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The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying. Revised, Abridged, and Adapted to General Use, by W.h. Hale
The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying Revised Abridged and Adapted to General Use by Wh Hale Author:Jeremy Taylor General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1838 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: THE RULE AND EXERCISES HOLY LIVING, CHAP. I. CONSIDERATION OF THE GENERAL INSTRUMENTS AND MEANS SERVING TO A HOLY LIFE, BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION. It is necessary that every man should consider, that since God hath given him an excellent nature, wisdom and choice, an understanding soul, and an immortal spirit, having made him lord over the beasts, and but a little lower than the angels; he hath also appointed for him a work and a service great enough to employ those abilities, and hath also designed him to a state of life after this, to which he can only arrive by that service and obedience. And therefore as every man is wholly God's own portion by the title of Creation : so all our labours and care, all our powers and facilities must be wholly employed in the service of God, even all the days of our life, that this life being ended, we may live with him for ever. Neither is it sufficient, that we think of the service of God as a work of the least necessity, or of small employment, but that it be done by us as God intended it; that it be done with great earnestness and, B passion, with much zeal and desire ; that we refuse no labour ; that we bestow upon it much time, that we use the best guides, and arrive at the end of glory by all the ways of grace, of prudence, and religion. And indeed if we consider how much of our lives is taken up by the needs of nature ; how many years are wholly spent before we come to any use of reason ; how many years more before that reason is useful to us to any great purposes ; how imperfect our discourse is made by our evil education, false principles, ill company, ...« less