The divine life in three treatises

If the cup of excess be offered to you, or flesh-pleasing feasts prepared for you, will you ask the flesh whether you should take them or refuse them? You may easily know what counsel it will give you. The Counsel of God, and of your flesh are contrary, and therefore the lives of the carnal and spiritual man are contrary. And will you venture on the advice of a brutish appetite, and ⟨p. 61⟩refuse the counsel of the all knowing God? such as is your Guide, and Counsellor, such will be your End. Never m•n miscarried by obeying God: and never man •ped well by obeying the flesh: God leadeth no man to perdition, and the flesh leadeth no man to his Salvation. Gods motions are all for our Eternal good, though they seem to be for our temporal hurt: The motions of the flesh are for our Eternal hurt, though at present they seem to be for our Corporal benefit. If at any time you be at a loss; and your carnal friends, or your commodity, or pleasure adviseth you one way, and the Word of God, and his faithful Ministers advise you another way, use but your Reason well, and consider whether God or those that contradict him be the wiser, and accordingly suit your practice. Alas man, thy friend is ignorant and knows not what is good for himself. Thy flesh is ignorant, and knows not what is good for thy soul! But God knoweth all things. Your flesh and friends do feel what pleaseth them at present, and judge accordingly: but what will be hereafter they understand not, or consider not: But God knoweth as well what will be as what is: He counselleth you as one that knoweth how your actions will appear at last, and what it is that will save you or undo you to all eternity. If you be but sick, its too to one but the Counsel of your Physician and of your Appetite will differ. And if you will obey your Physician before your Appetite, for your health or life, should you not obey God before it for your Salvation? Do you think in your Consciences that any that persuade you to a careless worldly fleshly life, are as Wise as God that persuadeth you to the contrary? you dare not say so with your tongues? and yet the most dare say so with their lives. O how justly do the ungodly perish, that deliberately choose a brutish appetite, a malignant world, and a malicious Devil, as a wiser or fitter conductor then the Lord!

If the cup of excess be offered to you, or flesh-pleasing feasts prepared for you, will you ask the flesh whether you should take them or refuse them? You may easily know what counsel it will give you. The Counsel of God, and of your flesh are contrary, and therefore the lives of the carnal and spiritual man are contrary. And will you venture on the advice of a brutish appetite, and