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CHAPTER XX

Recommending devotion at twelve o'clock, called in Scripture the sixth hour of the day. This frequency of devotion equally desirable by all orders of people. Universal love is here recommended to be the subject of prayer at this hour. Of intercession, as an act of universal love.

It will perhaps be thought by some people, that these hours of prayer come too thick; that they can only be observed by people of great leisure, and ought not to be pressed upon the generality of men, who have the cares of families, trades, and employments; nor upon the gentry, whose state and figure in the world cannot admit of this frequency of devotion. And that it is only fit for monasteries and nunneries, or such people as have no more to do in the world than they have. To this it is answered,

First, That this method of devotion is not pressed upon any sort of people, as absolutely necessary, but recommended to all people, as the best, the happiest, and most perfect way of life.

And if a great and exemplary devotion is as much the greatest happiness and perfection of a merchant, a soldier, or a man of quality, as it is the greatest happiness and perfection of the most retired contemplative life, then it is as proper to recommend it without any abatements to one order of men, as to another: because happiness and perfection are of the same worth and value to all people.

The gentleman and tradesman may, and must, spend much of their time differently from the pious monk in the cloister, or the contemplative hermit in the desert; but then, as the monk and hermit lose the ends of retirement unless they make it all serviceable to devotion; so the gentleman and merchant fail of the greatest ends of a social life, and live to their loss in the world, unless devotion be their chief and governing temper.

It is certainly very honest and creditable for people to

engage in trades and employments; it is reasonable for gentlemen to manage well their estates and families, and take such recreations as are proper to their state. But then every gentleman and tradesman loses the greatest happiness of his creation, is robbed of something that is greater than all employments, distinctions, and pleasures of the world, if he does not live more to piety and devotion than to any thing else in the world.

Here are therefore no excuses made for men of business and figure in the world. First, Because it would be to excuse them from that which is the greatest end of living; and be only finding so many reasons for making them less beneficial to themselves and less serviceable to God and the world.

Secondly, Because most men of business and figure engage too far in worldly matters; much farther than the reasons of human life, or the necessities of the world require.

Merchants and tradesmen, for instance, are generally ten times farther engaged in business than they need; which is so far from being a reasonable excuse for their want of time for devotion, that it is their crime, and must be censured as a blameable instance of covetousness and ambition.

The gentry and people of figure either give themselves up to state employments, or to the gratifications of their passions, in a life of gaiety and debauchery; and if these things might be admitted as allowable avocations from devotion, devotion must be reckoned a poor circumstance of life.

Unless gentlemen can show that they have another God than the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; another nature than that which is derived from Adam; another religion than the Christian; it is in vain to plead their state, and dignity, and pleasures, as reasons for not preparing their souls for God, by a strict and regular devotion.

For since piety and devotion are the common unchangeable means of saving all the souls in the world

that shall be saved, there is nothing left for the gentleman, the soldier, and the tradesman, but to take care that their several states be, by care and watchfulness, by meditation and prayer, made states of an exact and solid piety.

If a merchant, having forborne from too great business, that he might quietly attend on the service of God, should therefore die worth twenty instead of fifty thousand pounds, could anyone say that he had mistaken his calling, or gone a loser out of the world?

If a gentleman should have killed fewer foxes, been less frequent at balls, gaming, and merry meetings, because stated parts of his time had been given to retirement, and meditation, and devotion, could it be thought, that when he left the world, he would regret the loss of those hours that he had given to the care and improvement of his soul?

If a tradesman, by aspiring after Christian perfection, and retiring himself often from his business, should, instead of leaving his children fortunes to spend in luxury and idleness, leave them to live by their own honest labour, could it be said that he had made a wrong use of the world, because he had shown his children that he had more regard to that which is eternal, than to this which is so soon to be at an end?

Since, therefore, devotion is not only the best and most desirable practice in a cloister, but the best and most desirable practice of men, as men, and in every state of life; they that desire to be excused from it, because they are men of figure, and estates, and business, are no wiser than those that should desire to be excused from health and happiness, because they were men of figure and estates.

I cannot see why every gentleman, merchant, or soldier, should not put those questions seriously to himself:

What is the best thing for me to intend and drive at in all my actions? How shall I do to make the most of

human life? What ways shall I wish that I had taken, when I am leaving the world?

Now to be thus wise, and to make thus much use of our reason, seems to be but a small and necessary piece of wisdom. For how can we pretend to sense and judgment, if we dare not seriously consider, and answer, and govern our lives by that which such questions require of us?

Shall a nobleman think his birth too high a dignity to condescend to such questions as these? Or a tradesman think his business too great, to take any care about himself?

Now here is desired no more devotion in any one's life, than the answering these few questions requires.

Any devotion that is not to the greater advantage of him that uses it than anything that he can do in the room of it; any devotion that does not procure an infinitely greater good than can be got by neglecting it, is freely yielded up; here is no demand of it.

But if people will live in so much ignorance, as never to put these questions to themselves, but push on a blind life at all chances, in quest of they know not what, nor why; without ever considering the worth, or value, or tendency of their actions, without considering what God, reason, eternity, and their own happiness. require of them; it is for the honour of devotion, that none can neglect it, but those who are thus inconsiderate, who dare not inquire after that which is the best, and most worthy of their choice.

39

It is true, Claudius, you are a man of figure and estate, and are to act the part of such a station in human life; you are not called, as Elijah was, to be a prophet, or as St. Paul, to be an Apostle.

But will you therefore not love yourself? Will you not seek and study your own happiness, because you are not called to preach up the same things to other people?

You would think it very absurd, for a man not to value his own health, because he was not a physician;

nor the preservation of his limbs, because he was not a bone-setter. Yet it is more absurd for you, Claudius, to neglect the improvement of your soul in piety, because you are not an Apostle, or a bishop.

Consider this text of Scripture: If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."* Do you think that this Scripture does not equally relate to all mankind? Can you find any exception here for men of figure and estates? Is not a spiritual and devout life here made the common condition on which all men are to become sons of God? Will you leave hours of prayer, and rules of devotion to particular states of life, when nothing but the same spirit of devotion can save you, or any man, from eternal death?

Consider again this text: "For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."† Now if your estate would excuse you from appearing before this judgment-seat, if your figure could protect you from receiving according to your works, there would be some pretence for your leaving devotion to other people. But if you, who are now thus distinguished, must then appear naked amongst common souls, without any other distinction from others but such as your virtues or sins give you; does it not as much concern you, as any prophet or Apostle, to make the best provision for the best rewards at that great day?

Again, consider this doctrine of the Apostle: "For none of us, that is, of us Christians, "liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. For to this end Christ both died, and

* Rom. viii. 13, 14.

† 2 Cor. v. 10.

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