A20762:2808
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.
A private Prayer for the Morning.
A priuate Prayer for the Morning.
O Lord our God, most glorious in majesty, and omnipotent in power, who fillest heaven and earth with thy presence, and yet in a more special manner vouchsafest to dwell with those who are of a broken heart and contrite spirit, to hear and help them in all their necessities; I thy poor humble servant, in the mediation of Jesus Christ, do make bold to approach into thy glorious and dreadful presence, that I may lay open before thee my wretched estate and condition, by reason of my manifold and grievous sins, and those fearful punishments, both temporal and eternal, unto which by their guilt they have most justly obliged me. For though thou diddest create me holy and righteous, according unto thine own Image, yet I have fallen from that state of innocency and blessedness, in the loins of my first father Adam, and by being guilty of his sin, am become also liable to his punishment. And as I am partaker of his sin by imputation, as being one of his tainted posterity, so also of the corruption of his nature by propagation, the which like a fretting leprosy, or running canker, hath wholly overspread all the powers and parts of my soul and body, utterly disabling them unto all duties of thy service, and making them the ready instruments of sin and Satan. And whereas in their creation they were fit habitations for thine own Majesty to dwell in by thy Spirit, through this natural corruption they became cages of unclean birds, yea, noisome sinks, exhaling and breathing out the loathsome sent, and poisonous vapours of carnal concupiscence and filthy lusts. Mine understanding is so darkened with ignorance, that it is naturally unacquainted with thy will and ways, and though it be wise to evil, yet unto that which is good, I have no knowledge; my carnal reason and wisdom is enmity against thee, and understandeth not the things of thy Spirit, but so foolish it is, that it judgeth them foolishness. My judgement is so corrupted, that it hath no spiritual discerning, being ready to mistake evil for good, falsehood for truth, and wrong for right. My conscience is either seared or superstitious, either