A20762:1816
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. 5 That this Meditation effectually worketh upon the heart and affections for the sanctifying of them.
§. Sect. 5 That this Meditation effectually worketh vpon the heart and affections for the sanctifying of them.
And as it thus powerfully worketh upon the superior faculties of our souls, so with much more efficacy upon our hearts and affections. For it not only purgeth our hearts from unclean and noisome lusts, and replenisheth them with holy and heavenly desires; but also mollifieth their hardness, and maketh them soft and tender; and as the wax, when it lieth in cold places, groweth so hard and stiff, that it will break, rather then bow; but being laid in the Sun, becometh soft, ready to melt, and fit to take any impression; so when we neglect this duty, our hearts being estranged from God, become hard and obdurate; but when by Meditation we draw near unto him, the beams of his favour shining upon our hearts, do make them soft and flexible, and so fit for any holy impression which he is pleased to make in them. And thus when our hearts are dead and dull, this holy exercise will quicken and revive them, and when they begin to be drowsy, through carnal security, it awakeneth and rouseth them up, that they do not lye snorting in the sleep of sin. It doth as much as any other Christian exercise, work upon our affections, purging them from worldliness and sensuality, and sanctifying and fitting them for Gods service. It inflameth our love towards God and all spiritual and heavenly things: for as in worldly matters of looking, cometh loving; so here by meditating upon these greater excellencies, and taking (as it were) a full view with the eyes of our mind, of their beauty and perfection, we come to have our hearts inflamed with their love, and long after nothing more then their fruition. It kindleth also ⟨p. 545⟩