LETTER I DIRECTIONS TOUCHING THE KEEPING OF THE LORD'S-DAY. CHILDREN, WHEN I laft lodged in this place, in my journey up to London, I fent you from hence divers inftructions concerning your fpeech, and how you fhould manage it, and required you to take copies of it, and to direct your practice according to it. I forgot to enquire of you, whether you had taken copies of it, but I hope you have; and I do again require you to be careful in obferving thofe and my former directions given to you, fome in writing, and many more by word of mouth. I have been careful that my example might be a vifible direction to you; but if that hath been defective, or not fo full and clear a pattern of your imitation, especially in refpect of my different condition from yours, yet I am certain that those rules and directions which I have at feveral times given you, both in writing, and by word of mouth, have been found, and wholefome, and feasonable; and therefore I do expect that you should remember and practise them; and though your young years cannot yet, perchance, fee the reafon and ufe of them, yet affure yourselves time and experience will make you know the benefit of them. In advice given to young people, it fares with them as it doth with young children that are taught to read, or with young school-boys that learn their grammar rules; they learn their letters, and then they learn to spell a fyllable, and then they learn to put together feveral fyllables to make up a word; or they learn to decline a noun, or to form a verb; and all this while they understand not to what end all this trouble is, nor what it means. But when they come to be able to read English, or to make a piece of Latin, or to conftrue a Latin author, then they find all these rudiments were very neceffary, and to good purpofe; for by this means they come to understand what others have written, and to know what they knew and wrote, and thereby improve their own knowledge and understanding. Juft fo it is with young people, in refpect of counfel and inftruction, when the father, or the minifter, or fome wife and understanding man doth fometimes admonifh, fometimes chide and reprove, fometimes inftruct, they are apt to wonder why fo much ado, and what they mean, and it is troublefome and tedious, and feems impertinent; and they are ready to say within themselves, that the time were better spent in riding, or hunting, or merriment, or gaming; but when they come to riper years, then they begin to find that those inftructions of the ancients are of excellent ufe to manage the converfation, and to direct the actions, and to avoid inconveniencies, and mischiefs, and mifcarriages, to which they are subject without the help of thefe counfels. And therefore it hath been my practice to give you line upon line, and precept upon precept, to enable you to fteer and order your courfe of life through an evil and dangerous world; and to require you to be frequent in reading the Scriptures with due obfervation and understanding, which will make you wife for this life, and that which is to come. I am now come well to F., from whence I wrote to you my former inftructions concerning your words and fpeech; and I now intend to write fomething to you of another fubject, viz. your observation of the Lord's-day, commonly called Sunday; and this I do for these reasons : 1. Because it hath pleased God to caft my lot fo, that I am to reft at this place upon that day; and the confideration, therefore, of that duty, is proper for me and for you; it is opus diei in die fuo, 'the work fit and "proper for that day.' 2. Because I have, by long and found experience, found that the due obfervance of this day, and of the duties of it, has been of fingular comfort and advantage to me; and I doubt not but it will prove fo to you. God Almighty is the Lord of our time, and lends it to us; and as it is but juft we should confecrate this part of that time to him, so I have found, by a ftrict and diligent obfervation, that a due obfervation of the duty of this day hath ever had joined to it a bleffing upon the reft of my time; and the week that hath been fo begun, hath been bleffed and profperous to me: and, on the other fide, when I have been negligent of the duties of this day, the reft of the week has been unfuccefsful and unhappy to my own fecular employments; fo that I could easily make an eftimate of my fucceffes in my own fecular employments the week following, by the manner of my paffing of this day; and this I do not write lightly or inconfiderately, but upon a long and found obfervation and experience. 3. Because I find in the world much looseness and apoftacy from this duty. People begin to be cold and carelefs in it, allowing themselves fports, and recreations, and fecular employments in it, without any neceffity, which is a fad fpectacle, and an ill prefage. It concerns me, therefore, (that am your father) as much as I may, to refcue you from that fin which the examples of others, and the inclination and inconfiderateness of youth are otherwife apt to lead you into. I fhall therefore fet down unto you particularly (and not |