directing these actions to the glory of God intend them as instruments to continue our persons in his service, he by adopting them into religion may turn our nature into grace, and accept our natural actions as actions of religion. God is pleased to esteem it for a part of his service, if we eat or drink : so it be done temperately, and as may best preserve our health, that our health may enable our services towards him: And there is no one minute of our lives (after we are come to the use of reason) but we are or may be doing the work of God, even then, when we most of all serve ourselves.

3. To which if we add, that in these and all other actions of our lives we always stand before God, acting, and speaking, and thinking in his presence, and that it matters not that our conscience is sealed with secrecy, since it lies open to God, it will concern us to behave ourselves carefully, as in the presence of our Judge.

These three considerations rightly managed, and applied to the several parts and instances of our lives, will be, like Elisha stretched upon the child, apt to put life and quickness into every part of it, and to make us live the life of grace, and do the work of God.

I shall therefore by way of introduction reduce these three to practice, and shew how every Christian may improve all and each of these to the advantage of piety, in the whole course of his life: that if he please to bear but one of them upon his spirit, he may feel the benefit, like an universal instrument, helpful in all spiritual and temporal actions.