A20762:1266
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
Book 3 › Chapter 36 › Section 3: §. Sect. 3 Duties to be done at our going to bed.
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. 3 Duties to be done at our going to bed.
And these are the duties which are to be performed in the evening. In the night we are also to watch over our thoughts and actions, that they may in some sort be suitable to those in the day, and that in all of them we may carry our selves so as becometh Christians. And in this regard there are some duties to be performed at our going to bed, and some in the rest of the night. At our going to bed we are generally to consider, that ⟨p. 366⟩we are still in the sight and presence of God, who seeth our down-lying and our uprising, and searcheth our most secret actions, yea even our hearts and reins. And that there is also a guard of holy Angels, who are appointed by our great Lord, to pitch their tents about us, and to watch over us, that they may preserve us from all perils and dangers, unto which we are, waking and sleeping, continually subject. In regard of which glorious and holy presence, we are as carefully and conscionably to behave our selves in all Christian duties, as if all the world should look upon us. The first whereof is, that at our lying down, when all things being quiet about us, and we freed from all worldly distractions, we spend some little time in holy meditations, calling to our remembrance, and examining our conversation, how we have behaved our selves in the performance of all Christian duties required of us in the day past, of which we have before spoken. As first, how we have performed those general duties which belong to every day and all parts of it. Whether and in what manner we have renewed our covenant with God, by renewing of our faith and repentance. How we have sought the Lord our God, by consecrating our selves wholly both in our souls and bodies unto his worship and service; and have laboured to make him our own in and through Christ, and to recover our right in him, which we had lost in Adam. How we have profited in the saving knowledge of him, and in our adhering unto him with our hearts and affections, how our sweet communion with him hath bin increased, and the comfortable fellowship of his holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts sealed and assured in us; and how we have endeavoured to have and hold his face and favour in Jesus Christ. Whether we have kept the whole Armour of God fast buckled unto us; and if we have failed herein, then in what graces we have found greatest defect.