A20762:384
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. 5 Of the means whereby a good conscience may be preserved.
§. Sect. 5 Of the meanes whereby a good conscience may be preserued.
And these are the means of getting a good conscience. The means of preserving it being gotten, are divers. First, the often renewing of our covenant of peace with God, by renewing the condition of it, on our part, faith and repentance. For as we daily wound our consciences through our frailty in falling into sin, whereby the peace of them is disturbed, and defile them, by casting upon them the filth of our corruptions: so our care must be, to heal daily these wounds, by applying unto them afresh by the hand of faith, the sovereign salve and balsam of Christs blood, which is of sufficient and sole virtue, and nothing else in the world, to heal these wounds; and also to wash them as often in the tears of unfeigned repentance, which will give us assurance that they are purged and cleansed from all filth of sin. Secondly, being cleansed, our continual care must be to keep them clean from all sin, especially in our desires, resolutions, and endeavours, and howsoever we cannot hinder 1it from dwelling in us, yet we must take heed that it do not so reign in us, that we should obey it willingly in the lusts thereof; for sin willingly nourished, cannot possibly stand with this peace, seeing they do wound and waste the conscience; which sores, if they fester and putrefy with corruption, will breed in them such a gnawing worm, as will give unto us no peace or rest; but night and day will torture and torment us. Thirdly, let us daily mortify all our sinful lusts, as wrath, envy, malice, unclean concupiscence, pride, and the rest, which will betray conscience unto sin, and with their loud cries and tumultuous clamours, hinder it of all sound peace and quiet. But especially, we must crucify all worldly lusts of ambition, covetousness, and voluptuousness, and wean our hearts from the love of earthly vanities: which otherwise if it be entertained, will set the peace of conscience unto sale, for the base price of pleasure, profit, and preferment, as the miserable experience of these times do too plainly teach us.