A09339:4117
A Golden Chain
A golden chain: or The description of theology containing the order of the causes of salvation and damnation, according to Gods word. A view whereof is to be seen in the table annexed. Hereunto is adjoined the order which M. Theodore Beza used in comforting afflicted consciences.A golden chaine: or The description of theologie containing the order of the causes of saluation and damnation, according to Gods word. A view whereof is to be seene in the table annexed. Hereunto is adioyned the order which M. Theodore Beza vsed in comforting afflicted consciences.
Cambridge: printed by John Legat, 1600Cambridge: printed by Iohn Legat, 1600
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The natural use, is either to relieve our necessities, or for honest delight. Thus the Psalmist saith, that God gives not only bread to strengthen the heart of man, but also wine to make glad the heart, and oil to make the face to shine, Psal. 104.15. and God hath: put into his creatures infinite varieties of colours, savours, tastes, and forms, to this end that men might take delight in them. Hence it follows, that Recreation is lawful, and a part of Christian liberty, if it be well used. By recreation, I understand exercises & sports, serving to refresh either the body or the mind: and that they may be well used, two rules especially must be remembered. The first, that lawful recreation stands only in the use of things indifferent. For if the things be commanded by god, there is no sporting in them; or if they be forbidden, there is no using of them at all. Upon this ground, sundry kinds of recreation are to be neglected. As I. the dancing commonly used in these days, in which men and women, young men and maids, all mixed together, dance to the sound of the instrument or voice in time and measure, with many wanton gestures, and that in solemn meetings after great feasts. This exercise cannot be numbered among things indifferent: for experience showeth, that it hath been usually either a fruit or a follower of great wickedness, as idolatry, fornication, drunkennes•e; hereupon, one well compared it to a acircle, whose centre was the devil. Again, if we must give an account of every idle word, then also of every idle gesture and pace: and what account can be given of these paces backward & forward, of caprings, jumps, gambols, turnings, with many other frisks of lightness and vanity, more beseeming goats and apes, of whom they are commonly used, then men. Whereas Solomon esteemed laughter as madness, he would (no doubt) have condemned our common lascivious dancing much more for madness, laughter being but the least part of it. II. Dicing, which is precisely the casting of a lot, not to be used at our pleasures, but in matters of weight and importance. And of this kind are all gains, the ground whereof are not the sleight of mans wit, but lot alone. III. Plays and interludes, ⟨p. 870⟩that stand in the representation of the vices and misdemeanour of the world.