A20762:680
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. 1 That the daily renewing of our faith is very profitable and necessary.
Unto this daily exercise of renewing of our repentance, we must add also the renewing of our faith, which is no less necessary then the other; for as the virtue and vigour of our bodies soon fainteth and decayeth, if they be not often and daily nourished with those elements whereof they are made and composed; so will the strength of faith be weakened and abated, if it be not daily sustained and refreshed with those means and helps, by which it was begot and begun in us, and therefore if whilst we have good stomachs in our youthful days, we think it not enough to refresh and nourish our bodies one day in a week, nor yet once in a day; but must have our dinners and suppers, breakfasts and bevers; let us not think, that it is enough for the nourishment of our souls, and strengthening of our faith, to use spiritual repast on the Sabbath only, which though it may hold life and soul together, yet shall we not be thriving and in good liking in our spiritual man, if we relieve and cherish it not with a more liberal hand, and allot some part of every day to this spiritual ⟨p. 177⟩exercise. Again, as faith in it self will faint and languish, if it be not daily refreshed and renewed, so are there also outward causes which shake and weaken it, if it be not duly, & even daily nourished. For we daily wound and weaken it with our sins, whilst our inward guilt abateth our assurance of Gods love, and confidence in his favour, by laying to our charge our great unworthiness of his least mercies. And therefore we had need to renew daily our faith, as we daily renew our sins, by laying hold on the Covenant of grace, which assureth us that our sins shall not stop the course of Gods mercies, because their current is free; and if the streams be not dammed up (as it were) in the fountain with unbelief, it is not our unworthiness can keep them from us. Finally, the spiritual enemies of our salvation do daily and continually assault us, and the chief means to repel the fiery darts of their tentations, is the shield of faith; which in it