A20762:3158
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.
§. 8 The seventh remedy is to shun presumption.
§. 8 The seuenth remedie is to shunne presumption.
The seventh means is, carefully to take heed that we do not presumptuously abuse Gods mercies, as an occasion and encouragement 1unto sin, but contrariwise, fear and reverence him the more, by how much we find him more loving and gracious, according to that of the Psalmist; There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. For there is nothing more that doth beget and nourish this carnal security (as the miserable experience of former Ages and our own times doth lamentably prove) then this conceit, that God is so merciful, that he will pardon all our sins, whensoever we turn from them by repentance, although it be even at the hour of our death. And consequently, nothing would more weaken and cause it to languish, then if we pluck this weapon from it, and turn the edge and point of it against it self; taking occasion thereby the more to love God who is so gracious, and out of this love the more to fear his displeasure. To which end let us always consider that the Lord is no less infinite in justice then in mercy, and that he is as ready to glorify himself in manifesting the one by punishing of presumptuous and impenitent sinners, as the other in sparing and forgiving those that turn unto him by unfeigned repentance. That those whom he cannot allure and draw unto him with the hand of his mercy, he will thrust from him with the hand of his justice; and that the greater mercy he hath showed to move us to repentance, the more fearful judgements will he inflict upon us if we neglect it through our carnal security; and because we have not only wilfully wounded our souls with sin, but also have despited our heavenly Chirurgeon by casting away the plasters which he hath applied for our cure, he will let us rot in our corruptions, laugh at our destruction, and mock when