Kings Daughter The Son of God who vouchsafed to be born as Man in all the Forms of Meanness chose a Noble mans Daughter for the Subject of a Miracle to raise her when dead and so a Noblemans Son to rescue him from Death I have not designed one word to lessen Birth but all to make it greater by Vertue added to it and adorning it With the same design I have spoken of Riches and Pleasures and all the desirable Advantages of the World and which are only of this World I would not have them excluded I would have those who possess them not to love them better than themselves and not to exclude Religion and then Happiness too which never goes in to any Place but where Religion goes in before it The Things of the World have too much wrought on many Aged and not Imprudent Persons Much more then is there need of Caution to one of your Age and your Quality when too many of the same greater Figure have abused their worldly Advantages being first abused themselves by the ill Counsels of those who have been too near them Indeed your Ladyship gives me no occasion to suspect that you had ever any to Misguide you or that you are to be Misguided when I by a delightful Experience have viewed so much Virtue as should either make me think you had never been attacked by ill Counsels or you had always Virtue Strong and Wise to conquer them There are Persons in the World and may you be always one of those upon whom Ill Advice is no less ineffectual then Good is very often on others ill things cannot stand before them and as no venemous Beast can live in some Climates they dye as soon as they come near them or within the fatal Air of this so mighty Innocence There is a Serpent to every Daughter of Eve as well as there was to Eve her self and so to every Son of Adam But however the Serpent be more subtle then any Beast of the Field there are those who will be innocent be he never so Crafty and they will not eat of the Fruit and without eating of it their Eyes are opened and they know Good and Evil and so as to pursue and to avoid Every good Person has something of an Exorcist in him the Apostolical Power of casting out Devils is hot lost to him it is continued the evil Spirit cannot bear his Presence as he could not bear that of Christ when he sell down before him and cried out I beseech thee torment me not Besides the many Temptations from others there is a Tempter within our selves there is a Principle of Vanity in the Nature of Man in this too earthly Nature which carries us on to these Vain Earthly Things with a fierce Desire as fierce alas as if they were not Vain From this Principle which seems to be almost as old as our Nature rise all the Sins of our following Life these are only so many irregular ways into which our Inclinations divide themselves for the Pursuit of earthly Things From this Principle of Corruption in our Souls rise all our Sins as from another of natural Corruption in our Bodies do rise the several Diseases of them The best of us therefore may have need to be upon our Guard against the Things of the World and good Reason there is to keep low and to correct betimes that prevailing Cause of Corruption by Advice and by Endeavour In order to your successful Progress in this Course of Religion you will I am sure be easily and soon Exhorted to have shall I say Or to continue a suitable and devout Regard to that Day of the Week which is particularly designed for Religious Offices The Day which is set apart and for something and that can be no other than holy Duty the Day which we call the Lord's Day in a prophane Jest if we do not keep it to the Lord if our use of it be Prophane that is not Religious He who regardeth a Day regardeth it unto the Lord. Man is Born to Labour as Job has told us he is designed by God to be always in Action and that Action as much as may be worthy of himself and useful to himself or others They who have the lowest Respect for this Day pretend not then to do the Business of their particular Calling and therefore should they not do that of their general Calling as they are Christians This one Day was not set apart only to be a Blank a void Space in our Time and to have nothing written upon it If we could be contented to lose one Day as to our own Interest in every Week of so short a Life yet God is not willing to allow the loss of one as to his Service we complain says a Learned Heathen that Life is short and Time is swift and yet like Men very Unthrifty and very Poor we mispend our too little time as if we had too much Whatever time we mispend we should take care like Men luxurious in their Expences and yet still just in ther Principles to mispend none but our own Indeed if we should take this Care we should mispend no Time because none is ours much less that which God has made His more than any other His in a peculiar manner Not only God but Man all the Authority of Man that of the Church and that of the State has made it God's own Time And if any Sacred Thing which one Man gave to God another cannot take away but with the blackest Guilt much less that which God has given to himself and Man gave to God Our using well this part of our Time will prevent our abusing every other part because it will advance us to such a State of Mind it will lead us into such Rules of Life