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CHRISTIAN MORALITY,
&C.
[SERM.
XxIIL
selves an
example to you."
See
Acts
xviii.
3.
and
e
Thess.
iii.
8,
9.
And good Dorcas, when
she
had
no
business
of
her
own,.
made
coat&
and garments
for the
poor,
Acts
ix. 36, 39. Such
honourable
examples
as
these deserve
our
imitation.
DIREc,z'roN :III.
Let
us
keep
a
strict
watch over
ourselves
when
we
indulge mirth, and
set
a double guard
upon the seasons
of recreation and
divertisement.
The
rules
of
religion
do
not
so
restrain
us
from the
common
entertainments
of
life,
as to
render
us
melan-
choly creatures,
and
unfit for company.
There
is
no
need
to become
mere mopes or hermits,
in
order
to be
christians.
The
gospel does
not
deprive
us
of
such
joys
as belong to
our natures, but it
refines
and
heightens
our
delights.
It
draws
our
souls
farther
away from mean
and brutal
pleasures, and raises them to manly satisfac-
tions, to
entertainments
worthy
of
a
rational nature,
worthy
of
a
creature that
is
made
in
the
image
of
God.
The innocent entertainments of
,
life
are
not utterly
for-
bidden
to christians, but
are regulated
by
the
gospel.
When
we
have
considered and found them
to be
law-
ful, then
they
are
to
be
regulated
these two
ways.
1.
All
our recreations and
divertisements must
have
some valuable end proposed.
e.
We
must
distinguish the
proper
time
á.nd
season
of
them,
and
confine
our
diversions
to
that
season.
I.
They
must
always have some
valuable end
pro-
posed.
The
chief and most
useful design
of
them
is
to
make
us
more chearful and
.fitter
for
some
hours or
days
of
service
afterwards.
Recreation must not
be
our
trade
or
business,
but
merely used
as
a means to
prepare
us
for the valuable
businesses
of
life.
The scripture
indeed
tell
us,
that of
every idle word
that
men shall speak, there
shall be
au
account
given
in
the
day
of
judgment,"
Mat.
xii.
3G.
And much
more
of
idle hours
and actions.
But
this
doth not utterly
ex-
clude
all
manner of
recreations, or
all words
of
plea-
santry, which may
be
innocently and properly
used
upon
some
occasions
;
but
whatsoever
words,
whatso-
ever conversation, whatsoever
sort of
pleasurable
en-
.
tertainments,
we
indulge ourselves
in,
which have no
valuable
end, no useful
design in
them
:
These
will
bear
but
an
ill
aspect before the
judgment
seat
of
Christ.
We
shall
not
be
able to
give
a tolerable account of such
idle