A10945:459
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
Treatise 2 › Chapter 12: Of the keeping of the heart once purged, in it good plight afterward.
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 thus the heart being renewed and kept, it is easy to renounce evil, which otherwise is impossible: for every one that listeth may see,1 both by Scripture, Psalm. 32.4, 5, 6. Hebr. 10.38. and by experience (notwithstanding our affections are strong, unruly, and most hardly subdued) with what ease we may renounce and forsake them, and have power over our will and appetites, §Ewhen our hearts be thus renewed and kept mastered: That is to say, when first they are purged, and our corrupt nature changed into a better by believing the forgiveness of our sins, and a partaking of the graces of Christ, and after, watched over and observed that they continue so: who doth not see that the stubbornnest & wilfullest heart which hath most rebelled against good instruction and reformation, yet when it is thus looked unto, will be tamed? And to speak more particularly (for the weak christians sake) when a ⟨p. 142⟩man hath once felt damnation, the just reward of such a course; and on the §Fother side full deliverance from the same to be freely given him of God: and thus hath his heart humbly turned towards God again to love, and delight in him: who doth not see (I say) that such a man daily having in remembrance this unspeakable kindness of God towards him, and the woeful estate that he was in otherwise; that he will be loath to displease this his so gracious God? Who doth not see, but that his heart also having sustained so many checks from God, for the disorders of it, and accusations, for the manifold evils of it, and that he weaning it daily from the old lusts thereof, and seasoning it with grace by faith received daily, which vanquisheth them, and inuring it with the helps that may nourish it from time to time; but that it shall §Gwith great ease serve God in this life, and have nothing the toil and labour that others have, in the going about any good duty, or resisting any sin? Let men say what they will,2