world to me; fitting myself for death, judgment and eternity. These and the like employments, I esteemed the flower, the glory, the beft of iny spent time, because they will be carried over with advantage into the life to come; and therefore this I reckoned my business, and accordingly I made it: other matters, that only ferved for the meridian of this life, I used either barely for neceffity of my prefent fubfiftence, or as a divertisement, and fparingly, in order to thofe great ends. Those were the bufinefs, thefe only the parerga of my life..

10. Touching thy creatures, and the use of them, andi the dominion over them.

I have esteemed them as thine in propriety: thou haft committed unto me the use, and a fubordinate dominion over them; yet I ever esteemed myself an accomptant to thee for them, and therefore I have received them with thankfulness unto thee, the great Lord both of them and me: when the earth yielded me a good crop of corn or other fruits; when flocks increased; when my honest labours brought me in a plentiful or convenient fupply, I looked up to thee as the Giver, to thy providence and bleffing, as the original of all my increafe; I did not facrifice to my own net, or industry, or prudence, but I received all, as the gracious and bountiful returns of thy liberal hand: I looked upon every grain of corn that I fowed, as buried and loft, unless thy power quickned and revived it; I efteemed the best production would have been but ftalk and straw, unless thou hadst increased it; I esteemed my own hand and industry but impotent, unless thou hadft bleffed it; for it is thy bleffing that maketh rich, and it is thou that givet power to get wealth, Prov. x. 22. Deut. viii. 18.

2. I esteemed it my duty to make a return of this my ac knowlegement, by giving the tribute of my increase in the maintenance of thy minifters, and the relief of the poor; and I efteemed the practice enjoined to thy ancient people of giving the tenth of their increase, not only a fufficient warrant, but instruction to me under the gofpel, to do the like.

3. I have not only looked upon thy bleffing and boun ty, in lending me thy own creatures for my ufe; but I L13

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have fought unto thee for a bleffing upon them in my ufe of them. I did very well obferve, that there is by my fin a curfe in the very creatures that I receive, unless thy blefling fetch it out; an emptinefs in them, unless thy goodness fill them; though thou shouldft give me quails and manna from heaven; yet without thy bleffing upon them, they would become rottennefs, and putrefaction to me; and therefore I ever begged thy bleffing upon thy bleffings, as well as the bleffings themselves, and attribut ed the good I found, or was to expect in them, to the fame hand that gave them.

4.

I received and ufed thy creatures as committed to me under à truft, and as a steward and accomptant for them; and therefore I was always careful to use them according to thofe limits, and in order for thofe ends, for which thou didst commit them to me: 1. With temperance and moderation; I did not use thy creatures to luxury and excefs, to maké provision for my luits, with vainglory or oftentation, but for the convenient fupport of the exigencies of my nature and condition; and if at any time thy goodness did indulge me an ufe of them for delight, as well as neceffity, I did it but rarely and watchfully. I looked not upon the wine, when it gave its coJour in the cup, nor gave myself over, either to excefs or euriofity in meats or drinks; I checked myself therein, as being in thy presence, and still remembred I had thy creatures under an accompt; and was ever careful to avoid excess or intemperance, because every exceffive cup or meal was in danger to leave me fomewhat in fuper and arrear to my Lord. 2. With mercy and compaffion to the creatures themselves, which thou haft put under my power and difpofal: when I confidered the admirable powers of life and fenfe, which I faw in the birds and beasts, and that all the men in the world could not give the like being to any thing, nor reftore that life and fenfe which is once taken from them; when I confidered how innocently and harmlessly the fowls and the fifh, and the fheep, and the oxen take their food, that thou the Lord of all haft given them, I have been apt to think that furely thou didft intend a more innocent kind of food to man, than fuch as must be taken with fuch detriment to those living parts of thy creation; and although thy wonderful good

