A20762:972
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 Whether it be lawful to play at games which stand upon hazard and chance.
§. Sect. 5 Whether it be lawfull to play at games which stand vpon hazzard and chance.
Contrariwise our care must be, that we avoid such recreations as are unlawful, which howsoever for the time they may be pleasing unto the flesh, yet leaving behind them the sting of sin, they will, like the play of Joab and Abners soldiers, be bitter in the end, and not bring unto the mind any lasting delight, but at the best, mournful repentance and afflicting grief. And such are all those sports as are so vain and light, that they will not beseem Christian gravity; all those which tend to break peace, and weaken love, as bitter or scurrilous jesting, and rude horse-play; all lascivious and effeminate sports which corrupt the mind, or weaken the body, inflame the lust, or poison the manners, as vain dalliance, and courting of women, chambering and wantonness, profane stage-plays and Interludes, which make the Theatre a School of all impiety and profaneness, lust and uncleanness, and wanton dancing of both sexes one with another; especially in those light and lewd Lavoltoes and Corantoes used in these times, which are so full of lascivious and immodest gestures and actions, Goat-like jumps and frisks of women as well as men; proclaiming wanton immodesty, and tending only to the inflaming of lust, that they would not well beseem an honest Pagan; and better fit a cunning Courtesan, who cast before men these alluring baits, that they may be catched in the snares of lust; then for a true Christian, who esteemeth modesty and chastity her best ornaments. Unto these we may add carding and dicing, as they are almost generally used. For suppose that all games at them are not simply unlawful, and that the argument of lots taketh no hold of them, because they are in nothing like, but as they are both disposed by Gods providence, which hath a chief stroke in disposing all things, or because (as they allege) the most games stand not so much upon chance and casualty, as on the Art and skill of the player, the which they think cleared by experience, in that a bungler playing with a cunning gamester, though he get some games, yet he is no constant winner, but if he continue long at play, is almost sure in the end to depart a loser; yea, let it be granted unto them, either that they are not therefore unlawful, because providence ruleth them;