A20762:1256
A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the dutiesA guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties
A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the duties wherein it consisteth, the helps enabling & the reasons persuading unto it the impediments hindering the practise of it, and the best means to remove them whereunto are added divers prayers and a treatise of carnal security by John Douname Bachelor in Divinity and minister of Gods Word.A guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties wherein it consisteth, the helpes inabling & the reasons parswading vnto it ye impediments hindering ye practise of it, and the best meanes to remoue them whereunto are added diuers prayers and a treatise of carnall securitie by Iohn Douname Batcheler in Diuinitie and minister of Gods Word.
London: printed by Felix Kingstone and William Stansby for Ed, 1622
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.
CAP. XXXVI.
Of those Christian duties which are to be performed in the Evening and Night.
Of those Christian duties which are to be performed in the Euening and Night.
§. Sect. 1 That the Evening must not be spent in sloth and idleness.
§. Sect. 1 That the Euening must not bee spent in sloth and idlenesse.
Having entreated of those Christian duties belonging to the day; it now followeth that we set down some directions how we are to behave our selves when the day is ended. And these are such as concern our carriage in the Evening, before we go to rest; or afterwards, when we are laid in our beds. In the Evening, if we be not taken up with the duties of our callings, wherein in the day we were employed (as it is the case of many, whose states, trades, and necessary occasions require the continuance of their labours) we must not upon the cessation of our pains, think our selves at full liberty to think, speak, and do what we list (as it is the practice of many, who when they cannot work any longer in their callings, spend their long Evenings in the winter season, either in sloth and idleness, or in unlawful gaming, or in vain, fruitless, and oftentimes hurtful and unsavoury communication, by traducing their absent neighbours, and blemishing their credits with slanders or uncharitable truths, or corrupting those that are present, by light and wanton discourses) but we must be careful of spending our precious time in some meditations, speeches, and actions which are profitable for our selves, and for the edification of those that are in our company and society. For though it may be very lawful, and sometime necessary, after our wearisome businesses are dispatched, to take some liberty, and to spend some convenient time in resting of our bodies, or refreshing our minds with some honest recreations; yet me thinks it is too much, that so great a part of our time should be so employed; seeing our lives are so short and uncertain, and our affairs of much greater weight and importance, which tend mainly to the advancement of Gods glory and our own salvation, being so many, might with much more profit and true comfort challenge unto them a great part of this time. In which regard, though I would not prescribe laws to bind the consciences of my brethren, but leave unto them their liberty to be guided with Christian prudence, yet I would, as in other things, so herein also give my advice; namely, that they would improve this time to the best, as becometh wise redeemers of it, so as they may give some good account of it unto God when he calleth them unto it;