A20762:1345
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 40 › Section 4: §. Sect. 4 Duties to be performed when we are going to the Church.
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 Duties to be performed when we are going to the Church.
After all which duties performed in the family, we are, when we are ready to go unto the Church, or when we are in the way, to spend that time in holy Meditations, thinking with our selves that we are going, not upon some slight or ordinary business, but to present our selves in the glorious presence of the great King of heaven and earth, who being infinite in all holiness and perfection, and a God of such pure and piercing eyes, that he seeth not only our outward actions, but searcheth the heart and reins, hateth and abhorreth all impurity and corruption, dissimulation and hypocrisy, all cold, formal and negligent service, and will be worshipped of us in spirit and truth. Let us call to mind that we are going, not to confer with our companions, or with mortal men, not much superior unto us, but to speak and make our suits to Gods supreme and most glorious Majesty, & to hear him speaking unto us by his Ambassadors, in whose presence the heavens are unclean, and the blessed Angels hide their faces. And that not about ordinary and slight matters, but such weighty and important business, as no less concerneth us, then the eternal salvation or damnation of our bodies and souls. Finally, that we are going about such affairs as will (according as we dispatch them) make us much better or worse. For, the Word shall prosper, to the achieving of that 1end, for which God sends it, and shall never return in vain; either it will soften us like wax, or harden us like clay; either it will be Gods strong power 2to our salvation, and the savour of life unto life, or the savour of death unto 3death, for our deeper condemnation, and by performing this duty in hearing of it, we shall be nearer heaven or hell. And having with these and such like meditations brought our selves to the place of divine worship, let us enter into it with all fear and reverence, as into Gods own House and place of his glorious presence; saying with Jacob, Surely the Lord is in