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

Now the means to attain unto this faith, and to be more and more confirmed in it, is to consider, that God the Father hath elected us as well ¹to the means as to the end; and as he hath ordained us unto life eternal, so also that we shall walk in the way of holiness and righteousness, that leadeth unto it; according to that of the Apostle, he hath chosen us before the foundations of the world, that we should be holy and without blame. And therefore as his election is certain to bring us unto everlasting happiness, so also to conduct us thither by this way of holiness, either by a shorter cut, as the thief upon the Cross, who was not converted before he suffered; or by a longer way, as Simeon, John the Apostle, and many others. So in that ⟨p. 51⟩golden chain of salvation; whom he did predestinate, them also he called; ²whom he called, them he justified; and whom he justified, them he glorified: the decree of God is coupled and linked unto the end by the means which come between them. Again, we have Gods promises, upon which we may build our faith as well for our sanctification, as for our salvation, and that not only, as the promises of life eternal include the promise of holiness and a godly life, as the way that leadeth to that end, but severally and in special manner. For in the Covenant of grace, the Lord promiseth to write his Law in our hearts, by which phrase is signified, that we shall not only know his will in our understandings, but incline unto it with our affections,