A94156:313
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.
First, Be heedful and watchful over thy self, when thou art about religious duties. Heedless service is fruitless service; What measure of care we give God in duties, the same measure of comfort we may expect from duties, Eccles. 5.1. Keep thy feet when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear then to give the Sacrifice of fools. Thine heart like Dinah, is apt to wander abroad, especially from the way and Worship of God; it behoves thee then to have a strict hand over it, if thou wouldst keep it at home: Observe, consider, thy feet, so the word signifieth.
The feet of the Harlot abide not within her house, neither will thy affections easily within the House of God; doth not experience tell thee that they love to be gadding, and therefore require a strong and vigilant guard. Parents set their Children before them at Church, and have their eyes much upon them, because otherwise they will be toying and playing; truly so will thy heart, if thine eye be not on it. Alas thy heart in duty is like one that looks through an Optic Glass on some small object, with a Palsy hand, its long before he can discern it, and as soon as he hath found it, so unsteady is his hand that he hath lost it again; therefore it behoves thee to keep it diligently, and to watch it narrowly: There is a bottomless depth of deceit in thine heart, how unwilling is it to a duty? how much wandering in a duty? how soon weary of a duty? The heart is ⟨p. 114⟩deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who knoweth it? Jer. 17.9•. Take notice of the centre of the poison, the heart is deceitful; a deceitful hand is nothing so dangerous as a deceitful heart, when poison gets to the very seat of life, in what danger is a •oul of death. Here is also the measure of the pollution; The heart is deceitful above all things, the best part is unspeakably poisoned. The Prophets expression hath a three fold gradation. First, there is deceit in mans heart, it is a word used of ways