A20762:790
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. 4 Divers motives unto the daily exercise of prayer.
§. Sect. 4 Diuers motiues vnto the daily exercise of prayer.
Unto which daily and continual prayers, with this zeal and fervency of Spirit, we may be moved; first, if we consider, that we stand in such 1need of Gods continual help and assistance, that we cannot subsist without it the least minute, for in him we live, and move, and have our being. Secondly, that we stand daily and continually in want of some gift and grace of God, and of all of them in some measure and degree; and also of some one or other of Gods temporal benefits, or at least, of the right and holy use of them. And therefore seeing our wants are continual, and God hath appointed prayer as the hand of the soul, to be thrust into his rich Treasury of all grace and goodness for a continual supply, without which we can have no assurance, that we shall receive any thing at the hands of God; hereby it manifestly appeareth that our prayers also ought to be daily and continual. Thirdly, we are daily and continually subject to innumerable dangers, in respect of the evils that may befall us in our souls, bodies, and estates, and it is God only watching over us with his ⟨p. 212⟩providence, that can both preserve us from them, and deliver us out of them: the which, we cannot expect, unless we serve his providence, by using this means of prayer, whereby only his gracious help and assistance 2is obtained; and therefore our continual dangers, needing continual preservation from them, commendeth unto us the necessary use of our daily and continual prayers. Finally, the many and mighty enemies of our salvation do continually assault us with their tentations, that overcoming, they may bring us to destruction. And prayer is the chief means, both of buckling unto us the whole Armour of God, whereby we are enabled to stand in the evil day; and of obtaining the help and assistance of his holy Spirit, whereby alone we are enabled to overcome. And therefore as we are continually tempted to one sin or other, so must we continually pray for grace to withstand the tentation; and as the Apostle speaketh, Pray always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,