A94156:874
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.
as Heliogabalus who was served in at on meal with 7000. Fish, and 5000. Fowls: And 2. here is an imposition, Be not besirous of his dainties; this is a dissuasion from the former irregular affection. We may eat and digest dainties, but we may not crave and desire dainties; God made man not for fleshly dainties, but for spiritual delights; It is a ⟨p. 422⟩beastly principle and practice, to be at the command of provender, as Apicius the Roman, who wrote ten books of directions how to set forth a feast with all sorts of dainties, and its said the expenses of his Kitchen amounted to two millions of Gold. 3. Here is a position. For they are deceitful meat. The desire of dainties is a deadly desire. There is murder under the meat; Ordinary (nay Manna extraordinary) fare would not satisfy the sweet-toothed Israelites; they lusted for quails, but God gave them their desire, they had flesh and death together. Some read the former verse thus, Thou puttest a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. To pamper the body, is the way to destroy soul and body too; Dainties entice to excess. He that erreth in the quality of his food, will quickly exceed in the quantity. They that plot night and day to please the flesh, declare publicly that they have nothing of the spirit; sensual, not having the spirit, Jude v. 19. The flesh and the spirit are like two Buckets in a Well, as the one mounts up, the other falls down. There is a flat opposition between sowing to the flesh, and sowing to the Spirit, Gal. 6.7. Nay the Apostle is express in the mention of this kind of intemperate men. They serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies, Rom. 15. All the Servants of Christ, are Sovereigns over the flesh. Ordinances are ineffectual to persons that are sensual; Rain falls off, as it falls on, upon an Oiled post. When the waters of the Sanctuary flowed, the Miry places (that is sensual hearts) could not be healed, Ezek. 47.11. ⟨p. 423⟩Behemoth lieth in the Fens, that is, saith an Expositor, the Devil in fleshly men,