A20762:2656
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. 7 Of the means whereby we may attain unto Christian fortitude.
§. Sect. 7 Of the meanes whereby wee may attaine vnto Christian fortitude.
Now the means of attaining unto this Christian fortitude, whereby we are made ready to do whatsoever God commandeth, and to suffer whatsoever he imposeth, are first to consider what our Saviour Christ hath done and suffered for our sakes; what poverty and contempt, shame and disgrace, slanders and revilings, blindfolding and buffeting, scourging and crucifying; what inward sorrows and bitter agonies in the sight and sense of Gods wrath due unto our sins, he hath meekly and patiently endured for us. And this argument the Apostle Peter useth to strengthen our resolution against all difficulties: For as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm your 1selves likewise with the same mind: seeing as Apostle speaketh, He therefore endured these things, lest we should be weary and faint in our minds. 2And then also let us think with our selves, who it was that suffered all this, namely, Jesus Christ the innocent and righteous, who never sinned, and in whose mouth there was no guile; the glorious and eternal ⟨p. 832⟩Son of God, equal unto his Father in might and Majesty: And for whom he suffered all these great evils, even for us and for our sins, which were strangers and enemies unto him, dead in our sins, and the children of wrath as well as others; and the motives and manner of these sufferings, not upon our entreaty, and much less desert, not by any compulsion or constraint, but upon his own accord, and out of his mere grace and good will, meekly, and cheerfully. To consider likewise what our Saviour hath done for us, namely, forgiven the infinite debt of our sins, overcome all the enemies of our salvation, reconciled us unto God, united us unto himself, whereby we have communion with him in all his benefits, imparted unto us some portion of his saving graces, and innumerable pledges of his love and favour, which are also earnest-pennies of our salvation. For who can thoroughly ponder these things, and not be thereby armed with a magnanimous resolution of doing and suffering any thing for Christs sake? For did our Lord and Master suffer all this for us; and shall we not be ready and willing to suffer much lesser things for him? Shall our Captain and General lye in the field, and endure much hardness, and many sharp and dangerous conflicts; and shall we take our ease at home, and solace our selves in worldly delights?