Sacred principles, services, and soliloquies or, a manual of devotions made up of three parts: I. The grounds of Christian religion, and the doctrine of the Church of England, as differing from the now-Roman. II. Daily, and weekly formes of prayers fortified with Holy Scriptures, meditations and rules to keep the soule from the common roads of sin, and carry it on in a mortified course. III. Seven charges to conscience, delivering (if not the whole body) the main limbs of divinity, which is the art not of disputing, but living well.

2. Ill Habits,

They are to be avoided, My Soule! For these will carry thee wrong, though thy guide be right. And this will wheele thy Heart, as the other doe thy Minde wrong. But the Soule goes wofully a∣way, that is misled by both. An ill custome, is a Second Nature. And that * 1.1 was depraved enough at first to doe ill (it needs not a Second.) An Inveterate disease it is, which to keep is death; and to leave, impossible. O my Soule! Sin is thy blacknesse, and vices thy Spots; but by continuance become not acci∣dentall, but Naturall; and what Laver will wash of an Aethiopian blacknesse? * 1.2 or Fuller, take out a Leopards Spots? Why cannot some Speake, but Sweare? Why doe not some talke, but Lie? Why cannot some live more without drinke, then breath? And others, no more want their lust, then sleep? But because their Tongues have got the

custome to Speake; and these Bodies the habite, to doe evill? Live not then * 1.3 in Sin, as thou wouldest not die in it. Naturalize it not, if thou wilt not die for it. Reiterate not the acts of it, if * 1.4 thou wouldest not naturalize it, What thou canst, Commit not the first acts, and thou shalt not reiterate it. If thou hast been overtaken with the first, run * 1.5 away from a Second, lest a Third over∣run thee, and leave thee in the way of death. Yea, at the very Doore. For my Soule!

Hardnesse of heart, is the Threshold of Hell. And many strokes of guilt wil * 1.6 anvile it to hardnesse. And then as much Sense in that, as will be in thy Conscience. And then, as much blushing * 1.7 in brasse, as will be in thy countenance. Entrance teares of the veile of shame; but continuance whores the forhead; And so my Soule. it is with all Sin as that One. Entrance conceives Continu∣ance; This begets Custome; And That, Impudence; And It, Vengeance. Say then my Soule! Say and doe with Humble and Holy Job,

Once have I Spoken, but I will not an∣swer, * 1.8 Yea twice, but I will proceed no further. No: Thrice may carry thee so

far from God, that either thou carest * 1.9 not, or canst not Returne, and so must on and Proceed. Proceed for want of a Timely pause, till thou come to a fatall Period. Beware then of Bad Customs. And so doe by

Notes

• * 1.1

  Gen. 6. 12.
• * 1.2

  Jer. 3. 23.
• * 1.3

  Rom. 6. 6. Joh. 8. 21.
• * 1.4

  Heb. 3. 11. 12.
• * 1.5

  Gal. 6. 1.
• * 1.6

  Obduratio animi, li∣men inferni
• * 1.7

  Jer. 5. 3. Zach. 7. 12. 1 Tim. 4. 2 Jer. 8. 12. & 6. 15. Jer. 3. 3. Prov. 7. 21 Jer. 9. 12.
• * 1.8

  Job. 40. 4. 5.
• * 1.9

  2 Tim. 3. 3. Prov. 1. 24. 31. Apoc. 22. 11.