A20762:1463
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. 3 That we must serve God in all holy duties zealously and devoutly.
§. Sect. 3 That we must serue God in all holy duties zealously and deuoutly.
The second property respecting the heart, is true zeal, which as we here consider it, is a devout consecrating of our selves wholly both in soul and body to the service of God, and an ardent desire, study, and endeavour to glorify him, by walking before him in the duties of a godly life. So that it is nothing but the intension of our love and cheerfulness ⟨p. 425⟩unto these holy exercise, and of our anger, and mislike against all the impediments whereby we are opposed and hindered in them. And this is commended unto us in the Scriptures as an excellent grace, the beauty and brightness whereof, no where shineth more clearly, then in this subject. For if it be good (as the Apostle saith) to be zealous in a good matter, 1where can this zeal more exceed in goodness, then when it is employed and spent in the duties of Gods service and of a Christian life, then the which, nothing can be better? It is the vital heat, and, as it were, the very spirits, which intendeth all other graces, and with the warmth of it, increaseth their virtue and vigour, giving unto them motion, and making them active and operative in their several functions. And it is given us of God, as a singular Antidote against that cold and killing poison of carnal formality, and that stupid blockishness, and senseless dullness and deadness, which naturally hath overspread all the powers of our body and mind in performing the duties of Gods service. And if it be wanting, we will soon grow cold and careless, either neglecting them altogether, or performing them with a luke-warm indifference for form and fashion sake, not greatly regarding whether we do or leave them undone; which will make them loathsome in Gods sight. But if our hearts be inflamed with this zeal, then will we fervently affect all holy duties of Gods service, as being notable means of advancing his glory; and not suffer our selves to be withdrawn from them by worldly vanities, which we neglect and contemn, in comparison of the other. And then will we also with an holy anger oppose and overcome all impediments and hindrances which stop us in our Christian course, and especially make war against our own corruptions, which dull our devotion, and make us slack and backward to holy duties;