A20762:1862
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 18 › Section 2: §. Sect. 2 That we must chiefly prepare our hearts and affections.
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. 2 That we must chiefly prepare our hearts and affections.
Secondly, before we undertake this holy exercise, we must prepare our hearts and affections, by laying aside all worldly cares and earthly desires, which if they be retained, will interrupt and distract us in our spiritual Meditations. And as Moses was to put off his shoes before he could be admitted to hear God speaking unto him, or so much as to stand upon that ground, which was sanctified by Gods presence; so must we cast off the worldliness of our wills and desires, before there can be any profitable conference between him and us. For there is such dissimilitude, yea contrariety between God and the world, spiritual and earthly things, that when we turn us to speak unto the one, we turn away from the other; and when our minds and hearts are fixed upon the cares of this life and transitory trifles, by reason of the great distance between them, they are quite divided and distracted from those which are heavenly and spiritual: so that it is more possible to mix together gold and clay, oil and water, then the gold of divine Meditations, and the oil of spiritual thoughts, with the clay of our earthly affairs, and water of worldly vanities. The fountain of our hearts must be clear and well settled, the mud of earthly cares being sunk to the bottom, if we would behold in them any divine Contemplations; for if they be stirred and troubled, nothing will appear through this muddy thickness. And as before we can see the brightness of the Sun, the clouds must be dispelled; so before our minds and hearts can be illuminated and cheered with any heavenly light, or the beams of Gods love in our spiritual Meditations, the foggy vapours and mists which rise from the earth and sea of the world, must first be blown away and scattered. Never (saith one) can heavenly contemplation join with earthly commotion: never is the troubled mind possibly 1able to behold those divine things, which without much difficulty it cannot see when it is most quiet. And therefore if we will meditate with any fruit and profit, we must not be more careful to sequester our selves outwardly from company, then our hearts inwardly from worldly cares;