A20762:281
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 Of the means to preserve the purity of our hearts.
§. Sect. 5 Of the meanes to preserue the purity of our hearts.
Now when our hearts are thus purified, our next care must be to preserve them in this purity and cleanness: for as the cleanest house will gather soil, if it be not sometime swept; and the brightest armour and weapons are apt to take rust, if they be not often scoured and oiled: so much more will our hearts remove to their natural uncleanness, and even rust again in their corruptions, if we once only take pains to cleanse them, and afterwards be careless to maintain them in their purity. First therefore we must keep a narrow watch over our hearts, and as the Wise man exhorteth, above all observations, observe them, that they be 1not carried away from God with loose wanderings, and so (Dinah-like) be defiled with carnal and worldly lusts. For these spiritual enemies are conquered, but not quite killed; they are beaten and expelled (as it were) out of this city, but not quite banished out of our coasts. For they lye lurking in secret corners, and in ambushment; and no sooner do we neglect our watch, and leave the gate of our hearts unguarded, but presently they take the advantage, and entering into them in whole troops, they surprise them at unawares. And therefore it behooveth us to keep daily our watch strong, and to nourish and preserve the garrison of Gods graces in us, that they may either be discovered and defeated before they approach, or be repelled and beaten back in their first assaults. For if with loose Christians we neglect this watch and guard, and let our hearts rove after worldly lusts, and suffer them at pleasure to riot in them; if we keep them under no government, but suffer them like masterless men, to wander at their pleasure, we shall never reserve them for Gods use, nor fit them for his service: But like loose vagrants unaccustomed to work, it will be death unto them to take any constant pains, save only by fits and starts; and when we would settle them to prayer, hearing, reading, and meditation, with such like holy exercises, they will by no means be kept in, unless they be held strictly in their bounds by the strong chain of some sharp afflictions, but every hand-while, they will start aside, and