A20762:2540
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.
and that they have by this repetition blessed themselves sufficiently for the day following, though a little child, who is destitute of all saving knowledge, is able to perform this task as well as they. That they may live in their sins without repentance unto old age, or the day of sickness and death, and that God is so gracious that he will forgive all their sins, if before they depart this life, they have but leisure to say; Lord, have mercy upon me, though the Scriptures teach us, that he who turneth 1away his ear from hearing the Law, his prayers are abominable; that God abhorreth even the very sacrifices of the wicked; and that those who stop their ears when God calleth, shall not be heard when they call and cry unto him. Finally, they suppose that they can repent when they list, though it be a free grace of God, which must be accepted when he offereth it, and cannot be reasonably expected, if it be refused and rejected when he tendereth it unto us. In respect of the Christian life it self, and the graces and duties required unto it, they do all delude themselves with a false and erroneous judgement. For they cannot persuade themselves that the godly life is best and most blessed, nor that there is such necessity of it, as Preachers would bear them in hand; but that they may take here their full swing in pleasure, and set their hearts upon riches and other worldly vanities, and yet be assured of heavenly happiness, as well as those who are most scrupulous and precise; though the Scriptures tell us that ⟨p. 791⟩we cannot serve God and Mammon; that if we love the world, the love 2of the Father is not in us, because the love of the one, is enmity against the other; that without holiness we cannot see God and that the way to 3heaven is narrow, and the gate so straight, that without much striving we cannot enter into it. Thus they imagine, that they need not to take such pains in hearing many Sermons, seeing the Preacher can tell them no more then they know already, namely, that they must love God above all things, and their neighbours as themselves; that the best fail in this, and that we are all sinners, and must be saved only by Jesus Christ: