A20762:1783
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 The reason why it is here handled.
§. Sect. 1 The reason why it is heere handled.
The second private means whereby we are enabled unto the duties of a godly life, is Meditation. For howsoever reading of the Word, and of other holy writings, doth go before it in order of nature, because it enlighteneth the mind, and teacheth us how to meditate, and also prepareth and ministereth unto us matter of Meditation, the which must be first known, before we can think and meditate upon it, or make use of it, by working it upon our hearts, wills, and affections: yet seeing it is an action done by our selves alone, and the other is a duty, which may and ought to be performed both by our selves, and others with us; I will reserve the handling hereof, till I come to entreat of the rest ▪ which are in this respect of like nature. Concerning Meditation, it is so much beaten upon, and thoroughly handled already, both by more ancient Writers, and also modern, who of later times have spent much study and pains about it, and whose 1works are extant, both in our own and ••her languages, that it might well have saved me a labour, this Treatise now beginning to swell above the bounds and banks, which in my […] intentions I had prefixed unto it. Yea so exactly, sweetly, and savourly is it handled, in a complete Treatise purposely written of this Argu[…]e, who in his kind leaveth all others far behind him, be […] Physician for the soul, that he is able by his Art to joy[…], eloquence with holiness, wit with spiritual wi[…] wholesome Physic, and even purging Medicines as […]s taste as banqueting dishes; that I should have been […] quite discouraged to have written (as it were an Iliads after […] any thing of this Argument, did not the necessity of perfecting hi treatise impose it upon me, in which, being n essential member, It could not have been wanting without a maim. In which regard, rather then I would leave the Reader in his studious course to a new disquisition, I have made bold with this learned Author, to borrow some materials for my building, of him who is so rich to lend, and to enrich my Cabinet with some of his Jewels, (though set out after an homely manner in mine own foils) seeing these spiritual treasures are of such a nature that community hindereth not propriety, and he that lendeth, hath never the less.