A Christian Directory Volume I Part 84

The overcoming of excessive sleep is easy, if you be but thoroughly willing.

_Direct._ I. The first thing to be done, is to correct that sluggish, phlegmatic temper of body which inclineth you to it, which is chiefly to be done by such an abstinence or temperate diet, as I gave directions for before. A full belly is fit for nothing else but sleep or l.u.s.t. Reduce your diet to that measure which is needful to your health, and eat not any more to please your appet.i.tes. And let fasting cure you when you have exceeded.

_Direct._ II. Labour hard in your callings, that your sleep may be sweet while you are in it; or else you will lie in bed on pretence of necessity, because you cannot sleep well when you are there. Then you will say, you must take it out in the morning, because you sleep not in the night. But see that this be not caused by idleness. Weary your bodies in your daily labours; "for the sleep of the labouring man is sweet," Eccl. v. 12.

_Direct._ III. See that thou have a calling which will find thee employment for all thy time, which G.o.d's immediate service spareth.

Yea, which somewhat urgeth thee to diligence. Otherwise thou wilt lie in bed, and say, thou hast time to spare, or nothing to do. You can rise when you have a journey to be gone, or a business of pressing necessity to be done: keep yourselves under some constant necessity, or urgency of business at the least.

_Direct._ IV. Take pleasure in your callings, and in the service of G.o.d. Sluggards themselves can rise to that which they take much pleasure in; as to go to a merriment, or feast, or play, or game, or to a good bargain, or any thing which they delight in. If thou hadst a delight in thy calling, and in reading the Scripture, and praying, and doing good, thou couldst not lie contentedly in bed, but wouldst long to be up and doing, as children to their play. The wicked can rise early to do wickedness, because their hearts are set upon it: they can be drunk, or steal, or wh.o.r.e, or plot their ambitious and covetous designs, when they should sleep.[471] And if thy heart were set as much on good, as theirs is on evil, wouldst not thou be as wakeful and as readily up?

_Direct._ V. Remember the grand importance of the business of your souls which always lieth on your hands, that the greatness of your work may rouse you up. What! lie slugging in bed, when you are so far behindhand in knowledge, and grace, and a.s.surance of salvation; and have so much of the Scripture and other books to read and understand?

Hast thou not grace to beg for a needy soul? Is not prayer better work than excess of sleeping? Great business in the world can make you rise, and why not greater?

_Direct._ VI. Remember that thou must answer in judgment for thy time: and what comfort wilt thou have, to say I slugged away so many hours in a morning? And what comfort at death when time is gone, to review so much cast away in sleep?

_Direct._ VII. Remember that G.o.d beholdeth thee, and is calling thee up to work. If thou understoodest his word and providence, thou wouldst hear him, as it were, saying as the mariners to Jonah, "What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy G.o.d." Wilt thou lie sleeping inordinately when G.o.d stands over thee, and calls thee up? If the king, or any great person, or friend, did but knock at thy door, thou wouldst rise presently to wait upon them. Why, G.o.d would speak with thee by his word, or hear thee speak to him by prayer; and wilt thou lie still and despise his call?

_Direct._ VIII. Remember how many are attending thee while thou sleepest. If it be summer, the sun is up before thee, that hath gone so many thousand miles while thou wast asleep: it hath given a day's light to the other half of the world since thou laidst down, and is come again to light thee to thy work, and wilt thou let it shine in vain? All the creatures are ready in their places to a.s.sist thee, and art thou asleep?

_Direct._ IX. Consider whether thou wilt allow thy servants to do the like: they must be up and at work, or you will be offended, and tell them that they are no servants for you, and that you hire them not to sleep. And do you not owe G.o.d more service than they owe you? Doth G.o.d hire you to sleep? Is it any lawfuller for you than them, to sleep one minute more than is needful for your health? No, not a minute: if you are sicklier than they, that is another matter; (but see that fulness and idleness cause it not;) but otherwise your riches are no excuse to you. Will you loiter more than they, because you receive more? and do less service, because you have more pay? Or is it your privilege to be so miserable, as to lose that time which poor men save?

