A20762:1211
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. 7 That we must not too highly esteem, nor too earnestly affect and seek after earthly things.
§. Sect. 7 That we must not too highly esteeme, nor too earnestly affect and seek after earthly things.
But especially, let us take heed, that we do not value them in our judgements, affect them in our hearts, nor seek after them in our actions and endeavours, more then spiritual graces and heavenly happiness; that we do not make Idols of them, by loving them more then God, taking more pains to get them, and more care to keep them, and more grief to lose them, then the assurance of his favour, or to carry our selves acceptably in his sight; finally, though we do not utterly reject them from having ⟨p. 350⟩some place in our hearts, yet let us beware, that we do not give them the chief seat, but let them have entertainment, according to their own rank and condition, as things indifferently good, and far short in excellency unto spiritual graces and heavenly glory; that though we possess them, yet we be not possessed of them, nor become their slaves, whereas God hath made us their Lords and governors. And that we may not thus excessively esteem and immoderately love them, let us consider, that in themselves they deserve it not, being in comparison of grace and glory, of no worth; and though they were to others of some value, yet not unto us who profess Christianity. In themselves they are in the former comparison to be lightly esteemed, and slightly affected, seeing they bring not unto us any absolute, true, and certain good, because in their own nature they have not in them any such degree of goodness, being vain and of no solidity, whereof it is that they do not satisfy those that have them, and not only unprofitable to their owners, for the chief and best uses and ends, but also mixed and distasted with many evils and miseries which do attend upon them. Or though they were good, yet we have no certainty, either in getting or keeping them, because both they and we are both momentany and mutable, and are every day in danger to be parted from one another. Yea so far are they from any absolute goodness, that through our corruption, by which we become apt to abuse them, they are causes, or at least occasions of much hurt; being provocations unto all sin, both against God, our neighbours, and our selves, deriving unto us innumerable evils, both temporal, and those civill and spiritual, and also eternal, as hindering the fruition of heavenly happiness, and furthering and increasing everlasting punishments;