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

The fifth cause of carnal Security, is customable sinning, not renewing our repentance, as soon as we are fallen into it, but committing ¹it again and again, and making it an ordinary practise, and familiar unto us by common use. What (saith one) doth not custom invert? what is not hardened by assiduity? what is it that giveth not way to use? unto how many doth use make that sweet and pleasant, which at first they abhorred as bitter and distasteful? so as they may say of their sins, as Job of his sorrows; The things which my soul refused to touch, are become my daily food. For sin which at first seemed intolerable unto thee, if thou accustom thy self unto it, in process of time thou wilt judge it not so heavy; and within a while, thou wilt feel it light; and soon after, not feel it at all: or if there be any sense, it will be not of grief and sorrow, but of pleasure and delight. And if we still give way unto it, and do not break it off by serious repentance, it will bring us not only to security and hardness of heart, but to impudency and desperate boldness, which will not only make us to commit sin without fear and blushing in the sight of the same, but to defend it as though it were lawful; yea, to glory in it as if it were commendable; as we see in the example of Doeg, who not only did abominable wickedness, but also boasted ⟨p. 12⟩²