A10945:383
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.
1But to return to the renouncing of our lusts: If ye ask me what manner of persons they be who are at defiance with this unsavoury stuff, and what thoughts such have, as expel these corruptions, and have them in hearty contempt,§K seeing the mind is ever busy,2 and seldom unoccupied? I answer, that the persons are, as I have said, sinners, as others be, but sanctified: and weak, but willing to be better; and that their thoughts are according to the divers growths and ages of Gods children, *which are three. The highest degree, is old age, or the experienced estate: which yet is not the perfect age in Christ, for that shall not befall us until the ⟨p. 115⟩§Alife to come, but a firm, constant, and settled going forward unto that perfection. The second, is the middle age in christianity, in which, as young men in wrestling, we have courage against our sinful lusts; but yet like unto them; we have many foils, and are oftentimes cooled in our courage, though we sometime prevail. And in this estate, we are very fitly compared to the grain of mustard seed, after that it is shot up, and hath a blade and stalk, till it come to have boughs and branches to shelter the fowls of the air; so in this we are ever growing, though slowly: and this degree of christianity, is betwixt old age and infancy. The third is childhood or infancy, the lowest and the last, the which is principally discerned by an earnest desire of the sincere §Bmilk of the word; and namely of the promise of the forgiveness of sins: which although some of these dear children of God cannot with full assurance lay hold of, yet this their hungering desire after it (which cannot be satisfied without it) with a sensible fear to offend God, is a true sign thereof. And this is the lowest degree of true believers; which estate is at first, weak in respect of the other two, as it is in the natural body: for in the young babe, it is first weak, and after groweth to greater strength, as it groweth in years: yea, and this is an excellent estate, in respect of the counterfeit, which have most near resemblance of it, in whom may be seen some flitting motions after good things, but in time, they vanish and go away, as they came.