A20762:482
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
Book 2 › Chapter 6 › Section 4: §. Sect. 4 Of humility, what it is, and the causes of it.
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. 4 Of humility, what it is, and the causes of it.
The last virtue required, is humility, whereby knowing and acknowledging Gods power, justice, majesty, goodness, mercy, and infinite perfection, and our own vileness, and unworthiness, imperfections, and sinful corruptions, we do renounce all glory and praise, as not belonging unto us, and ascribe it wholly unto God, unto whom alone it rightly appertaineth So that it is the nature of humility, to vilify and abase our selves in our own sight, even to the ground, as the word importeth, to cast off all opinion of our works and worthiness, and in the sight and sense of our sins and corruptions, to acknowledge our selves worthy of Gods most heavy punishments in this life and the life to come; and contrariwise, to ascribe all glory and praise unto God alone, even of all the good we have in us, or is done by us, from whom alone we have it; according to that of the Psalmist, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy 1name give the glory: And of Daniel, O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto 2thee, but unto us confusion of faces, because we have sinned against thee. The causes of this humility, are first, the knowledge and acknowledgement of Gods infiniteness in all excellency, goodness, and perfection; in which he is so incomprehensibly glorious, that when we come in his presence, it maketh us to vilify and abase our selves, what opinion soever before we had of our own worth and excellency, even as the light of a Glowworm is quite dazzled, when the glorious beams of the Sun do shine upon it. Thus in the sight and sense of Gods glory and majesty, Ezekiel was cast to the ground; Manoah concluded that he should 3die; Esayas crieth out, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, &c. for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. And Job having seen the Lord, abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes. 4