A20762:3178
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.
§. 3 The third remedy is, to make great account of a soft and relenting heart.
§. 3 The third remedie is, to make great account of a soft and relenting heart.
The third means is, that we make great account of a soft and relenting heart and tender conscience, when we have them, which will make us tremble at the hearing of Gods Word, and even melt like the heart of Josiah, and strict and scrupulous in avoiding all appearance of evil. To which end we must shun all causes and occasions of sin, as well as the sin it self. Especially let us avoid, as much as may be, the company of such as are hard hearted and carnally secure, who are apt to infect us with their contagion. For as bodily drowsiness goeth from one to another, and when we see our Companion yawn we are ready to yawn also, being infected with his sluggishness; and the long fetching of his breath that sleepeth, is a means to draw sleep on others that lye with him: so is this sloth of security alike contagious. We see that those who are fearful and cowardly, are much emboldened to affront dangers, when being in the company of such as are undanted and desperate, they see them often escape many perils, into which they have rashly adventured and thrust themselves; and so doth it make those that are fearful to commit sin, in respect of the manifold evils that do accompany it, to become more bold and adventurous to run into it, and more secure and careless after it is committed, when we have before our eyes, the examples of those who daily commit greater sins with greater security, because for the present they live in impunity, and are not by God called to a reckoning. Again, if we would preserve our hearts and consciences soft and tender, we must walk with God, and set our selves in his presence, as Enoch did; and so shall we make scruple not only of open and manifest, but of secret and unknown sins, because he being always ⟨p. 76⟩