A20762:988
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 all due circumstances must be observed in our recreations, and what they are.
§. Sect. 5 That all due circumstances must be obserued in our recreations, and what they are.
The fifth caution is, that we observe in our recreations all due circumstances. As first, that it be decent and beseeming our person, place, and calling; neither is it fit that age and youth, Magistrates and common people, should use the same recreations, lest for the gaining of a little vain sport, they lose their gravity, and with it their authority, and that reverence which is due unto them from their inferiors, in respect of their age and government. Secondly, that it be apt and fit for our callings, and to refresh and make us more able for the well-performing of the duties belonging to them. For that recreation is best which cometh nearest to the end for which we use it, and best fitteth us to attain unto it; as rest of the body, and exercise of the mind, for those that are wearied with corporal labours; and bodily exercise for them whose callings do wholly stand in the study of the mind. Or at least some easy exercise after the greater labour of the body, or some slight and pleasant employment of the mind, after that it is wearied with more serious and earnest studies. In which regard I have always thought the play at Chests most unfit for Students and Scholars, because it as much occupieth and wearieth their intellectual faculties as their other studies; and on the other side, violent exercises unmeet recreations for those who ordinarily spend their strength in painful labours of the body, because both these fail of their proper end, which is to refresh the body and mind: but contrariwise do more weary and tyre them, and so make them unfit for the duties of their callings. And although (as I confess) there is some recreation and delight in change and variety of employment both of body and mind; yet it tendeth not greatly to the refreshing of either, but rather deludeth men with a false show, and remedieth not the evil, but only depriveth them of the sense of it whilst their pleasure lasts, and causeth them to spend and consume themselves with more delight. Thirdly, in respect of the circumstance of time, there is required that our recreations be seasonable, according to the saying of the wise Solomon; To every thing there is a season,