And therefore avoid such games which require much time or long attendance, or which are apt to steal thy affections from more severe employments. For, to whatsoever thou hast given thy affections, thou wilt not grudge to give thy time.

17. Set apart some portions of every day for more solemn devotion, and religious employment, which be severe in observing; and, if variety of employment, or prudent affairs, or civil society, press upon you, yet so order thy rule, that the necessary parts of it be not omitted: and, though just occasions may make our prayers shorter, yet let nothing but a violent, sudden, and impatient necessity make thee, upon any one day, wholly to omit thy morning and evening devotions; which, if you be forced to make very short, you may supply and lengthen with ejaculations and short retirements in the day-time, in the midst of your employment or of your company.

18. Do not the work of God negligently and idly : let not thy heart be upon the world, when thy hand is lift up in prayer; and be sure to prefer an action of religion, in its place and proper season, before all worldly pleasure.

19. When the clock strikes, or however else you shall measure the day, it is good to say a short ejaculation every hour, that the parts and returns of devotion may be the measure of your time: and do so also in the breaches of thy sleep, that those spaces, which have in them no direct business of the world, may be filled with religion.

20. If by thus doing you have not secured your time by an early and forehanded care, yet be sure, by a timely diligence, to redeem the time; that is, to be pious and religious in such instances in which formerly you have sinned; and to bestow your time especially upon such graces, the contrary whereof you have formerly practised.

21. Let him that is most busied 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 attendances upon God; that he may make up his accounts, renew his vows, and retire back again, from whence levity and the vanities of the world, or the opportunities of temptations, or the distraction of secular affairs, have carried him.

22. In this we shall be much assisted, and we shall find the work more easy, if, before we sleep every night, we examine the actions of the past day: with a particular scrutiny, if there have been any accidents extraordinary; as, long discourse, a feast, much business, variety of company. If nothing but common hath happened, the less examination will suffice: only, let us take care that we sleep not without such a recollection of the actions of the day as may represent any thing that is remarkable and great, either to be the matter of sorrow or thanksgiving.

23. Let all things be done prudently and moderately; not with scruple and vexation. For these

[rules] are good advantages; but the particulars are not Divine commandments; and therefore are to be used as shall be found expedient to every one's condition.

THE BENEFITS OF THIS EXERCISE.

This exercise, besides that it hath influence upon our whole lives, it hath a special efficacy, 1. For the preventing of beggarly sins; that is, those sins which idleness and beggary usually betray men to; such as are, lying, flattery, and dissimulation. 2. It is a proper antidote against carnal sins, and such as proceed from fulness of bread and emptiness of employment. 3. It is a great instrument of preventing the smallest sins and irregularities of our life, which usually creep upon idle, disemployed, and curious persons. 4. It not only teaches us to avoid evil, but engages us upon doing good, as the proper business of all our days. 5. It prepares us so against sudden changes, that we shall not easily be surprised at the sudden coming of the Day of the Lord.

THE NOBLE CHRISTIAN MATRON.

FROM A FUNERAL SERMON, ON LADY CARBERY.

If we examine how she demeaned herself towards God, there also you will find her not of a common, but of an exemplary, piety. She was a great reader of Scripture, confining herself to great portions every day; which she read, not to the purposes of vanity and impertinent curiosity, not to seem knowing or to become talking, not to expound and rule, but to teach her all her duty, to instruct her in the knowledge and love of God and of her neighbours, to make her more humble, and to teach her to despise the world and all its gilded vanities; and that she might entertain passions wholly in design and order to heaven.

In all her religion, and in all her actions of relation towards God, she had a singular evenness and untroubled passage; sliding towards her ocean of God *and of infinity, with a certain and silent motion. So have I seen a river, deep and smooth, passing with a still foot and a sober face, and paying to the great exchequer of the sea, the prince of all the watery bodies, a tribute large and full; and hard by it a little brook, skipping and making a noise upon its unequal and neighbour bottom; and after all its talking and bragged motion, it' paid to its common audit no more than the revenues of a little cloud or a contemptible vessel: so have I sometimes compared the issues of her religion to the solemnities and famed

outsides of another's piety. It dwelt upon her spirit, and was incorporated with the periodical work of every day she did not believe that religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation; but, to pardon of sins, to the pleasure of God, and the salvation of souls.

The other appendage of her religion, which also was a great ornament to all the parts of her life, was a rare modesty and humility of spirit, a confident [resolute] despising and undervaluing of herself; for though she had the greatest judgment and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a person of her youth, and sex, and circumstances, yet, as if she knew nothing of it, she had the meanest opinion of herself; and, like a fair taper, when she shined to all the room, yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and a cloud, and she shined to every body but herself. But the perfection of her prudence and excellent parts could not be hid; and all her humility and arts of concealment made the virtues more amiable and illustrious.

But I must be forced to use summaries and arts of abbreviature, in the enumerating those things in which this rare personage was dear to God, and to all her relatives. If we consider her person, she was in the flower of her age; of a temperate, plain, and natural diet, without curiosity or an intemperate palate: she spent less time in dressing than many servants; her recreations were little and seldom; her prayers often, her reading much. She was of a most noble and