The Whole Duty of Man, Points of self-examination – Part 8
Brief Heads of Self-Examination, especially before the Sacrament, Collected out of the fore-going Treatise, concerning the breaches of our Duty.
To GOD.
FAITH.
NOT BELIEVING there is a God.
Not believing his Word.
Not believing it practically, so as to live according to our belief.
HOPE.
Despairing of Gods mercy, so as to neglect duty.
Presuming groundlesly on it, whilst we go on in wilful sin.
LOVE.
Not Loving God for his own excellencies.
Not loving him for his goodness to us.
Not labouring to please him.
Not desiring to draw neer to him in his Ordinances.
Not longing to enjoy him in Heaven.
FEAR.
Not Fearing God so as to keep from offending him.
Fearing man above him by committing sin, to shun some outward suffering.
TRUST.
Not trusting on God in dangers and disiresses.
Using unlawful means to bring us out of them.
Not depending on God for supply of our wants.
Immoderate care for outward things.
Neglecting to labour, and expecting God should support us in our idleness.
Not looking up to God for a blessing on our honest endeavours.
HUMILITY.
Not having a high esteem of God.
Not submitting obediently to act his will.
Not patiently suffering it, but murmuring at his corrections.
Not amending by them.
Not being thankful to him.
Not acknowledging his wisdome in choosing for us, but having eager and impatient desires of our owe.
HONOUR.
Not Honouring God by a reverend usage of the things that relate to him.
Behaving our selves irreverently in his house.
Robbing God, by taking things that are consecrated to him.
Profaning Holy times, the Lords Day, and the Feasts and Fasts of the Church.
Neglecting to read the Holy Scriptures, not marking when we do read.
Being careless to get knowledge of our duty, chusing rather to continue ignorant, then put our selves to the pains or shame of learning.
Placing Religion in hearing of Sermons, without practising them.
Breaking our Vow made at Baptisme.
By resorting to Witches, and Conjurers; i. e. to the Devil.
By loving the pomps and vanities of the world, and followlowing its sinful customes.
By fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.
Profaning the Lords Supper.
By comming to it ignorantly, without examination, contrition, and purposes of new life.
By behaving our selves irreverently at it, without devotion, and spiritual affection.
By neglecting to keep the promises made at it.
Profaning Gods Name, by blasphemous thoughts, or discourse.
Giving others occasion to blaspheme him, by our vile wicked lives.
Taking unlawful OATHS.
Perjury.
Swearing in ordinary communication.
WORSHIP.
Not worshipping God.
Omitting prayers, publick or private, and being glad of a pretence to do so
Asking unlawful things, or to unlawful ends.
Not purifying our hearts from sin before we pray.
Not praying with Faith and Humility.
Coldness and deadness in prayer.
Wandring thoughts in it.
Irreverent gestures of body in prayer.
REPENTANCE.
Neglecting the duty of Repentance.
Not calling our selves to dayly account for our sins.
Not assigning any set or solemn times, for humiliation; and confession, or too seldome.
Not deeply considering our sins, to beget contrition for them.
Not acting revenges on our selves, by fasting, and other acts of Mortification.
IDOLATRY.
Outward Idolatry in worshipping of creatures.
Inward Idolatry, in placing our love, and other affections more on creatures, then the Creator.
To our SELVES.
HUMILITY.
BEing puft up with high conceits of our selves.
In respect of natural parts, as beauty, wit, &c.
Of worldly riches and honours.
Of Grace.
Greedily seeking the praise of men.
Directing Christian Actions, as prayer, alms, &c. to that end.
Committing sins to avoid reproach from wicked men.
MEEKNES.
Disturbing our minds with Anger and peevishness.
CONSIDERATION.
Not carefully Examining what our estate towards God is.
Not trying our selves by the true rule, i. e. our obedience to Gods commands.
Not weighing the lawfulness of our actions before we venture on them.
Not examining our past actions to repent of the ill, to give God the glory of the good.
CONTENTEDNES.
Uncontentedness in our estates
Greedy desires after honour and riches.
Seeking to gain them by sinful means.
Envying the condition of other men.
DILIGENCE WATCHFULNES
Being negligent in observing and resisting temptations.
Not improving Gods gifts, outward or inward, to his honour.
Abusing our natural parts, as wit, memory, strength, &c. to sin.
Neglecting or resisting the motions of Gods Spirit.
CHASTITY.
Uncleanness, adultery, fornication, unnatural lusts, &c.
Uncleanness of the eye and hand.
Filthy and obscene talking.
Impure sancies and desires.
Heightning of lust by pampering the body.
Not labouring to subdue it by fasting or other severities.
TEMPERANCE.
Eating too much.
Making pleasure, not health the end of eating.
Being too curious or costly in meats.
Drunkenness.
Drinking more then is useful to our bodies though not to drunkenness.
Wasting the time or estate in good fellowship
Abusing our streng…h of brain to the making others drunk.
