A20762:8
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
Dedication: TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, GEORGE, BY GODS PROVIDENCE, ARCHbishop of CANTERBVR…
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.
TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, GEORGE, BY GODS PROVIDENCE, ARCHbishop of CANTERBURY his Grace, Primate of all England, and Metropolitan, and one of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Council, I. D. wisheth all happiness, temporal and eternal.
TO THE MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, GEORGE, BY GODS PROVIDENCE, ARCHbishop of CANTERBVRY his Grace, Primate of all England, and Metropolitane, and one of his Maiesties most Honourable Priuie Councell, I. D. wisheth all happinesse, temporall and eternall.
Seeing there is nothing (most Reverend) so highly to be esteemed, or so much to be desired of all Christians, as the glory of God in the salvation of his people, as being the principal and chief end of our creation and being, of our preservation and continuing in the world; therefore it behoveth all men, who would not fail of their end, and so live in vain, in their several callings wherein God hath placed them, to have this always in their eye, as their chief mark, and to propound it as the principal scope of all their actions, using all good means whereby it may be furthered and advanced. As Princes and Magistrates, by enacting good laws, and seeing them duly executed, making their own lives (as it were) rules of that obedience which they require of the people, and lively examples and patterns for their imitation. Ministers, by leading those which are committed unto their charge, in the ways of truth and godliness, not only by their preaching and writing, instruction, admonition, persuasion and exhortation, but also by practicing those duties which they teach others, and shining before them in the light of a godly life. Finally, the people, by yielding their cheerful obedience to the godly laws of Governors, and by embracing the found and profitable doctrine, and ⟨image 3⟩imitating the Christian and religious examples of their godly Teachers. The consideration whereof hath moved me to employ my talent both by preaching and writing, for the advancing (as much as in me lieth) the glory of my great Lord and Master, and the good & salvation of my fellow servants; or rather, to cast my mite into the Churches treasury, hoping that he will accept it, though not in its own value and worth, yet because I have desired to be faithful in a little, and willing in my penury to offer unto him all that I have. And studying how I might best employ my pains and endeavours for the advancing of the former ends, I could find no one part of Divinity more profitable, in these times, for me to spend my strength upon, then that which consisteth more in experience and practice, then in theory and speculation; and more principally tendeth to the sanctification of the heart, then the informing of the judgement and the increasing of knowledge;