_Direct._ X. Remember that your morning hours are the chiefest part of all the day, for any holy exercise, or special employment of the mind.

The mind is fresh and clear, and there is less interruption by worldly business; whereas when others are up and about their business, you will have interpellations. Those that have tried it can say by experience, that the morning hours are the flower of their time, for prayer or studies; and that early rising is a great part of the art of redeeming time.

_Direct._ XI. Remember how many are condemning you by their diligence, while you are slugging away your time. How many holy persons are then at prayer in secret, wrestling fervently with G.o.d for their salvation; or reading and meditating in his word! What do they get while you are sleeping! The blessed man doth delight in the law of the Lord, and meditate in it day and night; and you love your ease, and are sleeping day and night: will not all these be witnesses against you? So will the diligent in their callings; and so will the worldlings and wicked that rise early to their sin. How many thousand are hard at work while you are sleeping! Have you not work to do, as well as they?

_Direct._ XII. Remember that sensuality or flesh-pleasing is the great condemning sin that turns the heart from G.o.d: and if it be odious in a drunkard or fornicator, why is it not so in you? Mortify the flesh, and learn to deny it in its inordinate desires, and your sin is almost cured.

_Direct._ XIII. For then the executive part is easy when you are willing: it is but agreeing with some one to awaken you, and a little cold water will wash away your drowsiness if you consent.

PART VIII.

_Directions against sinful Dreams._

Dreams are neither good nor sinful simply in themselves, because they are not rational and voluntary, nor in our power; but they are often made sinful by some other voluntary act: they may be sinful by partic.i.p.ation and consequently. And the acts that make them sinful, are either such as go before, or such as follow after.

I. The antecedent causes are any sinful act which distempereth the body, or any sin which inclineth the fantasy and mind thereto; or the omission of what was necessary to prevent them. 2. The causes which afterwards make them objectively sinful, are the ill uses that men make of them; as when they take their dreams to be divine revelations, or trust to them, or are affrighted by them as ominous, or as prophetical; and make them the ground of their actions, and seduce themselves by the phantasms of their own brains.

_Direct._ I. Avoid those bodily distempers as much as you can which cause sinful dreams, especially fulness of diet: a full stomach causeth troublesome dreams, and l.u.s.tful dreams; and hath its ill effects by night and by day.

_Direct._ II. Endeavour the cure of those sinful distempers of the mind which cause sinful dreams. The cure of a worldly mind is the best way to cure worldly, covetous dreams; and the cure of a l.u.s.tful heart, is the best way to cure l.u.s.tful dreams; and so of the rest: cleanse the fountain, and the waters will be sweeter day and night.

_Direct._ III. Suffer not your thoughts, or tongue, or actions to run sinfully upon that in the day, which you would not dream sinfully of in the night.[472] Common experience telleth us, that our dreams are apt to follow our foregoing thoughts, and words, and deeds. If you think most frequently and affectionately of that which is good, you will dream of that which is good. If you think of l.u.s.tful, filthy objects, or speak of them, or meddle with them, you will dream of them; and so of covetous and ambitious dreams, and they that make no conscience to sin waking, are not like much to scruple sinning in their sleep.

_Direct._ IV. Commend yourselves to G.o.d by prayer before you take your rest, and beseech him to set a guard upon your fantasy when you cannot guard it. Cast the cure upon him, and fly to him for help by faith and prayer in the sense of your insufficiency.

_Direct._ V. Let your last thoughts still before your sleep be holy, and yet quieting and consolatory thoughts.[473] The dreams are apt to follow our last thoughts. If you betake yourselves to sleep with worldliness or vanity in your minds, you cannot expect to be wiser or better when you are asleep, than when you are awake. But if you shut up your day's thoughts with G.o.d, and sleep find them upon any holy subject, it is like to use them as it finds them. Yet if it be distrustful, unbelieving, fearful thoughts which you condole with, your dreams may savour of the same distemper. Frightful and often sinful dreams do follow sinful doubts and fears. But if you sweeten your last thoughts with the love of Christ, and the remembrance of your former mercies, or the foresight of eternal joys, or can confidently cast them and yourselves upon some promise, it will tend to the quietness of your sleep, and to the savouriness of your dreams: and if you should die before morning, will it not be most desirable that your last thoughts be holy?

