A20762:936
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.
§. Sect. 5 That idleness is the cause of innumerable sins.
§. Sect. 5 That idlenesse is the cause of innumerable sinnes.
The which are of two sorts, both the evils of sin, and the evils of punishment, of both which it is the cause, producing the one, and by due desert drawing upon us the other. For the first; idleness is a mother sin, and (as we usually say) the root of all evil; for when the devil findeth us not employed in Gods service, he entertaineth us into his, and setting before us the objects and baits of worldly vanities, he offereth to give them unto us as the wages of iniquity, if we will serve him in those sinful lusts and works of darkness wherein he will use us. When he seeth us like grounds untilled and unmanured, and therefore unfit to receive the seeds of Gods graces, he soweth in us the weeds of all vice and sin, besides all those which grow up in our hearts naturally, and of their own accord, being grounds which in themselves are too too fertile, to breed and bring forth all fruits of impiety. More especially, idleness and neglect of our callings is a notable cause of heresies, sects, and schisms. For when men want employment in their own affairs, they grow curious and inquisitive after other matters; propound many vain questions and needless doubts, tending more to contention, then the use of edifying, which when they ⟨p. 255⟩have resolved, according to their own humour and fantasy, they go (having nothing else to do) from house to house to possess others with their conceits, and when they have privately trained up many in their opinions, at last they make a general muster, and become heads and captains of that faction, which themselves have raised; disturbing the peace of the Church, by renting themselves from it, and making war against the truth; as the miserable experience of these times doth too evidently show. Neither doth it alone make men busy and curious in matters of Religion, but also in civill affairs; for when men grow negligent in their own business, they have leisure to intermeddle with other mens, and having nothing to do at home, they range abroad; carrying tales from house to house, and sowing the seeds of discord and dissension among neighbours. Of such idle busy bodies, the Apostle complained in his time, who walked