A20762:2902
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.
J. D. wisheth all temporal happiness, with the confluence of all spiritual Graces in this life, and eternal blessedness in the life to come.
J. D. wisheth all temporall happines, with the confluence of all spirituall Graces in this life, and eternall blessednesse in the life to come.
Right Honourable, and my most honoured Lord and Lady,
Right Honorable, and my most honored Lord and Lady,
AS long peace and prosperity, are the common causes of carnal security and hardness of heart, so these the usual forerunners of fearful punishments, seeing in this desperate Disease (which we may fitly call, the stone in the heart) more gentle Medicines will not effect the cure. For when mens hearts are come to brassy or flinty hardness, nothing will melt them (without some extraordinary work of the Spirit) but the fiery furnace of Affliction, nothing will bruise and break them, but the heavy hammer of Gods ⟨image 492⟩dreadful judgements. And this is manifest in the examples of all Ages, which are left unto us in the Scriptures, to give us warning. As of the old world, Sodom and her bordering Cities; and of the Israelites, Gods own best beloved people, all which, as they were lulled asleep in the Cradle of carnal Security, with the pleasing and bewitching tunes of peace and pleasure; so were they always, when they least suspected it, surprised upon the sudden in their lethargy of sin, with some remarkable plagues and punishments. And therefore considering with my self, that our long peace, plenty and prosperity hath infected the most that live in our land, with deep security and reckless carelessness, and caused them to dream, that this Sun-shine will never set: I could not choose but suspect, and daily expect the near approaching of the other, and that the dark night of affliction and calamity will ere long surprise us, unless the loud cries of Gods Ministers do speedily awaken us out of our lethargy, and move us to meet the Lord and prevent his judgements, by turning unto him in unfeigned repentance. In which regard, being appointed and called by God to be one of his (though least worthy) watchmen, whose office requireth, that we should not only our selves keep the spiritual watch, but also, as much as in us lieth, awaken others: I thought it my duty, by giving warning of these approaching dangers, to