A20762:3226
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 causes of spiritual security respecting our selves.
§. 2 The causes of spirituall securitie respecting our selues.
The causes of this spiritual security on our part, are those virtues and graces received from God, which have the promise of it, and make us fit and capable to receive and apprehend it, when as the Lord ⟨p. 92⟩of his free grace doth offer it unto us. The principal whereof is the Spirit of adoption, crying in our hearts, Abba Father; which sealeth up 1in our hearts the assurance of Gods love, and beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. And if Children, then Heirs, and Heirs of God and Co-heirs with Christ, who as we suffer together, so shall we be glorified together. The which Spirit of adoption is opposed to the Spirit of bondage, and freeing us from all servile fear, doth invest us with the privilege, and together with it the peace of security of the Children of God. And this Spirit also is accompanied with an whole Army of spiritual Graces, which taking up, and (as it were) manning the Fort of our hearts, do keep them and us safe and secure in all assaults of danger, and the spiritual encounters of tentations, so as they shall never be able to make us fall away, or alienate us from Gods use. So the Apostle Peter telleth us, that if we give all diligence 2to make our Calling and Election sure, by adding one Grace and Virtue to another; this golden Chain will so keep and strengthen us, that we shall never fall, that is, neither from the estate of Grace in this life, into the state of sin and death; nor from our assurance of the state of Glory, in the life to come, into that miserable condition of condemnation and destruction.