A20762:1619
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.
CAP. V.
Of the means whereby we may be enabled to lead a godly life: and first, of the ministry of the Word.
Of the meanes whereby we may be inabled to leade a godly life: and first, of the ministery of the Word.
§. Sect. 1 That if we will lead a godly life, we must use the means enabling us unto it.
§. Sect. 1 That if we will leade a godly life, we must vse the meanes inabling vs vnto it.
Unto the rules of direction, which help and further us in the duties of a godly life, we are to add the consideration of certain special means respecting practice, whereby we may be the better enabled to perform them. For as God in his Decree hath ordained the ends at which we must chiefly aim, that we may attain unto them; so also the means which conduce unto these ends. As for example; he hath propounded his glory as the supreme end of all things; and withal, divers means whereby it is advanced and magnified, as our faithful service and obedience to his Commandments, faith in Christ, and such like. He hath ordained us to salvation, and that we may attain unto it, he hath linked his Decree to this end by certain subordinate causes and means, as Creation, Redemption, Effectual calling, Justification, Sanctification, and Preservation. He hath decreed that we should live our natural life unto our appointed time, but withal, that we should use the means of food, clothing, sleep, physic, by which it is preserved and maintained. And thus also as he hath ordained that we should live the life of grace, so likewise that we should use the helps and means which he hath appointed for the beginning, continuing, and finishing of it: which if we neglect, we can have no more hope of attaining unto it, whatsoever fair pretences we make of our fervent desires to achieve this end, then of coming to happiness, being destitute of holiness, without which, the Apostle telleth us,