A20762:2437
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. 5 Of the impediment of a godly life, arising from the evil lives of some Ministers.
§. Sect. 5 Of the impediment of a godly life, arising from the euill liues of some Ministers.
The last public impediment respecting the Ministry, is the evil lives of many, who take upon them to persuade others to the practice of Christian duties. For ordinarily the people imagine, that they go fast enough in the ways of godliness, if they keep full pace with those which are their Teachers. And though they hear them often in the Pulpit, use many arguments to draw them on to more perfection; yet they suppose that there is no necessity of serving God so strictly and sincerely, but that all is spoken for form and fashion sake; otherwise they who are so earnest in persuading us, would lead us the way by their good example. For the removing of which impediment, we are to know, that howsoever Ministers excel others in the common gifts of the Spirit, as knowledge, learning and such like, yet the saving graces of God are free, & not tied to any calling or profession ⟨p. 755⟩more then others. And therefore seeing in this regard, the learned hath no privilege above the unlearned, the Doctor above the Artificer, or the Pharisee before the Fisherman, it is no great marvel, if the greatest Rabbins in the world be as small proficients in 1grace, and in the practice of holy & Christian duties, as those which they scorn for their ignorance and simplicity. But yet so long as they sit in Moses chair, we must not only hear them, but do as they say, though not as they do, seeing their speeches are not grounded upon the authority of their persons or actions, but upon the Word of God, unto which we owe simple and absolute obedience, whosoever be the Messenger that bringeth it unto us. But of this I have written more largely in the first part of my Warfare, unto which I refer the Reader, who desireth in this point more full satisfaction.