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

But whosoever would thus preserve their chastity, they must be no less careful to use all good means of it, and to shun the contrary ¹means and occasions. As first, they must beg it of God by prayer, seeing it is his gift alone. Secondly, they must have no society and familiarity with the unchaste and filthy, wanton and effeminate, drunken and gluttonous persons; but keep company with those who are sober and chaste, modest and temperate. Thirdly, they must use the preservatives of chastity, as sobriety, which consisteth, as it is here considered, in moderating the delights of the taste, in the temperate use of ²diet, and abstinence from gluttony and drunkenness, or the excessive drinking of wine and strong drinks; and also of the sight, in abstaining from unchaste and immodest objects, as beautiful and wanton persons, obscene pictures, unchaste and wanton Interludes, Plays, and ⟨p. 156⟩Books. Secondly, diligence and painfulness in our callings and honest labours, not giving way to idleness and sloth; vigilancy and abstinence ³from immoderate sleep; and finally, modesty in our eyes and countenance, in our speeches and communication, in our gesture and gate, and in our habit and attire. Which means if we find insufficient for the preserving of our souls and bodies in purity and chastity; then are we called of God, to use the lawful remedy, which is the holy and honest estate of marriage, that we may live chastely in wedlock, when we