A20760:593
Four treatises tending to dissuade all Christians from four no less heinous then common…Foure treatises tending to disswade all Christians from foure no lesse hainous then common…
Four treatises tending to dissuade all Christians from four no less heinous then common sins; namely, the abuses of swearing, drunkenness, whoredom, and bribery. Wherein the greatness and odiousness of these vices is discovered; and the means and remedies, which may either preserve, or wean men from them, are propounded. Whereunto is annexed a treatise of anger. By John Downame Bachelor in Divinity, and preacher of Gods word.Foure treatises tending to disswade all Christians from foure no lesse hainous then common sinnes; namely, the abuses of swearing, drunkennesse, whoredome, and briberie. Wherein the greatnes and odiousnesse of these vices is discouered; and the meanes and remedies, which may either preserue, or weane men from them, are propounded. Whereunto is annexed a treatise of anger. By Iohn Dovvname Batcheler in Diuinitie, and preacher of Gods word.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for William Welby, 1609
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.
Fourthly,1 it exposeth men to contempt: for howsoever they are therefore angry, because they would not be despised and disregarded, yet nothing in truth doth sooner work contempt in the minds, not only of strangers, but also of a mans own children and servants, then unjust anger. For when their anger and the fruits thereof, clamorous brawling and fighting, are usual and common aswell for trifles as weighty matters, men desperately contemn both, when they have no hope to prevent either. They therefore who desire that these bitter drugs of correction should have any effectual operation in the minds of inferiors,2 for the purging away of their faults and vices, must use them like Physic, which if it be ordinary will work no extraordinary effect, because it groweth familiar with our natures, and therefore not fit to work upon them: nam medentur contraria. And hence it is that Physic becometh unprofitable to those men in the time of grievous sickness, which upon every trifling occasion have used it in the time of health, and made it as it were sauce to digest ⟨p. 51⟩their meat: so if we would have the physic of the mind, correction and chastisement, to work desired effect, they must be used sparingly, and not for every slip and infirmity, which oftentimes in wisdom should be dissembled as though it were not perceived,3 and often pardoned in hope of amendment. Otherwise, if every toy and small oversight provoke anger, and anger incite to scolding and fighting, not only the parties corrected are not bettered, but rather made more obstinate and obdurate in their vices (for their hearts like anvils become harder with often beating) but also he that correcteth, doth disfurnish himself of all fit remedies to cure more desperate diseases. For if he use bitter chiding and severe fighting for the cure of every trifling fault, what remedy doth he reserve for correcting and reforming heinous offences? surely none. Whereby it cometh to pass, that inferiors will not be restrained from committing all faults, but rather will be as easily induced to commit the greatest as the least, because there is no great difference in the punishment.
Fourthly,