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nefs hath fo much indulged to mankind, as to give up the lives of these creatures for the food of man by thy express commiffion, yet I ftill do, and ever did think that there was a justice due from man, even to these fenfible creatures; that he fhould take them fparingly, for neceffity, and not for delight; or if for delight, yet not for luxury. I have been apt to think, that if there were any morę liberal use of creatures for delight or variety, it fhould be of fruits, or fuch other delicacies, as might be had without the loss of life; but however it be, this very confideration hath made me very fparing and careful, not vainly or fuperfluously, or unneceffarily, or prodigally to take away the life of the creatures, for feafting and excefs. And the very fame confideratiou hath always gone along with me, in reference to the labours of his creatures. have ever thought that there was a certain degree of juftice due from man to the creatures, as from man to man, and that an exceffive, immoderate, unseasonable use of the creatures labour, is an injuftice for which he must account; to deny domeftick creatures their convenient food; to expect that labour from them, that they are not able to perform; to ufe extremity or cruelty towards them, is a breach of that truft under which the dominion of the creatures was committed to us, and a breach of that juf - tice that is due from men to them: and therefore I have always efteemed it as part of my duty, and it hath been always my practice to be merciful to beafts, Prov xii. 10. And upon the fame account I have ever efteemed it a breach of truft, and have accordingly declined any cruel ty to any of thy creatures, and as much as I might, prevented it in others, as a tyranny, inconfiftent with the truft and stewardship that thou haft committed to me. I have abhorred those sports that confist in the torturing of the creatures; and if either noxious creatures must be defroyed, or creatures for food must be taken, it hath been my patience to do it in that manner, that may be with the leaft torture or cruelty to the creature; and I have fill thought it an unlawful thing to deftroy thofe creatures for recreation fake, that either were not hurtful when they lived, or are not profitable when they are killed; ever remembring, that thou haft given us a dominion over thy creatures; yet it is under a law of justice,

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prudence, and moderation, otherwise we should become ty rants not lords, over thy creatures: and therefore things of this nature, that others have practised as recreations, I have avoided as fins.

As to thofe HABITS of MIND and knowlege that I have had or acquired; and namely,

II. My LEARNING of natural causes and effects, and of ARTS and SCIENCES.

1. I have not esteemed them the chiefest or best furniture of my mind, but have accounted them but drofs in comparison of the knowlege of thee and thy Christ, and him crucified. In the acquiring of them, I have always obferved this care: 1. That I might not too prodigally beftow my time upon them, to the prejudice of that time and pains for the acquiring of more excellent knowlege, and the greater concernments of my everlasting happiness. 2. I carried along with me in all my studies of this nature, this great defign of improving them, and the knowlege acquired by them, to the honour of thy name, and the greater difcovery of thy wildom, power and truth, and fo tranflated my fecular learning into an improve. ment of divine knowlege; and had I not had, and practifed that defign in my acquests of human learning, I had concluded my time mif-fpent; because I ever thought it unworthy of a man that had an everlasting foul, to furnifh it only with fuch learning, as either would die with his body, and fo become unuseful for his everlasting state, or that in the next moment after death, would be attained without labour or toil in this life; yet this advantage I made and found in my application to fecular ftudies.

1. It inlarged and habituated my mind for more use ful inquiries.

2. It carried me up, in a great measure, to the found and grounded knowlege of thee, the first cause of all things.

3. It kept me from idleness and rust.

4. It kept my thoughts, and life oftentimes, from temptations to worse imployments.

My learning and knowlege did not heighten my opinion of myself, parts, or abilities; but the more I knew, the more humble I was.

1. I found it was thy ftrength and bleffing that enabled me to it; that gave me understanding and enlarged it, I did look upon it as a talent lent me, not truly acquired by me.

2. The more I knew, the more I knew my own ignorance. I found myself convinced, that there was an ignorance in what I thought I knew; my knowlege was but imperfect and defective; and I`found an infinite latitude of things which I knew not; the farther I waded into knowlege, the deeper ftill I found it, and it was with me, juft as it is with a child, that thinks, that if he could but come to fuch a field, he fhould be able to touch the hemifphere of the heavens; but when he comes thither, he finds it as far off as it was before. Thus while my mind pursued knowlege, I found the object ftill as far be fore me as it was, if not much farther, and could no more attain the full and exact knowlege of any one fub. ject, than the hinder wheel of a chariot can overtake the former: though I knew much of what others were igno ränt, yet still I found there was much more, whereof I was ignorant, than what I knew, even in the compass of a most confined and inconfiderable fubject. And as my very knowlege taught me humility in the fenfe of my own ignorance, fo it taught me that my understanding was of finite and limited power, that takes in things by little and little, and gradually. 2. That thy wisdom is un fearchable and paft finding out. 3. That thy works which are but finite in themselves, and neceffarily fhort of that infinite wisdom by which they are contrived, are yet fo wonderful, that, as the wife man faith, "No man

can find out the work that thou makeft from the beginning to the end," Ecclef. iii. 11. If a man would fpend his whole life in the study of a poor fly, there would be fuch a confluence of fo many wonderful and difficult exhibits in it, that it would ftill leave much more undif covered than the most fingular wit ever yet attained.

3. It taught me alfo with the wife man, to write vanity and vexation upon all my fecular knowlege and learning, Ecclef. i. 14. That little that I know, was not attained without much labour, nor yet free from much uncertainty; and the great refiduum which I knew not,

rendred