Holy living in which are described the means and instruments of obtaining every virute, and the remedies against every vice, and considerations serving to the resisting all temptations : together with prayers containing the whole duty of a Christian, and the parts of devotion occasians [sic], and furnished for all necessities / by Jer. Taylor.

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Title
Holy living in which are described the means and instruments of obtaining every virute, and the remedies against every vice, and considerations serving to the resisting all temptations : together with prayers containing the whole duty of a Christian, and the parts of devotion occasians [sic], and furnished for all necessities / by Jer. Taylor.
Author
Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.
Publication
London :: Printed for Richard Royston,
1656.
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Subject terms
Christian life.
Devotional exercises.
Link to this Item
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A64114.0001.001
Cite this Item
"Holy living in which are described the means and instruments of obtaining every virute, and the remedies against every vice, and considerations serving to the resisting all temptations : together with prayers containing the whole duty of a Christian, and the parts of devotion occasians [sic], and furnished for all necessities / by Jer. Taylor." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A64114.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 7, 2024.

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Rules for imploying our Time.

1. In the morning, when you awake, ac∣custome your selfe 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

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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 di∣ligent in pursuance of its imployment, so as not lightly, or without reasonable occasion to neglect it in any of those times, which are usually and by the custome of prudent per∣sons and good husbands imployed in it.

3. Let all the intervals, or void spaces of time be imployed in prayers, reading, medi∣tating, works of nature, recreation, charity, friendliness and neighbourhood, and means of spiritual and corporal health: ever re∣membring, so to work in our calling, as not to neglect the work of our high calling; but to begin and end the day with God, with such forms of devotion, as shall be proper to our necessities.

4. The resting daies of Christians, and Fe∣stivals of the Church, must in no sense be daies of idleness, for it is better to plow upon holy daies, then to doe nothing, or to doe vitiously; but let them be spent in the works of the day, that is, of Religion and Charity, according to the rules appointed.

* 1.15. Avoid the company of Drunkards and busie-bodies, 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

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any trifling imployment meerly to passe the time away: for every day well spent may become a day of salvation, and time rightly employed is an acceptable time.* 1.2 And re∣member, that the time thou triflest away was given thee to repent in, to pray for pardon of sins, to work out thy salvation, to doe the work of grace, to lay up against the day of Judgment, a treasure of good works, that thy time may be crowned with Eternity.

7. In the midst of the works of thy calling often retire to God in short prayers and eja∣culations,* 1.3 and those may make up the want of those larger portions of time, which it may be thou desi∣rest 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 Common wealth, the im∣ployment of the body and the interest of thy soul; for be sure, that God is present at thy breathings and hearty sighings of prayer as∣soon, as at the longer offices of lesse busied persons; and thy time is as truly sanctified by a trade, and devout, though shorter pray∣ers, as by the longer offices of those whose time is not filled up with labour and useful business.

8. Let your imployment 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 idlely busie, and take great pains to so little purpose, that in his labors and expence of time he shall serve no

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end but of folly, and vanity. There are some Trades, that wholly serve the ends of idle persons and fools; and such as are fit to be seised upon by the severity of laws, and ba∣nisht from under the sun: and there are some people who are busie, but it is as Domitian was, in catching flies.

9. Let your imployment be fitted to your person and calling. Some there are that im∣ploy their time in affairs infinitely below the dignity of their person, and being called by God, or by the Republick to help to bear great burdens, and to judge a people, doe enfeeble their understandings, and disable their persons by fordid and brutish business. Thus Nero went up and down Greece▪ and challenged the fidlers at their trade. Aero∣pus a Macedonian King made Lanterns. Har∣catius the King of Parthia was a Mole-catcher: and Biantes the Lydian filed needles. He that is appointed to minister in holy things, must not suffer secular affairs and sor∣did arts to eat up great portions of his im∣ployment: a Clergy man must not keep a Tavern, nor a Judge be an Inne-keeper; and it was a great idleness in Theophylact the Pa∣triarch of C P. to spend his time in his stable of horses, when he should have been in his study, or the Pulpit, or saying his holy offices. Such imployments are the diseases of labour, and the rust of time which it contracts, not by lying still, but by dirty imployment.

10. Let our imployment be such as be∣comes a Christian, that is, in no sence mingled with sin; for he that takes pains to serve the ends of covetousness, or ministers to an∣others

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others lust, or keeps a shop of impurities or intemperance, is idle in the worst sense, for every houre so spent runs him backward, and must be spent again in the remaining and shorter part of his life, and spent better.

11. Persons of great quality, and of no trade, are to be most prudent and curious in their imployment and traffick of time. They are miserable, if their education hath been so loose and undisciplined, as to leave them unfurnished of skill to spend their time: but most miserable are they, if such misgovern∣ment and unskilfulness make them fall into vitious and baser company, and driue on their time by the sad minutes and periods of sin and death. * They that are learned know the worth of time, and the manner how well to improve a day; and they are to prepare themselves for such purposes, in which they may be most usefull in order to arts or arms: to counsel in publick, or government in their Countrey: But for others of them that are unlearned, let them choose good company, such as may not tempt them to a vice, or joyn with them in any: but that may supply their defects by counsel and discourse, by way of conduct and conversation. Let them learn easie and usefull things, read history, and the laws of the Land, learn the customs of their countrey, 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 Te∣nants, the necessities of their neighbours, and in their proportion supply them, and recon∣cile their enmities, and prevent their Law-suits,

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or quickly end them, and in this glut of leisure and disemployment, 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 doe the same things in their propor∣tions and capacities, nurse their children, looke to the affaires of the house, visit poor cottages, and relieve their necessities, be cur∣teous to the neighbourhood, learn in silence of their husbands, or their spiritual Guides, read good books, pray often, and speak little, and learn to doe good works for necessary uses; for by that phrase S. Paul expresses the ob∣ligation of Christian women to good hous∣wifery, 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 up∣on great mispendings of their time, while they dresse and combe out all their oppor∣tunities of their morning devotion, and half the daies severity, and sleep out the care and provision for their souls.