Immoderate sleeping.
Idleness and negligence in our callings.
Using unlawful Recreations.
Being too vehement upon lawful ones.
Spending too much time at them.
Being drawn by them to anger or covetousness.
Being proud of apparel.
Striving to go beyond our rank.
Bestowing too much time, care or cost about it.
Abstaining from such excesses not out of conscience but covetousness.
Pinching our bodies to fill our purses.
To our NEIGHBOUR.
NEGATIVE JUSTICE.
BEing Injurious to our Neighbour.
Delighting causlesly to grieve his mind.
Ensnaring his soul in sin, by command, counsel, enticement or example.
Affrighting him from godliness by our scoffing at it.
Not seeking to bring those to repentance whom we have led into sin.
MURDER.
Murder, open or secret.
Drawing men to intemperance or other vices, which may bring diseases or death.
Stirring men up to quarrelling and fighting.
Maiming or hurting the body of our neighbour.
Fierceness and rage against him.
ADULTERY.
Coveting our Neighbours wife.
Actually defiling her.
MALICE.
Spoiling the goods of others upon spight and malice.
COVETOUSNES.
Coveting to gain them to our selves.
OPPRESSION.
Oppressing by violence and force or colour of Law.
THEFT.
Not paying what we borrow.
Not paying what we have voluntarily promised.
Keeping back the wages of the servant and hireling.
DECEIT.
Unfaithfulness in trusts, whether to the living or dead.
Using arts of deceit in buying and selling.
Exacting upon the necessities of our neighbours.
FALSE WITNES.
Blasting the credit of our neighbour.
By false witness.
By railing.
By whispering.
Incouraging others in their slanders.
Being forward to believe ill reports of our neighbour.
Causeless suspitions.
Rash judging of him.
Despising him for his infirmities.
Inviting others to do so by scoffing and d…riding him.
Bearing any malice in the heart.
Secret wishing of death or any kinde of hurt to our neighbour.
Rejoycing when any evil befalls him.
Nelecting to make what satisfaction we can for any sort of injury done to our neighbour.
POSITIVE JUSTICE. HUMILITY. LYING.
Churlish and proud behaviour to others.
Froward and peevish conversation.
Bitter and reproachful language.
Cursing.
Not paying the respect due to the qualities or gifts of others
Proudly overlooking them.
Seeking to lessen others esteem of them.
Not imploying our abilities, whether of minde or estate, in administring to those whose wants require it.
GRATITUDE.
Unthankfulness to our Benefactors.
Especially those that admonish us.
Not amending upon their reproof.
Being angry at them for it.
Not reverencing our Civil Parent, the lawful Magistrate.
Judging and speaking evil of him.
Grudging his just tributes.
Sowing sedition among the people.
Refusing to obey his lawful commands.
Rising up against him, or taking part with them that do.
Despising our Spiritual Fathers.
Not loving them for their works sake.
Not obeying those commands of God they deliver to us.
Seeking to withhold from them their just maintenance.
Forsaking our lawful Pastors to follow factious teachers.
PARENTS.
Stubbern and irreverent behaviour to our natural Parents.
Despising and publishing their infirmities.
Not loving them, nor endeavouring to bring them joy and comfort.
Contemning their counsels.
Murmuring at their Government.
Coveting their estates, though by their death.
Not ministring to them in their wants of all sorts.
Neglecting to pray for Gods blessing on these several sorts of Parents.
Want of natural affection to children.
Mothers refusing to Nurse them without a just impediment.
Not bringing them timely to Baptisme.
Not early instructing them in the ways of God.
Suffering them for want of timely correction to get customes of sin.
Setting them evil examples.
Discouraging them by harsh and cruel usage.
Not providing for their subsistance according to our ability.
Consuming their portions in our own riot.
Reserving all till our death, and letting them want in the mean time.
Not seeking to entail a blessing on them by our Christian lives.
Not heartily praying for them
Want of affection to our natural brethren.
Envyings and heart-burnings towards them.
DUTY to BRETHREN.
Not loving our spiritual brethren, i. e our fellow Christians.
Having no fellow feeling of their sufferings.
Causelesly for saking their communion in holy duties.
Not taking deeply to heart the desolations of the Church.
MARRIAGE.
Marrying within the degrees for bidden.
Marrying for undue ends, as covetousness, lust, &c.
Unkind, froward, and unquiet behaviour towards the husband or wife.
Unfaithfulness to the bed.
Not bearing with the infirmities of each other.
Not endeavouring to advance one anothers good, spiritual, or temporal.
The wife resisting the lawful command of her husband.
Her striving for rule and dominion over him.
Not praying for each other.
FRIENDSHIP.
Unfaithfulness to a Friend.
Betraying his secrets.
Denying him assistance in his needs.
Neglecting lovingly to admonish him.
Flat…ering him in his faults.
Forsaking his friendship upon slight or no cause.
