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For we must remember, that we have a great work to do, many enemies to conquer, many evils to prevent, much danger to run through, many difficulties to be mastered, many necessities to serve, and much good to do, many children to provide for, or many friends to support, or many poor to reheve, or many diseases to cure, besides the needs of nature and of relation, our private and our public cares, and duties of the world, which necessity and the providence of God have adopted into the family of Religion.

Idleness is the greatest prodigality in the world: it throws away that which is invaluable in respect of its present use, and irreparable when it is passed; being to be recovered by no power of art or nature. the way to secure and improve our time, we may practise in the following Rules :

But

RULES FOR EMPLOYING OUR TIME.

:

1. In the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to his service and at night, also, let him close thine eyes; and let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time, beyond the needs and conveniences of nature. And sometimes be curious to see the preparation which the sun makes, when he is coming forth from his chambers of the

east.

2. Let every man that hath a calling, be diligent in pursuance of his employment, so as not lightly, or

without reasonable occasion, to neglect it in any of those times which are usually, and by the custom of prudent persons and good husbands, employed in it.

3. Let all the intervals, or void spaces of time, be employed in prayers, reading, meditating the works of nature, recreation, charity, friendliness, and neighbourhood, and means of spiritual and corporal

health.

4. The resting-day of Christians, and festivals of the Church, must, in no sense, be days of idleness; but let them be spent in the works of the day; that is, of religion and charity, according to the rules appointed.

5. Avoid the company of drunkards and busybodies, and all such as are apt to talk much to little purpose; for no man can be provident of his time that is not prudent in the choice of his company: and, if one of the speakers be vain, tedious, and trifling, he that hears, and he that answers, in the discourse, are equal losers of their time.

6. Never talk with any man, or undertake any trifling employment, merely to pass the time away; for every day well spent may become a day of sal

vation.

7. In the midst of the works of thy calling, often retire to God in short prayers and ejaculations; and those may make up the want of those larger portions of time which, it may be, thou desirest for devotion, and in which thou thinkest other persons have advantage of thee; for so thou reconcilest the outward work

and thy inward calling, the Church and the commonwealth, the employment of the body, and the interest of thy soul. For, be sure that God is present at thy breathing and hearty sighings of prayer, as soon as at the longest offices of less-busied persons.

8. Let your employment be such as may become a reasonable person, and not be a business fit for children or distracted people; but fit for your age and understanding. For a man may be very idly busy, and take great pains to so little purpose, that, in his labours and expense of time, he shall serve no end but of folly and vanity. There are some people who are busy; but it is, as Domitian was, in catching flies.

9. Let your employment be fitted to your person and calling. Some there are, that employ their time in affairs infinitely below the dignity of their person; and, being called by God or by the republic to help to bear great burdens, and to judge a people, enfeeble their understandings, and disable their persons by sordid and brutish business. Thus Nero went up and down Greece, and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Eropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns: Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a mole-catcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles.

10. Let your employment be such as becomes a Christian; that is, in no sense mingled with sin. 11. Persons of great quality, and of no trade, are to be most prudent and curious in their employment and traffic of time. They that are learned, know the

worth of time; and

they are to prepare themselves

for such purposes in which they may be most useful, in order to arts or arms, to counsel in public, or government in their country. But for others of them that are unlearned, let them learn easy and useful things, read history and the laws of the land, learn the customs of their country, the condition of their own estate, profitable and charitable contrivances of it let them study prudently to govern their families, learn the burdens of their tenants, the necessities of their neighbours, and in their proportions supply them; and reconcile their enmities, and prevent their law-suits, or quickly end them; and, in this glut of leisure and dis-employment, let them set apart greater portions of their time for religion, and the necessities of their souls.

12. Let the women of noble birth and great fortunes do the same things, in their proportions and capacities; nurse their children, look to the affairs of the house, visit poor cottages, and relieve their necessities, be courteous to the neighbourhood, learn in silence of their husbands or their spiritual guides, read good books, pray often, and speak little, and learn to do good works for necessary uses; for by that phrase St. Paul expresses the obligation of Christian women to good housewifery, and charitable provisions for their family and neighbourhood.

13. Let all persons, of all conditions, avoid all delicacy and niceness in their clothing or diet; because such softness engages them upon great mis-spendings of their time, while they dress and comb out all their

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opportunities of their morning devotion, and half the day's severity, and sleep out the cares and provisions for their souls.

14. Let every one, of every condition, avoid curiosity, and all inquiry into things that concern them not. For all business, in things that concern us not, is an employing our time to no good of ours, and therefore not in order to a happy eternity. In this account, our neighbour's necessities are not to be reckoned; for they concern us, as one member is concerned in the grief of another. But, going from house to house, tattlers and busy-bodies, which are the canker and rust of idleness, as idleness is the rust of time, are reproved by the Apostle, in severe language.

15. As much as may be, cut off all impertinent and useless employments of your life, unnecessary and fantastic visits, long waitings upon great personages, where neither duty, nor necessity, nor charity, obliges us; all vain meetings, all laborious trifles, and whatsoever spends much time to no real, civil, religious, or charitable purpose.

16. Let not your recreations be lavish spenders of your time; but choose such which are healthful, short, transient, recreative, and apt to refresh you; but at no hand dwell upon them, or make them your great employment: for he that spends his time in sports, and calls it recreation, is like him whose garment is all made of fringes, and his meal nothing but sauces; they are healthless, chargeable, and useless.

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