14. Let every one of every condition avoid curiosity, and all enquiry into things that concern them not. For all business in things that concern us not, is an imploying our time to no good of ours, and therefore not in order to a happy Eternity. In this account our neighbours necessities are not to be reckoned; for they concern us as one mem∣ber is concerned in the grief of another; but going from house to house, tatlers, and busie-bodies, which are the canker and rust of

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idleness, as idleness is the rust of time, are re∣proved by the Apostle in severe language, and forbidden in order to this exercise.

15. As much as may be, cut off all imper∣tinent and uselesse imployments of your life, unnecessary and phantastick visits, long wait∣tings upon great personages, where neither duty, nor necessity, nor charity obliges us, all vain meetings, all laborious trifles, and what∣soever spends much time to no real, civil, re∣ligious, or charitable purpose.

16. Let not your recreations be lavish spen∣ders 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 imployment: for he that spends his time in sports, and calls it recreation, is like him, whose garment is all made of fringes, and his meat nothing but sawces, they are healthless, chargeable and uselesse. And therefore avoid such games which require much time or long atten∣dance; or which are apt to steal thy affections from more severe imployments. For to whatsoever thou hast given thy affections, thou wilt not grudge to give thy time. Na∣tural necessity and the example of S. John (who recreated himself with sporting with a tame Partridge) teach us that it is lawful to relax and unbend our bow,* 1.4 but not to suffer it to be unready or unstrung.

17. Set apart some portions of every day for more solemn devotion and religious im∣ployment, which be severe in observing: and if variety of imployment, or prudent af∣fairs, or civil society presse upon you, yet so

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order thy rule, that the necessary parts of it be not omitted; and though just occasions may make our prayers shorter, yet let no∣thing but a violent, sudden and impatient necessity make thee upon any one day wholly to omit thy morning and evening devoti∣ons; which if you be forced to make very short, you may supply and lengthen with ejaculations and short retirements in the day time in the midst of your imployment, or of your company.

* 1.518. Doe not the work of God negligently and idlely: let not thy hart be upon the world, when thy hand is lift up in prayer: and be sure to prefer an action of religion in its place and proper season before al world∣ly pleasure, letting secular things (that may be dispensed within themselves) in these cir∣cumstances wait upon the other; not like the Patriarch who ran from the Altar in S. Sophia to his stable in all his Pontificals, and in the midst of his office, to see a Colt newly fallen from his beloved and much valued mare Phorbante.* 1.6 More prudent and severe was that of Sir Thomas More, who being sent for by the King when he was at his prayers in publick, returned answer, he would attend him when he had first performed his service to the KING of Kings. And it did honour to Rusticus, that when Letters from Caesar were given to him, he refused to open them, till the Philosopher had done his Lecture: In honoring God and doing his work, put forth all thy strength, for of that time only thou mayest be most confident that it is gained, which is prudently and zealously spent in Gods service.

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19. When the Clock strikes, or however else you shall measure the day, it is good to say a short ejaculation every hour, that the parts and returns of devotion may be the measure of your time: and doe so also in all the breaches of thy sleep, that those spaces which have in them no direct business of the world may be filled with religion.

20, If by thus doing you have not secured your time by an early and forehanded care,* 1.7 yet be sure by a timely diligence to redeem the time, that is, to be pious and religious in such instances in which formerly you have sinned, and to bestow your time especially upon such graces, the contrary whereof you have formerly practised, doing actions of chastity and temperance with as great a zeal and earnestness as you did once act your un∣cleanness: and then, by all arts to watch a∣gainst your present and future dangers, from day to day securing your standing; this is properly to redeem your time, that is to buy your security of it at the rate of any labour and ••••nest arts.

* 1.821. Let him that is most busied set apart some solemn time every year, in which, for the time quitting all wordly business, he may attend wholly to fasting and prayer, and the dressing of his soul by confessions, meditati∣ons and attendances upon God; that he may make up his accounts, renew his vows, make amends for his carelessenesse, and retire back again from whence levity and the vanities of the world, or the opportunity of tempta∣tions, or the distraction of secular affairs have carried him.

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22. In this we shall be much assisted, and we shall finde the work more easie, if before we sleep every night * 1.9 we examine the actions of the past day with a particular scrutiny, if there have been any accident extraordinary: as, long discourse, a Feast, much business, variety of company: If nothing but common hath happened, the lesse examination will suffice: only let us take care that we sleep not without such a recollection of the actions of the day, as may represent any thing that is remarkable, and great either to be the matter of sorrow or thanksgiving: for other things, a general care is proportionable.

23. Let all these things be done prudently and moderately; not with scruple and vexa∣tion. For these are good advantages, but the particulars are not divine commandements; and therefore are to be used as shall be found expedient to every ones condition. For, pro∣vided that our du•••• be secured; for the de∣grees and for the instruments, every man is permitted to himself and the conduct of such who shall be appointed to him. He is happy, that can secure every hour to a sober or a pi∣ous imployment: but the duty consists not scrupulously in minutes and half hours, but in greater portions of time; provided, that no minute be imployed in sin, and the great portions of our time be spent in sober im∣ployment; and all the appointed daies and some portions of every day be allowed for Religion. In all the lesser parts of time we are left to our own elections and prudent ma∣nagement,

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and to the consideration of the great degrees and differences of glory that are laid up in Heaven for us, according to the degrees of our care and piety and diligence,

Notes

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