Making leagues in sin in stead of vertuous friendship.
SERVANTS.
Servants disobeying the lawful commands of their Masters.
Purloining their goods.
Carelesly wasting them.
Murmuring at their rebukes.
Idleness.
Eye service.
MASTERS.
Masters using servants tyrannically and cruelly.
Being too remiss, and suffering them to neglect their duty.
Having no care of their souls.
Not providing them means of instruction in Religion.
Not admonishing them when they commit sins.
Not allowing them time and opportunity for prayer, and the worship of God.
CHARITY.
Want of bowels and Charity to our neighbours.
Not heartily desiring their good spiritual or temporal.
Not loving and forgiving enemies.
Taking actual revenges upon them.
Falseness: professing kindness and acting none.
Not labouring to do all the good we can to the soul of our neighbour.
Not assisting him to our power in his bodily distresses.
Not defending his good name when we know or believe him slandered.
Denying him any neighbourly office to preserve or advance his estate.
Not defending him from oppression, when we have power.
Not relieving him in his poverty.
Not giving liberally, or chear…ully.
GOING to LAW.
Not loving PEACE.
Going to Law upon slight occasions.
Bearing inward enmity to those we sue.
Not labouring to make peace among others.
The use of this Catalogue of sins is this: Upon days of Humiliation, especially before the Sacrament, read them consideringly over, and at every particular ask thine own heart, Am I guilty of this … And whatsoever by such Examination thou findest thy self faulty in, Confess particularly, and humbly to God, with all the heightning circumstances, which may any way increase their guilt, and make serious Resolutions against every such Sin, for the future; after which thou …ayest use this Form following.
O LORD, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, for my iniquities are increased over my head, and my trespass is grown up even unto Heaven. I have wrought all these great provocations, and that in the most provoking manner, they have not been only single but repeated acts of sin: for, O Lord, of all this black Catalogue which I have now brought forth before thee, how few are there which I have not often committed, nay, which are not become even habitual and customary to me? And to this frequency, I have added both a greediness, and obstinacy in sinning, turning into my course as the Horse rusheth into the battel, doing evil with both hands, earnestly, yea, hating to be reformed, and casting thy words behinde me, quenching thy Spirit within me, which testified against me, to turn me from my evil ways, and frustrating all those outward means whether of judgement or mercy, which thou hast used to draw me to thy self. Nay, O Lord, even my repentances may be numbred amongst my greatest sins, they have sometimes been feigned and hypocritical, always so sl…ght and ineffectual, that they have brought forth no fruit in amendment of life, but I have still returned with the dog to his vomit, and the sow to the mire again, and have added the breach of resolutions and vows, to all my former guilts. Thus, O Lord, I am become out of measure sinful, and since I have thus chosen death, I am most worthy to take part in it, even in the second death, the lake of fire and brimstone. This, this, O Lord, is in justice to be the po…tion of my cup, to me belongs nothing but shame and confusion of face eternally. But to thee, O Lord God, belongeth mercy and forgiveness, though I have rebelled against thee, O remember not my sins and offences, but according to thy mercy think thou upon me O Lord for thy goodness. Thou sentest thy Son to seek and to save that which was lost, behold, O Lord, I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost, O seek thy servant; and bring me back to the Shepherd and Bishop of my Soul; let thy Spirit work in me a hearty sense and detestation of all my abominations, that true contrition of heart, which thou hast promised not to despise. And then be thou pleased to look on me, to take away all iniquity, and receive me graciously, and for his sake who hath done nothing amiss, be reconciled to me, who have done nothing well; wash away the guilt of my sins in his blood, and subdue the power of them by his grace, and grant, O Lord, that I may from this hour bid a final adieu to all ungodliness, and worldly lusts, that I may never once more cast a look toward Sodom, or long after the fleshpots of Egypt, but consecrate my self intirely to thee, to serve thee in Righteousness and true Holiness, reckoning my self to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord and blessed Saviour.
This PENITENTIAL PSALM may also fitly be used.
PSALM 51.
HAVE mercy upon me O God, after thy great goodness, according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences.
Wash me throughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults, and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified in thy saying, and clcer when thou art judged.
Behold I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mo…her conceived me.
But lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts, and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly.
Thou shalt purge me with Hysop, and I shall be clean, thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter then snow.
Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoycè.
Turn thy face from my sins, and put out all my misdeeds.
Make me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right Spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me.
O give me the comfort of thy help again, and stablish me with thy free Spirit.
Then shall I teach thy ways unto the wicked, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
Deliver me from blood guiltines… O God, thou that art the God of my health, and my tongue shall sing of thy righteousness.
Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall shew thy praise.
For thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it thee, but thou delightest not in burnt offering
The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despise.
O be favourable and gracious unto Sion, build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
Then shalt thou be pleased with the Sacrifice of righteousness, with the burnt offerings and oblations, then shall they offer young bullocks upon thine altar.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.