A20762:1788
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 5 › Chapter 14 › Section 3: §. Sect. 3 Of the efficicient cause or person who is to meditate.
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 Of the efficient cause or person who is to meditate.
§. Sect. 3 Of the efficicient cause or person who is to meditate.
The efficient cause, or person who is to perform this exercise, is the Christian only, and the man regenerate; for holy things must not be 1touched with profane hands, seeing they do not sanctify them, but are polluted with their uncleanness. Neither can they that are dead in sin, do the actions of the living, and are so far from performing this holy duty in any acceptable manner, that they are not able so much as to think a good thought. Neither is it enough that we be once purged from their guilt and punishment in our justification, by the death and bloodshed of Christ applied by faith, or that we be freed from the corruption of sin, in the first acts of our sanctification; but seeing we do daily renew our sins, and thereby defile our souls and bodies, we must daily cleanse them by renewing our repentance, and not presume to undertake this holy work, living and lying in our spiritual defilements, but we must wash our souls (as sometimes the Israelites their clothes) before we presume to approach unto this mount of Meditation, wherein God hath promised to be seen; and to cleanse the Tables of our hearts with the tears of true contrition, before we go about to have any holy impressions written in them. And seeing sin, like a thick cloud, doth dim and dazzle the eyes of our minds, so as we cannot see holy and heavenly things, we must first dispel them by unfeigned repentance, before we can receive any comfort of divine and heavenly light. And being to entertain our Bridegroom Christ, in his spiritual presence, into our hearts, (as it were) into our houses, and to solace our souls in a more here communion and familiarity with him, we are first to purge them from all noisome defilements, which will make our company loathsome unto him; and though we cannot so sufficiently purify them, that they may be worthy to entertain so pure and holy a guest, yet at least, in a sincere affection let us labour to do the best we can, that it may not appear to be a fault of negligence, but of our spiritual poverty and impotency, which disableth us to give him any better welcome. The formal cause of this exercise, is a serious cogitation, or intentive deliberation;