11. If you are well, be sure you go to church morning and afternoon, and be there before the minister begin, and stay till he hath ended; and all the while you are at church, carry yourself gravely, soberly, and reverently.

12. After Evening Sermon, go up to your chamber and read a chapter in the Bible: then examine what you have written, or recollect what you have heard. And if the sermon be not repeated in your father's house, but be repeated in the minister's house, go to the minister's house to the repetition of the sermon.

13. In all your speeches or actions of this day, let there be no lightness nor vanity. Use no running, or leaping, or playing, or wrestling use no jesting, or telling of tales, or foolish stories; no talk about worldly business; but let your actions and speech be such as the day is, serious and sacred, tending to learn or instruct in the great business of your knowledge of God, and his will, and your own duty.

14. After Supper, and prayers ended in my family, every one of you going to bed, kneel down upon your knees, and desire of God his pardon, for what you have done amiss this day, and his blessing upon what you have heard,

and his acceptance of what you have endeavoured in his service.

15. Perform all this cheerfully, and uprightly, and honestly, and count it not a burden to you; for assure yourselves you shall find a blessing from God in so doing. And remember it is your father that tells you so, and that loves you, and will not deceive you; and (which is more than that) remember that the eternal God hath promised, "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

And thus I have written to you of the observation of the Lord's-day; wherein, though

* Isaiah, lviii. 13, 14.

I have omitted many things, that might have been fit to be inserted, yet you must consider, that I had but a small portion of time allowed me to write, while I lay at an inn, and upon that day wherein I have performed those duties which I now enjoin you. Let the original be laid up safely for your brother R. and every [one] of you take copies of it, that you may thereby remember the Counsels of

October the 20th, 1662.

YOUR LOVING FATHER.

LETTER IV.

TO ONE OF HIS SONS,

RECOVERING FROM A DANGEROUS SICKNESS

*

SON

ALTHOUGH, by reason of the contagiousness of your disease, and the many dependents I have upon me, I thought it not convenient to come unto you during your sickness, yet I have not been wanting in my earnest prayers to Almighty God for you, nor in using the best means I could for your Recovery.

It hath pleased God to hear my prayers for you, and above means and hopes now to restore you to a competent degree of health; for which

*The small pox, which seized him when he was a young man, in the prime of life.

:

I return unto him my humble and hearty thanks and now you are almost ready to come abroad again, therefore I have thought fit to write this little book to you for these

reasons.

1. Because it is not yet seasonable for you to come to me, in respect of these same reasons above-mentioned, which hitherto have restrained my coming to you.

2. Because, at your coming abroad, you will be subject to temptations, by young and inconsiderate company, which, instead of serious thankfulness to God for his mercy to you, might perchance persuade you to a vain and light jollity. And I thought fit to send you these lines, to prevent such inconsiderate impressions, and to meet you just at your coming abroad, to season you with more wise and serious principles.

3. Because you are even now come out of a great and sore visitation, and therefore in all probability, in the fittest temper, to receive the impressions of a serious epistle from your Father.

And I have chosen to put it into this little volume, because it is somewhat too long for a