that we shall learn to be always careful and resolve to be always good Surely we shall be so if we remember an Apostles Saying that we are not our own and then not our Time because if we our selves are not our own then not any thing belonging to us which can be held no otherwise than our Being is and must pass over with our selves to the great Sovereign Lord. You are ready I know to keep this Day with all the solemn Care and you are to perform the Duties of it with all the solemn Reverence The fix'd and ordinary Duties of it are Praying and Hearing Meditation and Reading and Acts of Charity and moreover there is an extraordinary Duty the receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper seeing your Years now meet and come up to your devout Inclinations and Time now almost overtakes your Piety and Prudence which as swift as Time is have been so much before it Since this is so great which now we see how great must that be which we may expect the good Things we view at a distance though so far off yet appear not little they already entertain our Eyes with a pleasing
thing which can be known by Man in the whole Circle of his boasted Learning Pity it is that we do not know it sooner that only many Years and many Misfortunes should teach it more Years than have yet past over your Head and worse Misfortunes then I hope will ever come near your Condition though indeed the being above Misfortunes is not one of those peculiar Privileges belonging to Birth and Quality Let my Experience be yours let not this be one of the dear bought things your Sex is said to covet But as the Complaisance of our Sex delights to present costly things to yours may the Experience be purchased only at my Cost and teach us both And as the Gallantry of our Sex very often exposes it self for the Safety and the Interest of yours so let the Danger and the Evil be only mine Dear bought Experience taught me what it true And Friendship bids me tell that Truth to you You are to pray for Grace that it may now betimes prevent your being guilty of those Sins which many young Persons begin too soon to be guilty of and which sooner or later are to have a Repentance and the Repentance is to have so much cost in Tears and Sighs in painful Thought and unpleasant Remembrance Surely those Sins are Diseases of the most Dangerous Kind which we should rather chuse to prevent then to remove and when they have entertainment from our Youth they are like that forward Fruit which is very unwholsome and will soon be rotten You are to pray for Grace that it may guide you through this Life to a better as happy as I wish your present Life there is yet one far more happy which I doubt not you wish your self and which that Grace is to guide you to and moreover it is to guide you through the several parts of your present Life with all the Success and Blessing in all the Management of it As you are to pray for your self so for those next to your self your near Relations and for all good things to them Spiritual and Temporal The Advice you are ready to prevent because the Office I know is very pleasing to you who pay so much Duty where you ow it and so much Love to your other Relations more I had almost said than you can be supposed to owe. You are not only to pray for what you want but to give thanks for your not having wanted many things for those you have enjoyed from the first day of your Life unto this for your Noble Birth and wealthy Fortune and Virtuous Education Such a Thanksgiving to God will require a Prayer to him for all the Endowments of Mind suitable to such a Birth and Fortune and Education and for the making these his Favours useful to the Glory of him you pray to and him who gave them You are to pray for a low Opinion of all this World and of one part of it more than all of your self that your heart may not be haughty nor your Eyes lofty and you may not exercise your self in great matters nor in things too high for you Moreover you may pray that to your other to your many earthly Goods may be added that of Health in order to your being more capable of making the best use of all your doing more service to God more good to others You may pray that in this your walking through the Vally of the Shadow of Death God would make you to fear no Evil and make his Goodness and Mercy to follow you all the Days of your Life that so you may dwell in the House of the Lord for ever dwell in his House here and in that other not made with hands eternal in the Heavens Your prayers upon these several occasions are to be short and then may be more servent and what is wanting in length may be supplied in a more warm Devotion which is to God more pleasing a warm Devotion more pleasing to God then a Burning Sacrifice The Force of our Prayers when more close and united in a narrower Room in less Time and fewer Words may be stronger and as that Force is stronger the Prayers will be more earnest The Orator must weep himself if he will be sure to have his hearers weep Much more we must be earnest in praying if we expect that God will be moved in hearing that he will shew to us a part of the strange Affection he has to Mankind which the Prophets have told us of and which only their Flights can describe It is one design of Prayer to unite us to God and