A20762:2171
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 Of solemn thanksgiving what it is, and when to be performed.
§. Sect. 1 Of solemne thankesgiuing what it is, and when to be performed.
Having entreated of the ordinary means of a godly life; it now followeth that we say something of the extraordinary, which are such as are to be used upon extraordinary occasions, when God offereth them unto us. And these are specially two; the first is, holy feasting, wherein we return unto God thanks and praise, for his special blessings and benefits; the other, an holy fast, wherein we do, after an extraordinary manner, humble our selves before him, in the sight and sense of our sins, or some afflictions which they have deservedly brought upon us. Concerning the former, I shall not need to say much, seeing I have already spoken of it, and am here only to show, what extraordinary thanks and praise we are to return unto God, when as we are stirred up thereunto by some extraordinary and special benefit. The which is the same thanksgiving spoken of before, performed in a solemn & special manner, for some great & extraordinary favour of God, shining clearly in some more then usual benefit received (as it were) from his own hand, when in respect of secondary causes, we could not so much as hope for it, and in regard of our sins and unworthiness, we had good cause to expect the contrary. As when God hath magnified his wisdom, power and goodness unto us in some wonderful deliverance from some dreadful and desperate danger, threatening ⟨p. 663⟩imminent destruction; or out of some grievous calamity, into which we are already plunged, when as we could not reasonably expect help and safety from our own means, or the assistance of any creature, but from God alone, to whom nothing is impossible; or in bestowing upon us some positive benefit of great use and worth, when upon the former considerations we could conceive small hope, that ever we should have enjoyed it. Of the former we have divers examples in the Scriptures. As in that solemn thanksgiving rendered unto God by the people of Israel, for their freedom out of the Egyptian bondage, and for drowning their enemies in the red Sea, for which Moses, Miriam, with the rest of the people,