A20762:2547
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. 1 The first impediment is an heart hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
§. Sect. 1 The first impediment is an heart hardned through the deceitfulnesse of sinne.
And thus have I showed, how we may remove those impediments of a godly life, which arise from the corruption of the intellectual faculties. Those which respect the heart and affections, are many and dangerous. The first is, when our hearts are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and so habituated and accustomed to evil courses, that it is death to us, if we endeavour to forsake them, and to serve God in the duties of a godly life. Of this we have many warnings in the Scriptures, as being a most dangerous rock, upon which many have suffered shipwreck: To day if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 1And, Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is 2called to day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Which impediment if we would remove, let us withstand sin in the first motions of it, and if at any time we be overtaken, let us carefully take heed, that we do not lie in sin, but rise again speedily by unfeigned repentance. Let us beware that we do not often ⟨p. 794⟩fall into the same sins, after we have repented of them; seeing by many acts, we come at last to an habit and custom. Or if this custom hath already prevailed, and is now come to have in it the strength of a Law, and to be (as it were) a second nature, let us not suffer it any longer to continue inviolable, but bend all our power and strength to disannul and break it. Neither let our corrupt nature plead prescription for sin, or the neglect of holy duties, as though because we have long done that which God forbiddeth, or not done that which he hath commanded, therefore we must be borne with, if we do so still; seeing this is no excuse at all, but rather the greatest aggravation of our sinfulness and negligence. For though they might be somewhat excused, if they were done but once or twice, they are altogether intolerable when they grow common and customable. And therefore our long living in sin, and in the neglect of Christian duties, should be so far from excusing our continuing in these courses, that it ought to be a strong motive to double our diligence in redeeming this lost time, as the Apostle exhorteth.