A94156:793
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature…
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature and necessity of it is discovered. : As also the Christian directed how he may perform it in [brace] religious duties, natural actions, his particular vocation, his family directions, and his own recreations. / By George Swinnock ...
London: printed for T.P., 1662
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
CHAP. XXII. Brief Directions for the Sanctification of the Lords day, from morning to night.
Reader, beside those general directions which I have largely insisted on, I shall annex here some short directions, how thou mayst spend a Lords day from the beginning to the end of it, as ⟨p. 328⟩may be most for the honour of God, and the furthering thine own everlasting good.
REader, beside those general directions which I have largely insisted on, I shall annex here some short directions, how thou mayst spend a Lords day from the begining to the end of it, as ⟨p. 328⟩may be most for the honour of God, and the furthering thine own everlasting good.
1. Be sure thou takest some pains with thy heart the afternoon (or evening at least) before, to prepare thy soul for the ensuing Sabbath. As our whole life should be a preparation for death; yet the nearer we draw to the night of our dissolution, the more gloriously (as the setting Sun) we should shine with holiness; so in the whole Week we should be preparing for the Lords day; but the more the day doth approach, the more our preparation must increase. The bigger the Vessel is, the more Water may be carried from the Fountain. According to the measure of the Sacks which the Patriarchs carried to Joseph, so were they filled with Corn by Joseph; preparation doth not only fit the heart for grace, but also widen the heart that it may receive much of the Spirit of God. Some Servants when they are to bake in the Morning, put their Wood in the Oven over night, and thereby it burneth both the sooner and the better. Men make much the more riddance of their work, who being to travail a great journey, load their Carts, or put up their things, and lay them ready over night. If thou art a Christian, thy experience will tell thee, that after thou hast on a Saturday called thy self to account for thy carriage on the foregoing Week, bewailed thy miscarriages before the Lord; in particular, thy playing the Truant on former Lords days, when thou shouldst have been learning those Lessons which Christ hath set thee in his Law, and hast been earnest with