_Direct._ VI. When you have found any corruption appearing in your dreams, make use of them for the renewing of your repentance, and exciting your endeavours to mortify that corruption. A corruption may be perceived in dreams, 1. When such dreams as discover it are frequent: 2. When they are earnest and violent: 3. When they are pleasing and delightful to your fantasies: not that any certain knowledge can be fetched from them, but some conjecture as added to other signs. As if you should frequently, earnestly, and delightfully dream of preferments and honours, of the favours of great men, suspect ambition, and do the more to discover and mortify it. If it be of riches, and gain, and money, suspect a covetous mind. If it be of revenge or hurt to any man that you distaste, suspect some malice, and quickly mortify it: so if it be of l.u.s.t, or feasting, or drinking, or vain recreations, sports and games, do the like.

_Direct._ VII. Lay no greater stress upon your dreams than there is just cause. As, 1. When you have searched, and find no such sin prevailing in you as your dreams seem to intimate, do not conclude that you have more than your waking evidence discovers. Prefer not your sleeping signs before your waking signs and search. 2. When you are conscious that you indulge no corruption to occasion such a dream, suppose it not to be faulty of itself, and lay not the blame of your bodily temperament, or unknown causes, upon your soul, with too heavy and unjust a charge. 3.

Abhor the presumptuous folly of those that use to prognosticate by their dreams, and measure their expectations by them, and cast themselves into hopes or fears by them. Saith Diogenes, "What folly is it to be careless of your waking thoughts and actions, and inquisitive about your dreams?

A man's happiness or misery lieth upon what he doth when he is awake, and not upon what he suffereth in his sleep."

FOOTNOTES:

[378] Rom. vii. 7; Matt. v. 28; Eph. v. 5; Heb. xiii. 4.

[379] Prov. iii. 21; Luke xi. 34; Matt. vi. 22; Psal. cxlv. 15; cxxiii. 2, 3; Prov. xxviii. 27.

[380] Psal. x.x.xv. 19; Prov. x. 10; x.x.x. 17; Isa. v. 15; iii. 16; Prov.

x.x.x. 13.

[381] Prov. xxiii. 33.

[382] Prov. xxvii. 20; Eccl. i. 8; iv. 8.

[383] Prov. xxiii. 3.

[384] Prov. iv. 25.

[385] Prov. xxi. 10. See Dr. Hammond on Matt. vi. 22.

[386] Prov. xxii. 9.

[387] Isa. xiii. 18; Prov. xxviii. 27.

[388] Matt. vii. 3; Luke vi. 41.

[389] Prov. vi. 4.

[390] Psal. x.x.xv. 21; x. 8, x.x.xvi. 1.

[391] Matt. vi. 22, 23; Luke xi. 34.

[392] Prov. xxiii. 29.

[393] Psal. vi. 7; Lam. iii. 48, 49, 51.

[394] Gen. xlix. 2; Exod. xix. 9; Deut. i. 16; iv. 10; v. 1, 25, 27; x.x.xi. 13; Prov. i. 8; xix. 20, 27; xxii. 17; Eccl. v. 1; vii. 5; Jam.

i. 19; Isa. lxvi. 4; lxv. 12; x.x.x. 9; Ezek. xii. 2; Mal. ii. 2; Acts iii. 23; Lev. v. 1; Deut. xiii. 12.

[395] So the Israelites, Numb. xi. loathing manna, because they must have change of diet, was a sin of gulosity, or gluttony; being more for appet.i.te than health.

[396] Even fruitful land, saith Plutarch, enricheth not if it cost too much the manuring. So here.

[397] As Isaac's pleasant meat, Gen. xxvii. 7.