A20762:1281
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 7: §. Sect. 7 Meditations fit for the night.
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 Meditations fit for the night.
The other duty is meditation, in which we are to exercise our minds after an holy and religious manner, when we cannot, or list not to sleep, and not suffer them to range and rove after idle or hurtful vanities, which will not bring unto us any profit. The subject matter of which our meditation may be divers, according to our several occasions and estates. As first and principally we must call God to our remembrance, and meditate on his saving attributes, his infinite love, mercy, goodness and bounty towards us, wherein holy David took singular comfort and delight: My soul (saith he) shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my 1mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night-watches. Secondly, we may make some part of the Word of God, the subject of our meditation, as David also did, whose 2eyes prevented the night-watches, that he might meditate in Gods Word. The which he maketh a special note of a blessed man, that he taketh such delight in the Law of God, that he meditateth therein day and night. And thus 3we may take occasion to think of the purity and perfection of the Law, what exact righteousness it requireth, and how far we come short of this perfection, that so we may be humbled in the sight of our own corruptions and imperfections; or of the excellency of the Gospel, and of the gracious promises therein contained, applying them by a lively faith unto our selves, that our hearts thereby may be replenished, and even ravished with the sweet comforts of Gods holy Spirit, or of Gods manifold blessings bestowed upon us, especially the day past, and the singular privileges which we have through Jesus Christ; of which we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter. Or finally, we may think of some texts of Scripture, which have some similitude with our present estate. As that 4