A20762:2612
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
Book 6 › Chapter 13 › Section 2: §. Sect. 2 To whom a godly life is difficult, and the causes of it.
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. 2 To whom a godly life is difficult, and the causes of it.
Secondly, the flesh is ready to object, that though the duties of a godly life are not absolutely impossible, yet at least they are so full of difficulty, and unpleasant, so tedious and troublesome to our feeble and frail natures, and so uncomfortable and painful, that there is no likelihood, that ever we shall hold out in the doing of them; and therefore it is as good for us to neglect them altogether, as to take upon us such an insupportable burden, as we shall be forced to cast off, before we come half way to our journeys end. The which objection our corrupt flesh doth much strengthen against us, to hinder our Christian resolution, and both our ingress and progress in the ways of godliness, by setting before us the manifold examples of those, that have lived in former times, and in our own days, who having made some good beginnings, have fallen back and relapsed into their former courses; and having begun well with a purpose to proceed, have through weariness desisted, before they could attain to their journeys end. And thus, like the sluggard, the flesh persuadeth us to sit still in the house, because there is 1a Lyon in the streets. And like the murmuring spies, though it confesseth that the spiritual and heavenly Canaan be worth the desiring, as abounding with all Gods blessings, yet it bringeth up an evil report of it, in respect of the manifold difficulties whereby we must pass unto it, and the sons of Anachim, the mighty enemies of our salvation, which must be overcome by us, who are so far inferior unto them in strength, before we can attain unto that place of rest and joy. The which tentation is exceeding dangerous, and a notable impediment to hinder many from once entering into the course of Christianity, because they imagine it to be so irksome and painful, that they shall quickly be tired, and never be able to hold out unto the end. For the answering whereof, that it may be no impediment unto us in the ways of godliness, we are first to know and acknowledge, that it is true in part; namely, that the course of Christianity is full of difficulties, hard and tedious, unpleasant, and even intolerable and impossible in some respects. For the Devil, which is that strong man, who holdeth