A20762:1242
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. 4 Of the means of patience, first, because God is the Author of all our afflictions.
§. Sect. 4 Of the meanes of patience, first, because God is the Author of all our afflictions.
Now the chief means whereby we may attain unto patience in our tribulations, are principally two; the first, is fervent and effectual prayer; 1according to that of the Apostle James; If any of you lack wisdom, (that is, to bear the cross of which he there speaketh) let him ask it of God, which giveth to men liberally, reproaching none, and it shall be given him. For it is God alone who doth comfort us in all our tribulations. He is the God of patience and consolation, the Father of mercies, and God of all comforts, by whose wisdom directing us, and power assisting us, we are able to do all things, and preserved from sinking under the heaviest afflictions. The second help and means of working patience in afflictions, is meditation upon such reasons as may cause and begin it where it is not, and increase it where it is already begun. And these concern either the ⟨p. 360⟩enduring of the cross, or the end and issue. The former are simple, or comparative. The simple reasons arise either from the causes, which are efficient or final, or from the subject and adjuncts of our afflictions. And first, in our meditations we are to consider, that God himself is chief cause and principal Author of all our afflictions, whatsoever be the means and instruments. The which may confirm our patience, and comfort us in our afflictions, seeing they must needs be good and just, as coming from him who is the chief Goodness in himself, and the Author and fountain of all goodness which is in the creatures. Secondly, that he hath not only in some general manner in his eternal counsel preordained our afflictions, and left all the rest to be disposed by chance and fortune, but that he specially ordereth and ruleth them with his most wise, just, and gracious providence, both in respect of their manner, measure, and continuance, making the ends of all inferior causes to serve for his supreme ends, which are his glory and our salvation. Thirdly, that the meritorious causes of all our afflictions are our sins, which are so many and grievous, that our greatest afflictions are far less and lighter, then by our sins we have justly deserved. Fourthly, that our afflictions are not signs of Gods hatred, nor the punishments of a just Judge, but the chastisements and corrections of a gracious Father; and that they proceed from his mere love;