so much it does unite us to him that our Affections and his are almost to the same as we are affected more or less in the presenting our Prayer so is he in the receiving it I pretend not here to have given all the Rules which are necessary for Prayer but some more particular to to your Ladyships Quality and Age I have designed to give and then to recommend your Learning of other more general Rules for Prayer and for all things from the Books of Religious Wisdom those which you are not a Stranger to and which I am sure you will be every Day more acquainted with The Books are to be few and chosen and so much the rather should yours be chosen because in every Kind you deserve the best Few Books that they may be read and chosen that the reading may be useful At the same time you read the Writings of others let this of all things be written upon your mind that whereas there are several parts of Religion the chief part is practice and a living in obedience to the Commands of God and that all pretending to Religion is trifling without it and that still the Older you are the more Practice is required In order to your being moved to live in a Religious Method of all this Practice you may be assured that your Life can never be happy without Religion and then what is to make your whole Life happy is to be it self a greater part of it is to be indeed begun in the first Seasons of Life and so continued to the last If the beginning afterwards were not late and ineffectual yet it would be less certain and more difficult the beginning sooner will by the long and early custom make Religion that which I so much desire it may be to you and may be accounted by you a delightful thing the most delightful in the World Religion I have declared before to be a thing which has all the Refinement and Delicacy of Pleasure and then why should we lose so much Pleasure all the time we are not engaged in the Interests of Religion Youth is the time in which we think we have a Claim to Pleasu e and then if it covet all other Pleasure why not the truest and highest Joy and why not Religion which alone can give this which alone can secure the other We can no more be happy
spoken to me and in Words which were almost Written in his Blood and which I should be ready to Seal with mine do this in remembrance of me When he bids me and when thou repeatest what he said with new Engagements shall not I do this and every thing Can I chuse but do it when it is to be done in remembrance of him the Thought of whom is to be most pleasing to me his Name is as Ointment poured forth his Mouth is most sweet and he altogether lovely Can any thing be needful to make me remember him Can any thing be able to make me forget him till I can forget my self It yet there be no necessity for any thing to preserve the Memory of him there is one for the performing what thou Commandest If nothing can make me forget thy Love and the Son of thy Love yet I am to shew that I do not forget him in remembring his Precept From thy Goodness I have received a Command and now from thy Grace a Desire for the observing of it O grant me all the Measures the overflowing Measures of thy Grace for the Executing thy Command and my Desire and thy Grace as much need as I have thereof will be sufficient for me I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me Lord I desire help thou my Weakness in desiring and much more in the performing Be thou a Sun and a Shield a Sun to Chear and Enlighten a Shield to save and defend my Soul Gird me with Strength who have none of my own and let thine so wound my Spiritual Enemies that they may not be able to rise but fall under my Feet Let there be no want of Grace from thee and in me no want of Will I am Feeble and Weak but thou O Lord art Strong and Mighty and thy strength is made perfect in my Weakness and will make that perfect too As thy Mercy rejoyces against Judgment so does thy Power against Infirmity and thy Power the more I want of it will rejoyce so much more if my use of thy Gift be suitable to what thou hast given Thou givest to will and to do of thy good Pleasure for the partaking of this thy Holy this thy blessed Sacrament thou hast given me to will O give me to do of the good Pleasure which thou hast declared for me and declared to me in the Merits and for the fake of thy beloved Son and my never enough beloved Saviour Jesus Christ Amen Another Prayer before the receiving of the Sacrament with a regard to God's Favour and our Qualifications in our Approaches to the Sacrament O Thou the God of my Mercy and the God of my Salvation accept I pray thee thy most unworthy Servant in that Duty in which I should appear most worthy and accept my Weakest Service where the best of my Strength should be employed O thou High and lofty One that inhabitest Eternity whose Name is Holy thou dwellest in the High and Holy Place with him also that is of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive the Spirit of the Humble and to revive the Heart of the Contrite O make me contrite in Heart and humble in Spirit that thou may'st dwell with me that I may dwell with thee in thy House and at thy Table For thy Son's sake for thy own sake for thy Mercies sake contend thou not for ever and be not thou always angry that the Spirit may