A20762:2346
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. 2 That God ordinarily giveth greatest plenty of worldly blessings to worldly men.
§. Sect. 2 That God ordinarily giueth greatest plenty of worldly blessings to worldly men.
And surely it cannot be denied, but that God, in the greatest part, reserveth in his own keeping the rewards which he hath promised to 1his own servants, and maketh them to live more by faith then sense. That ordinarily he giveth outward and temporal things in greatest plenty, to such beasts as he fatteth for the slaughter, and letteth his own sheep feed upon bare Commons; that he filleth the bellies of wicked men with his hid treasures, and causeth their eyes to stand out with fatness; because (according to their own desires) he giveth unto them their portion in this life, and all the good things which they are ever to enjoy; and keepeth his own children to a shorter allowance and more spare diet, training them up in his School, with more severe discipline, that learning his will and ways, they may be made fit for their heavenly Inheritance. It is true, that Gods servants also are most commonly subject to crosses and afflictions more then other men; and always debarred of many pleasures of sin, which are sweet and delightful to the carnal appetite, of which bewitching cups the wicked of the world do drink their fill. So that if they should be sequestered from their hopes, and judged only according to outward appearance, they, above all others, would seem most miserable. But what more then brutish blockishness were this, if we should by all this be encouraged in sin, or 2discouraged in Gods service? For can we imagine that the just Judge of heaven and earth should deal unjustly? or that Wisdom it self 3should be so unwise in the dispensation of rewards and punishments? Is God thus bountiful to strangers and enemies, that he causeth them to abound with earthly blessings; and reserveth he