A20762:2395
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. 3 The eighth main privilege i• ▪ that they shall persevere in the state of grace unto salvation.
§. Sect. 3 The eighth maine priuiledge i• ▪ that they shall perseuere in the state of grace vnto saluation.
The eighth privilege peculiar to the godly, is, that they shall persevere in the state of grace and salvation unto the end; and howsoever, through the violence of the tentations of their spiritual enemies, and their own frailty and corruption, they have many slips and falls, yet they shall never fall away; and though they err sometimes out of the way of righteousness, into the by-ways of sin, yet they return into it again by unfeigned repentance, and redeem this lost time with more then ordinary diligence in Gods service. So that though there may be, and are some ill premises in their lives which truly fear God, yet they always ⟨p. 738⟩make a good conclusion; though they have many rubs in the •beay, yet at length they come safely to their journeys end. And though •hey have many faults and failings in their lives, yet they are always ble•d in their death; according to that of the Psalmist; Mark the perfect •n, and behold 1the upright, for the end of that man is peace: and that of th• Preacher, Though a sinner do ill an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know, it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear befo•• him. The which their perseverance in the state of grace unto the end, not grounded upon themselves, or the strength of the graces which ey have received (for then it were but a poor privilege, which woul every day be subject to losing) but upon the power and promises of Gd, his Nature and Attributes, the Intercession of Christ, and the vertu of his holy Spirit assisting and strengthening them. For, It is God which stablisheth us