A20762:1488
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. 1 That all those which are sincere, are also constant in the duties of a godly life.
The last property of those Christian duties which appertain to a godly life, is constancy in performing them, of 1which there are two branches, continuance without remission or intermission, and perseverance without Apostasy or defection; both which David conjoineth in his practice of obedience; I have (saith he) inclined mine heart to perform thy Statutes alway, even unto the end. Concerning the former, it is not sufficient to entitle us unto true godliness, that we be religious by fits, having our good and bad days, or that we spend some time in religious exercises, and then think that we are set at liberty to live as we list, and to follow the lusts of our own flesh; that we sometime perform Christian duties, when our worldly profits or pleasures will give us any leisure, and neglect, or slightly perform them when we have other employments; or (as it were) in some religious humour, and pang of devotion, caused by fear of some approaching judgement, or by smart of some present affliction. For inconstancy, which is a fruit of folly, will not stand with true godliness, which is the head and prime part of spiritual wisdom, the which, as it enableth us to choose that which is best, so also 2to be constant in our choice: Whereas folly and impiety are full of vanity and lightness; causing men, according to that sway which they bear in them, to be unsettled and inconstant in all their ways (if at least, they have any inclination unto religious duties, and be not wholly settled upon their dregs) and like Meteors hanging in the air, sometimes moving towards heaven, and soon after falling back again towards the earth. But no further progress hath any made in piety, then he hath profited in the constant practice of religious duties; and they who are sometimes hot, and sometimes cold, and sometimes between both, luke-warm; who one while perform service unto God, and another while neglect it, now devout and seemingly zealous in good things, and soon after cold and negligent, carnal and profane, have just cause to suspect themselves, that as yet they have made no sound entrance into the practice of godliness.