A94156:211
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature…
The Christian-man's calling: or, A treatise of making religion ones business. Wherein the nature and necessity of it is discovered. : As also the Christian directed how he may perform it in [brace] religious duties, natural actions, his particular vocation, his family directions, and his own recreations. / By George Swinnock ...
London: printed for T.P., 1662
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.
Thirdly, Godliness must be made our principal business, our main work, because otherwise we shall lose our reward. We say As good never a whit as never the better. Piety without much pains will redound to little or no profit: How foolish is that builder, who in setting up an house hath been at much cost, and yet loseth all because he will be at no further charge: Many lose what they have wrought, 2 Joh. 8. Their works, because not their business, are not perfect, and so to small purpose. The slothful roasts not what he took in hunting, Prov. 12.27. He was at some labour to catch the Beast, but was loath to be at any more in dressing it, and so all was lost; laboriousness to godliness is as the soul to the body; which being separated from it, godliness dyeth and quickly becomes unsavoury.
THirdly, Godliness must be made our principal business, our main work, because otherwise we shall lose our reward. We say As good never a whit as never the better. Piety without much pains will redound to little or no profit: How foolish is that builder, who in setting up an house hath been at much cost, and yet loseth all because he will be at no further charge: Many lose what they have wrought, 2 Joh. 8. Their works, because not their business, are not perfect, and so to small purpose. The sloathful roasts not what he took in hunting, Prov. 12.27. He was at some labour to catch the Beast, but was loath to be at any more in dressing it, and so all was lost; laboriousness to godliness is as the soul to the body; which being separated from it, godliness dyeth and quickly becomes unsavoury.
The reward of Godliness is of infinite worth, the end of Holiness (as of Hope) is the salvation of the soul, the eternal and immediate enjoyment of God in Heaven. Now who can think to attain the place of such ravishing pleasures without much pains. Iter per angusta ad augusta.