A20762:2851
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 Prayer for the Lords Day in the Morning.
O Lord our God, glorious in Majesty, omnipotent in power, infinite in all goodness & perfection, and our most gracious Father in Jesus Christ, who hast created all things of nothing for thine own glory, and man especially for thine own service; the which he is bound to perform both by the right of creation, wherein thou hast vouchsafed unto him his being; & of Redemption, whereby thou hast given unto him his well-being, by restoring him to that estate of blessedness which he had lost by his sins. But yet in a more especial manner ought this service to be performed on thine own peculiar Day, which thou hast appropriated to thy worship, & consecrated to an holy rest, both by thy commandment, and also thine own example. We thine unprofitable servants, and utterly unworthy of these high and holy privileges, do here present our selves before thee, desiring, and in some poor measure endeavouring to sanctify this Day of rest, and to glorify thee by performing, as we are able, such duties of thy service as thou requirest. Howbeit, we must needs acknowledge, to thy glory & our own shame, that we have utterly disabled our selves unto them by our manifold & grievous sins. For through our natural corruption, thy Sabbaths, which should be our delight, are become tedious & unpleasant; thy service, which should be our meat and drink, and even the very life of our life, and joy of our hearts, is become so loathsome and distasteful to our carnal appetite, that either we utterly neglect it, or else perform it after a cold and careless manner, with much dullness, drowsiness, and irksome weariness. Our wisdom is enmity against thee, & our understandings dull in conceiving spiritual things, our thoughts & imaginations so wholly carried away with earthly vanities, that when they should be wholly intent unto ⟨p. 914⟩spiritual exercises, they rove and wander after worldly trifles. Our consciences are so loaded with dead works & the guilt of our sins, that they weaken our faith in applying thy promises, and deprive us of that confidence and comfort which we should otherwise have in our praying and hearing. Our memories are like riven vessels, which suffer the precious liquor of thy Word to run out without use or profit.