A20762:3249
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 means is, that we labour to be in the Covenant of Grace.
§. 3 The third meanes is, that we labour to be in the Couenant of Grace.
Thirdly, if we would obtain this spiritual security, we must labour to be within the compass of the covenant of Grace, which God hath made with us in Jesus Christ. For such only as are in the Covenant, have right unto the Promises of Gods grace and providence, watching over them, for the endowing them with all good, and of his power and protection to shield and defend them from all evil. Such only have God for their Lord and King, and are the peculiar People and Subjects of his Kingdom, over whom he hath taken charge, and received them under the safeguard of his protection. As for others, they are strangers unto him, whom he respecteth not; yea, they are no better then Rebels and Out-laws, who have no benefit by his protection, and therefore can have in them no true security, but may well fear with Cain, that being exiled out of Gods presence, they shall be like Fugitives and Vagabonds upon the earth, and that it shall come to 1pass, that every one that findeth them shall be ready to slay them. Whereas if we have the Seal of the Covenant stamped upon us, we are thereby secured from all evil; for when the destroying Angel is purposely sent from God to spoil and make havoc of all, yet his commission is restrained, so as he may not hurt those which are in the Covenant, but those only who have not the Seal of God in their foreheads. Now the means to be in this Covenant with God, is to perform the 2condition of Faith, bringing forth the fruits thereof in hearty repentance and amendment of life; which we must therefore above all things labour after, that we may have interest in the former privileges. And because through our frailty and infirmity, we are apt to wound and weaken our Faith by our sins; and this shield is oftentimes shrewdly battered, with beating back the fiery darts and bullets of Satan's tentations: And our repentance also is ready to grow faint and languish, both in respect of our grief for sin past, and resolution to leave and forsake it for the time to come; and so by weakening the Covenant, not in it self, but in our apprehension, we are ready to lose our inward peace, and to have our security disturbed with fears;