A20762:3032
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.
§. 2 The first sign of carnal security, is ignorance of God and his Attributes.
§. 2 The first signe of carnall securitie, is ignorance of God and his Attributes.
The first sign then of carnal security, is when men are grossly ignorant, either through blindness of nature, or affectation. So that we may undoubtedly conclude, that if Ignorance be seated in the head, Security holdeth his residence in the heart. For were they not secure they could not content themselves to live in this damnable estate, quite destitute of all saving Grace, or sound assurance and hope of eternal salvation, but would use all means to come out of it, and to attain unto the saving knowledge of God and his will. Again, of contraries there is the same reason. But the true fear of God is caused by saving Knowledge, and this Knowledge is an infallible sign of Gods fear. Yea, these are mutual causes one of another; for Knowledge is the cause why we fear God, and the fear of God is (as the 1wise Man saith) the beginning of Knowledge. Whereof it is, that 2the Law of God is called the fear of God, because this fear is wrought 3in us by the knowledge of it. So Moses is commanded, to gather the 4people together, that they may hear and learn the fear of the Lord their God. As therefore the light of saving Knowledge discovereth the habitation of Gods true fear, so the fogs of Ignorance, which blind the mind, plainly show to them who have spiritual discerning, that carnal security lodgeth in that heart. Neither is there any means to be freed from that security, which is naturally borne and bred with us, till we know and acknowledge our manifold sins, whereby we have grievously transgressed Gods Law, and made our selves subject to the curse thereof, as also the Justice, Power and Truth of God, whereby he is both able, willing and resolved, to punish them who continue in their sins without repentance.