A20762:365
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.
§. Sect. 7 That a good conscience maketh us merry and cheerful.
§. Sect. 7 That a good conscience maketh vs merry and cheerefull.
Fourthly, it is the property of a good conscience, to make those that have it merry, cheerful, and full of joy. It is a pleasant sauce, which maketh all our meats delightful, and whatsoever our cheer be, good 1conscience, if it be our companion, will make it a feast, and fill our heart with such joy, that a salad of cold herbs shall be better unto us, then a stalled Ox, or the greatest dainties, that wealth and wit can provide for wanton worldlings. It will make the hardest lodging, a bed of down; and the poorest cottage more pleasant, then the most stately Palace, to them who have not this inmate to harbour with them. It is (like sugar) sweet in it self, and sweeteneth all things that are mixed with it, and such a precious ointment that it perfumeth the whole house. The joy of conscience is complete in it self, and proceeding from an inward cause (as it were) a living fountain, that never faileth; it always lasteth, without any supply from the land-waters of earthly prosperity; wherein it far exceedeth the joy of worldlings, which arising from carnal comforts, faileth when they fail. The ambitious man cannot rejoice but in his honours, and if (with Haman) he wanteth cap and knee, all his other comforts will not keep him from deep melancholy, and discontent. The covetous man cannot have any joy, if he cannot have that riches, not which he needs, but which he desires; and he that is voluptuous, is as moody and melancholy in the want of music, merry company, and such like worldly delights, as he is merry when he hath them. So that their joy, like Summer brooks, are not to be seen or found, no longer then they are supplied by the showers of worldly prosperity. But he that hath a good conscience, rejoiceth in it when it is alone, without the company of any worldly comfort, & in the greatest solitude, it presenteth unto us a Theatre 2of delights: And not only in the absence of all worldly good, but also in the presence of the greatest worldly evils. For he that hath peace with God, and peace of conscience, rejoiceth in tribulation, as the Apostle speaketh. So when the Apostles were beaten for Christs cause, their backs were no more loaded