A94156:481
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.
Let not others negligence abate the least of thy diligence, but rather by an Antiperistasis, let their extreme coldness double thine inward heat. As the fire is hottest, when the weather is coldest; so Davids heart boiled with zeal after it, when the waters of others affections to it were frozen: They have made void thy Law, therefore I love thy Commandments above gold, yea above fine gold: Therefore I esteem all thy Precepts, concerning all things, to be right, Psal. 119.126, 127, 128.
Let not others negligence abate the least of thy diligence, but rather by an Antiperistasis, let their extreme coldness double thine inward heat. As the fire is hotest, when the weather is coldest; so Davids heart boiled with zeal after it, when the waters of others affections to it were frozen: They have made void thy Law, therefore I love thy Commandments above gold, yea above fine gold: Therefore I esteem all thy Precepts, concerning all things, to be right, Psal. 119.126, 127, 128.
O consider what love the Saints of God have ever had to his Law. Luther said, That he hated the Books he made, and could wish them all burnt, lest the time spent in reading them, might hinder the reading of the Scriptures. O how love I thy Law! saith David. The godly have meditated therein day and night; they have esteemed it above the sweetest honey, and the finest gold; the Martyrs in England have given much of their Estates for a few leaves of it, ⟨p. 203⟩and they laid down their lives, before they would lose the precious fruit in it. The French Protestants (saith their Historian) burnt in zeal to the Word, whilst the bloody Papists burnt them for the Word. Scipio Africanus was applauded, for having usually in his hands the books of Xenophons Institutions of Cyrus: O let this Book of books be often before thee, and always in thee, let it be thy mediation all the day. One would think, that he who knoweth and believeth the contents of the Word, should hardly ever let a Bible be out of his hand, at least, he will lay it up (as the two Tables in the Ark) in his heart.