N30392:341
The travels of true godliness. From the beginning of the world to this present…
The travels of true godliness. From the beginning of the world to this present day, in an apt and pleasant allegory: showing, what true godliness is; also the troubles, oppositions, reproaches, and persecutions he hath met with in every age. : Together with the danger and sad declining state he is in at this present time, by errors, heresies, and ungodliness, or open profaneness. / By Benjamin Keach, author of a book called War with the devil, and Zion in distress, and The travels of ungodliness.The travels of true godliness. From the beginning of the world to this present day, in an apt and pleasant allegory: shewing, what true godliness is; also the troubles, oppositions, reproaches, and persecutions he hath met with in every age. : Together with the danger and sad declining state he is in at this present time, by errors, heresies, and ungodliness, or open prophaneness. / By Benjamin Keach, author of a book call'd War with the devil, and Sion in distress, and The travels of ungodliness.
Boston: printed by B. Green and Company for D. Gookin over against the Old South Meeting-House, 1745
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Besides all this, Consideration, to induce him to open to true Godliness, bid him ask his Soul, in what State it now was; What it was a doing; And whither it was a going.
First. He endeavoured to show him, that his Soul was in the Gall of Bitterness, and in the Bond of Iniquity, being under the Law and Curse of God, both in Respect of original and actual Sin; he having not closed with Christ, nor received True Godliness. Secondly, Then as to what he was a doing, he bid him see if he did not neglect that one Thing needful. Have you, said Consideration, made Religion your chief Business, since you came to live in this Place? Have you not rather spent too much of your Time about Notions and airy Speculations? Thirdly, Whither are you a going? said he: Are you fit (being well prepared) to die? Are you going the Way to Heaven? Sure that cannot be, unless you receive True Godliness: For I have heard that it consists in a right Faith, as well as a holy Life. Oh what Cost, Labour, Pains, Means, Motives, and Arguments, hath God used to make Men sensible of the everlasting Interest of their Souls, and to engage them to a serious Preparation for another World.
And this serious Preparation must necessarily be a thorough' Work of Regeneration, Faith and spotless Conversation; for the Nature of the Means (saith he) must ever be suitable and agreeable to the nature of the end. And Heaven being a holy place, nothing but perfect Holiness reigning there, so it will be impossible to enter into it hereafter, without a considerable Progress was made in Holiness here; and that it was not to be thought a Man could reach to the highest step of a Ladder without ascending the lowermost first. Who (said he) ever hoped for a Crop of Corn without Sowing any? or expected to Reap Wheat and sowed nothing but Tares?
And this serious Preparation must necessarily be a thoro' Work of Regeneration, Faith and spotless Conversation; for the Nature of the Means (saith he) must ever be suitable and agreeable to the nature of the end. And Heaven being a holy place, nothing but perfect Holiness reigning there, so it will be impossible to enter into it hereafter, without a considerable Progress was made in Holiness here; and that it was not to be tho't a Man could reach to the highest step of a Ladder without ascending the lowermost first. Who (said he) ever hoped for a Crop of Corn without Sowing any? or expected to Reap Wheat and sowed nothing but Tares?