A20762:1073
A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the dutiesA guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties
A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the duties wherein it consisteth, the helps enabling & the reasons persuading unto it the impediments hindering the practise of it, and the best means to remove them whereunto are added divers prayers and a treatise of carnal security by John Douname Bachelor in Divinity and minister of Gods Word.A guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties wherein it consisteth, the helpes inabling & the reasons parswading vnto it ye impediments hindering ye practise of it, and the best meanes to remoue them whereunto are added diuers prayers and a treatise of carnall securitie by Iohn Douname Batcheler in Diuinitie and minister of Gods Word.
London: printed by Felix Kingstone and William Stansby for Ed, 1622
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.
§. Sect. 5 That it is pleasant, profitable, and necessary to spend our solitary hours in Christian duties.
§. Sect. 5 That it is pleasant, profitable, and necessary to spend our solitary houres in Christian duties.
And thus are we in our solitariness to watch over our minds and imaginations, our hearts and affections, our works and actions, that they may be preserved from all sin, and wholly taken up and exercised in religious and honest duties; which that we may observe with more vigilancy and diligence, let us consider that it is a course, pleasant, profitable, and necessary. For what can be more pleasant, then so to carry our selves in our solitariness, as that we may converse with God, & feel within us the beams of his favour warming our hearts, and the sweet communion and gracious influences of his holy Spirit directing, comforting, and encouraging us in these good courses? what greater joy in this life, then thus to enjoy God in some first fruits and small beginnings, which shall be the perfection of our happiness, when we come to full fruition? We shall find it also most profitable both for our selves and others. For if we make this use of our solitariness, our minds will be the better fitted for divine contemplation, ⟨p. 301⟩when as they are sequestered for the time from the world, as our bodies are from company, and so freed from all those distractions and interruptions, which when we are in company, do hinder us in this exercise. And this benefit of solitude for holy Meditations the Psalmist noteth; Stand in awe 1(saith he) and sin not; commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. And our Saviour Christ enjoineth it as a notable help to fit us the better for prayer; When thou prayest (saith he) enter into thy Chamber, and when thou hast shut to the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret. And as we are hereby made more fit to converse with God, so also with men; seeing if we keep our minds and hearts thus well seasoned in our solitariness, all our words and actions will hold the same taste when we come into company; and if when we are alone, our hearts be the inditers of good matter,