14. *Young ladies must either devote themselves to piety, prayer, self-denial, and all good works in a Virgin state of life, or else marry to be holy, sober, and prudent in the care of a family; bringing up their children in piety, humility, and devotion, and abounding in all other good works, to the utmost of their capacity. They have no choice of any thing else; but must devote themselves to God in one of these states. They may chuse a married, or a single life; but it is not left to their choice, whether they will make either state, a state of holiness, humility, and all other duties of [♦]the Christian life. It is no more left in their power, because they have fortunes, or are born of rich parents, to divide themselves betwixt God and the world, or take such pleasures as their fortune will afford them, than to be sometimes chaste and modest, and sometimes not.
[♦] ‘he’ replaced with ‘the’
*They are not to consider how much religion may secure them a fair character, or how they may add devotion to an impertinent, vain, and giddy life; but must look into the spirit and temper of their prayers, into the nature and end of [♦]Christianity; and then they will find, that whether married or unmarried, they have but one business upon their hands; to be wise, and pious, and holy; not in little modes and forms of worship, but in the whole turn of their minds, in the whole form of their behaviour, and in the daily course of their common life.
[♦] ‘Christianiiy’ replaced with ‘Christianity’
15. *Young gentlemen must consider what our blessed Saviour said to the young gentleman in the gospel; he bid him sell all he had, and give to the poor. Now, though this text does not oblige all people to sell all; yet it certainly obliges all kinds of people to employ all their estates in such wise and reasonable ways, as may shew, all they have is devoted to God; and that no part of it is kept from the poor, to be spent in needless, vain, and foolish expences.
*If therefore young gentlemen propose to themselves a life of pleasure and indulgence; if they spend their estates in high living, in luxury and intemperance, in state and equipage, in pleasures and diversions, in sports and gaming, and such like wanton gratifications of their foolish passions, they have as much reason to look upon themselves to be angels, as to be disciples of Christ.
*Let them be assured, that it is the one only business of a Christian gentleman, to distinguish himself by good works, to be eminent in the most sublime virtues of the gospel, to bear with the ignorance and weakness of the vulgar, to be a friend and patron to all that dwell about him, to live in the utmost heights of wisdom and holiness, and shew through the whole course of his life a true religious greatness of mind. They must aspire after such a gentility, as they might have learnt from seeing the blessed Jesus, and shew no other spirit of a gentleman, but such as they might have got by living with the holy apostles. They must learn to love God with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their strength, and their neighbour as themselves; and then they have all the greatness and distinction that they can have here, and are fit for eternal happiness in heaven.
16. Thus, in all orders and conditions, either of men or women, this is the one holiness, which is to be the common life of all Christians.
The merchant is not to leave devotion to the clergyman, nor the clergyman to leave humility to the labourer. Women of fortune are not to leave it to the poor of their sex, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, to adorn themselves in modest apparel, shame-facedness, and sobriety; nor poor women to leave it to the rich to attend at the worship of God. Great men must be eminent for true poverty of spirit, and people of a low and afflicted state must greatly rejoice in God.
The man of strength and power is to forgive and pray for his enemies, and the innocent sufferer, that is chained in prison, must, with Paul and Silas, at midnight sing praises unto God. For God is to be glorified, holiness is to be practised, and the spirit of religion is to be the common spirit of every Christian in every state and condition of life.