were a great decency that a memorial of the resurrection should be inserted, that the particular religion of the day be not swallowed up in the general. And of this we may the more easily serve ourselves by rising seasonably in the morning to private devotion, and by retiring at the leisures and spaces of the day not employed in public offices.

4. Fail not to be present at the public hours and places of prayer, entering early and cheerfully, attending reverently and devoutly, abiding patiently during the whole office, piously assisting at the prayers, and gladly also hearing the sermon; and at no hand omitting to receive the holy communion when it is offered, (unless some great reason excuse it) this being the great solemnity of thanksgiving, and a proper work of the day.

5. After the solemnities are past, and in the intervals between the morning and evening devotion, (as you shall find opportunity) visit sick persons, reconcile differences, do offices of neighbourhood, inquire into the needs of the poor, especially house-keepers, relieve them as they shall need, and as you are able; for then we truly rejoice in God, when we make our neighbours, the poor members of Christ, rejoice together with us.

6. Whatsoever you are to do yourself as necessary, you are to take care that others also, who are under your charge, do in their station and manner. Let your servants be called to church, and all your family that can be spared from necessary and great household ministries: those that cannot let them go by

turns, and be supplied otherwise as well as they may: and provide on these days especially that they be instructed in the articles of faith and necessary parts of their duty.

7. Those who labour hard in the week must be eased upon the Lord's-day; such ease being a great charity and alms: but at no hand must they be permitted to use any unlawful games, any thing forbidden by the laws, any thing that is scandalous, or any thing that is dangerous and apt to mingle sin with it; no games prompting to wantonness, to drunkenness, to quarrelling, to ridiculous and superstitious customs; but let their refreshments be innocent, and charitable, and of good report, and not exclusive of the duties of religion.

8. Beyond these bounds, because neither God nor man hath passed any obligation upon us, we must preserve our Christian liberty, and not suffer ourselves to be entangled with a yoke of bondage: for even a good action may become a snare to us, if we make it an occasion of scruple by a pretence of necessity, binding loads upon the conscience not with the bands of God, but of men, and of fancy, or of opinion, or of tyranny. Whatsoever is laid upon us by the hands of man, must be acted and accounted of by the measures of a man: but our best measure is this, he keeps the Lord's-day best, that keeps it with most religion and with most charity.

9. What the church hath done in the article of the resurrection, she hath in some measure done in the other articles of the nativity, of the ascension, and of

the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost: and so great blessings deserve an universal solemnity; since he is a very unthankful person that does not often record them in the whole year, and esteem them the ground of his hopes, the object of his faith, the comfort of his troubles, and the great effluxes of the divine mercy, greater than all the victories over our temporal enemies, for which all glad persons usually give thanks. And if with greater reason the memory of the resurrection does return solemnly every week, it is but reason the other should return once a year. To which I add, that the commemoration of the articles of our creed in solemn days and offices, is a very excellent instrument to convey and imprint the sense and memory of it upon the spirits of the most ignorant persons. For as a picture may with more fancy convey a story to a man than a plain narrative, either in word or writing: so a real representment, and an office of remembrance, and a day to declare it, is far more impressive than a picture, or any other art of making and fixing imagery.

10. The memories of the saints are precious to God and therefore they ought also to be so to us; and such persons who served God by holy living, industrious preaching, and religious dying, ought to have their names preserved in honour, and God be glorified in them, and their holy doctrines and lives published and imitated; and we by so doing give testimony to the article of the communion of saints. But in these cases, as every church is to be sparing in the number of days, so also should she be temperate in her in

junctions, not imposing them but upon voluntary and unbusied persons, without snare or burthen. But the holy-day is best kept by giving God thanks for the excellent persons, apostles, or martyrs, we then remember and by imitating their lives: this all may do; and they that can also keep the solemnity, must do that too when it is publicly enjoined.

The mixt Actions of Religion are, 1. Prayer; 2. Alms; 3. Repentance; 4. Receiving the blessed Sacrament.

SECT. VII.

Of Prayer.

THERE is no greater argument in the world of our spiritual danger and unwillingness to religion, than the backwardness which most men have always, and all men have sometimes, to say their prayers; so weary of their length, so glad when they are done, so witty to excuse and frustrate an opportunity; and yet all is nothing but a desiring of God to give us the greatest and the best things we can need, and which can make us happy it is a work so easy, so honourable, and to so great purpose, that in all the instances of religion and providence (except only the incarnation of his Son) God hath not given us a greater argument of his willingness to have us saved, and of our unwillingness to accept it, his goodness and our gracelessness, his infinite condescension and our carelessness and folly, than by rewarding so easy a duty with so great blessings.

Motives to Prayer.

of

I cannot say any thing beyond this very consideration and its appendages to invite Christian people to pray often. But we may consider that, 1. It is a duty commanded by God and his holy Son. 2. It is an act of grace and highest honour, that we, dust and ashes, are admitted to speak to the eternal God, to run to him as to a Father, to lay open our wants, to complain of our burthens, to explicate our scruples, to beg remedy and ease, support and counsel, health and safety, deliverance and salvation. And, 3. God hath invited us to it by many gracious promises of hearing us. 4. He hath appointed his most glorious Son to be the precedent of prayer, and to make continual intercession for us to the throne of grace. 5. He hath appointed an angel to present the prayers his servants. And, 6. Christ unites them to his own, and sanctifies them, and makes them effective and prevalent; and, 7. Hath put into the hands of men to rescind or alter all the decrees of God, which are of one kind, (that is, conditional, and concerning ourselves and our final estate, and many instances of our intermedial or temporal) by the power of prayers. 8. And the prayers of men have saved cities and kingdoms from ruin: prayer hath raised dead men to life, hath stopped the violence of fire, shut the mouths of wild beasts, hath altered the course of nature, caused rain in Egypt, and drought in the sea; it made the sun to go from west to east, and the moon to stand still, and rocks and mountains to walk; and