A20762:183
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. 9 Of the execution of Gods decree in mans creation, fall, and misery.
The execution of Gods decree, is an action or work of God, whereby in time, he bringeth to pass all that he hath eternally decreed, according ⟨p. 35⟩to the counsel of his will. The which is either temporary or eternal. Gods temporary decree is general or special. The general, is either the creation of all things of nothing, or the gubernation of them, being made by his providence. The special execution of his decree, respecteth either Angels or men. To say here nothing of Angels, we are to know, that God having created the earth of nothing, did make man of the earth, in respect of his body, and breathing into him the breath of life, did create him a living soul; that man was created according to Gods own image, in wisdom, holiness, and righteousness, made Lord of all the creatures, and happy in the vision and fruition of God and his favour, and of the joys and pleasures of Paradise. That being created good, and yet but mutable, God left him to the freedom of his will, and to be tempted of the devil. Unto which tentation when he had yielded, by transgressing Gods commandment, in eating of the forbidden fruit, he fell from this estate of happiness, into the state of sin, misery, and death. The which sin is imputed unto us who sinned in his loins, he being no private person, but the root of mankind; and the corruption of his nature, derived unto all his posterity by natural propagation, the which we call original sin, whereby Gods image is defaced in us, and we disabled unto all good, and made prone unto all evil. From which original corruption, which is the fountain of all maliciousness, have sprung the cursed streams of actual transgressions, whereby we have broken Gods whole Law, and every commandment of it, in thought, word, and deed, both by omitting the duties which are commanded, and committing the sins which are forbidden. Whereby we have made our selves subject to the curse of the Law, and all the plagues and punishments therein threatened, both temporal and eternal; out of which miserable estate and condition, it was altogether impossible to recover by our own means, or the help of any, or all the creatures.