not fail before thee and the Soul which thou hast made Thou hast seen my ways O heal me lead me and restore Comforts to me and to my Mourners to all those Powers within me which mourn for my Sins against thee Be thou mine everlasting Light and the Days of my Mourning shall be ended Make me first to wash my Hands in Innocency and then admit me to compass thine Altar O Lord of Hosts my King and my God And how blessed are they who dwell in thy House they shall be always praising thee A Day in thy Courts is better than a thousand I confess my Sins O do thou forgive them I grieve for my Sins O make me to rejoyce in the Pardon of them Here remember as much as may be and confess the particular Sins of your Life Too long alas have I lived O make me to live no longer in a Correspondence with them Too long have I born the Burthen and thou the Defiance of them Too long have I been at Peace with my Lusts and then all the time not at Peace with thee and with my self I now Proclaim War against them do thou teach my Hands to War and coyer my Head in the Day of Battle give me the Shield of thy Salvation and thy right Hand shall hold me up and thy Gentleness shall make me great Give thou to me Grace and Glory and make me to live a Godly Life and then no good thing shalt thou withhold from me now in the Sacrament nor afterwards in any other part of Religion or any part of my Life Cloath my Soul with the Garments of Salvation cover it with a Robe of Righteousness as a Bride adorns her self with her Jewels Let that Pardon which this Sacrament is the Seal of be extended to all my sinful Imperfections in the receiving of it The Pardon of my Sins and the Acceptance of my self the great Benefits of thy Sacrament and a true Frame of my Soul that the benefits may be mine and I may be thine for ever vouchsafe O God who art rich in Mercy to grant to me who am poor in Performance O grant all to me in the Name in the Righteousness in the Mediation of thy only Son and my only Redeemer Thy blessed Son and my ever blessed Redeemer and I ask all again in his holy Words Our Father c. These Prayers are so much longer because it is supposed that good Persons set a part more time for this Occasion and so they are more at leisure for a length and they have then a stronger Devotion for the bearing it and the Retirement at such a Season is to take off our Thoughts from the World and to this Design Prayer is very useful and the more we are in that Duty the more we are out of the World the nearer we approach to God in Prayer the farther we are from the World in Thought Here follows a shorter Prayer to the same Preparatory Purpose O Blessed Jesu who hast Suffered who hast Died for me whose Sufferings and Death I am now to remember make me unworthy as I am not to Eat and Drink Unworthily in this solemn Remembrance That Worthiness which I have not be pleased to give me O give me that which thou hast purchased for me that which I have so little which thou hast so much of thou hast enough for me and for all Mankind besides me I ask it for my self and for all now and ever Amen Devout Ejaculations at the Holy Table before the receiving of the Sacrament THou hast invited me O merciful Lord to thy Table and lo I come Thou wilt receive whom thou hast invited O receive me graciously Lo I come to do thy Will O my God I am contented I delight to do it and let thy Law be always within my Heart In Burnt-offerings and Sacrifices for Sin thou hast had no Pleasure Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldest not but a Body hast thou prepared thy Sons Body to be Crucified O let a Soul too be Prepared my Soul to be Offered O most Kind and Compassionate Jesu who didst Exhort the Daughters of Jerusalem at the time of thy death not to Weep for thee but to Weep for themselves and for their Children have a favourable Regard to all my Weeping for my self and for my Sins upon this Remembrance of thy Death Devout Ejaculations after the receiving of the Sacrament I Have received O my God and I Praise thee I Glorify thee I Adore thee for the Honour of thy Command and the Favour of thy Leave to do so Thou hast given me Bread from Heaven Thou hast given me Wine that maketh glad the Heart of Man glad with a spiritual Joy which thus begins in this World and is not to end in another I did hunger and thirst after the Righteousness which is offer'd in this Sacrament and O let me now be filled let me now be blessed Let all the spiritual Vertues of thy Body and Blood O most holy Jesu enter into my Soul enter deep into it may they enliven may they norish may they strengthen it to an everlasting Life Amen However this Discourse has nothing to deserve such a Conclusion yet I ask leave to give the same to my Discourse which a Jew did to his when he had Written a Catechism by him named Good Doctrine of the Jewish Religion According to the Sincerity of my Purpose remember me O God The Jew says yet more which I cannot pretend to say with that Confidence which is more peculiar to Jews in the high Thoughts of their Favour with God I shall not blush nor be ashamed in this World nor in that to come but thou wilt give me the Portion common to those by whom many have been Exhorted to Piety and Righteousnese for they shall shine as Stars so so let it please thee FINIS