A20762:2683
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 That the Christians chiefest joy is Spiritual, and wherein it exceedeth all other joys.
§. Sect. 5 That the Christians chiefest ioy is Spirituall, and wherein it exceedeth all other ioyes.
So that no lawful joy, either spiritual, or temporal, inward or outward, is wanting unto the righteous who desire to please God. But yet their chief and principal joy in which they exceed all others, is spiritual, in the assurance of Gods love and their own salvation, and that both in respect of the excellency, perpetuity and propriety of it. For first, it excelleth all other joys, being of a spiritual and divine nature, and (as it were) a short prelude to that heavenly and harmonious joy, of which we shall have the full and everlasting fruition in the life ⟨p. 843⟩to come. For so the Apostle teacheth us, that the Kingdom of God (that 1is, the first beginnings of it in this world) consisteth not in meats and drinks, but in righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Ghost; and they who have here tasted these first beginnings of this heavenly joy, shall have the perfect fruition of that fullness of joy, and of those eternal pleasures 2which are at Gods right hand for evermore. So that when righteous men rejoice, there is great glory, (as the Wise man speaketh) seeing their joy far exceedeth the joy of them who rejoice in their corn and wine, as being not only much more excellent both in respect of 3the nature and object, but also an earnest-penny of a greater bargain, the first beginnings and prime taste of those full rivers of divine pleasures, whereof they shall drink their fill in Gods Kingdom; and the first fruits of that heavenly and happy harvest of joy, which is reserved for them in the life to come. And therefore no marvel, seeing this spiritual joy is above all others most excellent, that David (when having wounded his conscience with grievous sins, he was deprived of the sense and feeling of it for a time) did so earnestly desire to have it again restored: Restore unto me