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The young man's guide through the wilderness of this world to the heavenly Canaan…
The young man's guide through the wilderness of this world to the heavenly Canaan showing him how to carry himself Christian-like in the whole course of his life / by Tho. Gouge ...The young man's guide through the wilderness of this world to the heavenly Canaan shewing him how to carry himself Christian-like in the whole course of his life / by Tho. Gouge ...
London: printed by S. and B.G. for Nevil Simmons, 1676
THE Young Man's Guide. › Chapter 9: Containeth Directions how to live a godly and gracious Life.
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.
Friend, let this my Counsel be accepted of thee, and prevail with thee; set upon a constant course of serious secret prayer, or else never talk of Christianity, or Religion ⟨p. 56⟩in thee, thou hast nothing of it. A Christian without prayer, is a man without breath: Prayer is the very breathing of a Christian soul.
In the performing thy secret devotions, observe these Rules.
1. Beware of doing them in a cursory, careless, and formal way. He who serves God carelessly, is like to bring a curse upon himself instead of a blessing: For cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently, Jer. 48. 10. So it is in the letter of the Hebrew, though the new Translators of our Bible render it, Deceitfully. Which two words may very well interpret one another. For he that doth a work negligently, doth it deceitfully, he doth as if he would deceive God, but at last he deceiveth his own Soul. Such prayers as are performed coldly, and negligently, they are as if they had not been done in Gods account, and a man is never the better for them; yea, he is the worse for such prayers, for they leave the Heart more worldly and covetous, more hard and obdurate than it was before, and more guilty before God.
1. Beware of doing them in a cursory, careless, and formal way. He who serves God carelesly, is like to bring a curse upon himself instead of a blessing: For cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently, Jer. 48. 10. So it is in the letter of the Hebrew, though the new Translators of our Bible render it, Deceitfully. Which two words may very well interpret one another. For he that doth a work negligently, doth it deceitfully, he doth as if he would deceive God, but at last he deceiveth his own Soul. Such prayers as are performed coldly, and negligently, they are as if they had not been done in Gods account, and a man is never the better for them; yea, he is the worse for such prayers, for they leave the Heart more worldly and covetous, more hard and obdurate than it was before, and more guilty before God.