A94156:818
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.
I pray that I may look on this day as a special season to sow to the spirit in, and improve it accordingly. 1I believe that my God will not hold him guiltless that takes his name or spends his day in vain. O let me not like a foolish child, play by that candle which is set up for me to work by, lest I go to the bed of my grave in the dark of sin and sorrow. 2I wish that I may not neglect either secret or family duties on this sacred day, but yet that I may so perform them, that they may be helps, not hinderances to public Ordinances; that since God loveth the gates of Zion above all the the dwellings of Jacob, I may set an high price upon, and have an ardent love to the habitation of Gods house, and the place where his honour dwelleth; 3that as a true child of my heavenly Father, I may love most, and like best, that milk which is warm from the breasts of public ordinances: I wish that I may call the Lords day my delight, it being a day wherein I enter into the suburbs of the holy City; and begin that work of praising, pleasing, and enjoying my God, which I hope to be employed in to eternity; that it may be my meat and drink to do the Will of my God. O that I might so savour the things of the Spirit, and so taste the Lord to be gracious, that love may be the Lodestone to draw me to my closet, family and to Church; and season every service I am called to upon the Sabbath; 4Because every part of this day is of great price, more worth then a whole World, I desire that not the least ⟨p. 394⟩moment of it may be squandered away, but (as the Disciples after the miracle of loaves) I may gather up with care and conscience, the smallest fragments, that nothing be lost. My God giveth me good measure, heaped up, pressed down, shaken together, and running over; why should I be niggardly to him (to my self indeed, for it is my profit, not his) when he is so liberal, so bountiful to me. I wish in regard the blessed God is not only the Master, 5but also the Marrow of his day, that no Lords day may satisfy me, without the Lord of the day. Alas what is the best time, without the Rock of eternity? what is the best day without the Ancient of days? what are the Ordinances of God without the God of Ordinances? what are Sabbaths, Sermons, Sacraments, and Seasons of Grace without the dearest Saviour, but as broken Cisterns, glorious Dreams, or gilded nothings?