A10945:350
Seven treatises containing such direction as is gathered out of the Holy Scriptures, leading…Seuen treatises containing such direction as is gathered out of the Holie Scriptures, leading…
Seven treatises containing such direction as is gathered out of the Holy Scriptures, leading and guiding to true happiness, both in this life, and in the life to come: and may be called the practise of Christianity. Profitable for all such as heartily desire the same: in the which, more particularly true Christians may learn how to lead a godly and comfortable life every day. Penned by Richard Rogers, preacher of the word of God at Wethersfield in Essex.Seuen treatises containing such direction as is gathered out of the Holie Scriptures, leading and guiding to true happines, both in this life, and in the life to come: and may be called the practise of Christianitie. Profitable for all such as heartily desire the same: in the which, more particularly true Christians may learne how to leade a godly and comfortable life euery day. Penned by Richard Rogers, preacher of the word of God at Wethersfield in Essex.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Thomas Man, 1603
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.
And to speak distinctly of them (that I may proceed) we are taught, that in the godly life,1 in whomsoever it be found, the lusts and concupiscences which reign throughout the world, and make them whom they rule, to be as brute beasts: these corrupt lusts (I say) with all other such defilements of our actions, are in the godly life renounced, according to the light which we have to discern them; yea the faithful desire to abstain from them, as men who have received another manner of spirit then the men of the world, and therefore can take up their delight in better things: and who know the hurt which these unruly evils bring with them, whatsoever show of pleasure they offer.§H And although all have conflicts with them,2 and do not hold them under in a like measure; yet of the weakest of Gods children they are hated, and strived against, when they are once seen and perceived. But by these inward evils, I mean not the native infection of the heart, for of this I have spoken before,3 but the fruits hereof, namely, the wandering, noisome, & blind thoughts, fleshly desires, and worldly lusts, which arise from the hart so infected, which are contrary to the commandments of God, and tending directly to the destruction of them, who bring them forth: So that as the hands, feet and eyes be the members of the body,4 and do whatsoever the body hath need of;5 even so these are the members, and as the arms, feet and eyes of the §Iheart, and execute and perform whatsoever it desireth. And although they are so many that no man can number them (even as the fountain of the heart is so deep that no man can gauge it) yet because they are much unknown, I will give some help in the understanding of them, and so much the rather, because they being unknown, many never mislike their lives, neither are ashamed nor weary of them, though they be stained shamefully with them, and so become most abominable. And first the root of all the rest is unbelief,