A20762:823
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 The manifold benefits which will arise from these religious morning exercises.
Neither can our time be more profitably employed then in these holy exercises, as will appear, if we consider the manifold fruits and benefits which we shall reap by them. For we shall hereby preserve and increase the sincerity and uprightness of our hearts, and strengthen our resolutions in going on cheerfully and faithfully in the duties of Gods service the day following, with greater care and vigilancy then we did the day before; we shall keep our hearts well seasoned with the love & fear of God throughout the whole day when as we fill them with this precious liquor betimes in the morning, before they be taken up and tainted with carnal lusts and worldly vanities. We shall move the Lord to sow in our hearts the seeds of his graces, when as like good grounds they are thus well prepared to receive them; and when they spring up in us, they will grow the better and faster, being well watered in the morning, and endure without withering when the sun of persecution ariseth, and even scorcheth with the heat of afflictions. We shall preserve our souls from the poisonous contagion ⟨p. 221⟩of the sinful times, when as before we go abroad into the infectious air, we have betimes in the morning taken our spiritual cordials and antidotes. We shall keep the fort of our hearts from any danger of sacking and surprising by Satan's tentations, when as betimes in the morning we have strengthened all our fortifications, and stopped the chief passages which lead unto them. Our lives will be the better ordered throughout the whole day, when we have thus well begun to order them in the morning, and we shall perform all duties of holiness and righteousness with much more ease and facility, pleasure and delight, when as by these meditations we have acquainted our hearts with them, and have made them familiar with us by this sweet society. We shall not need to fear the encounters of our spiritual enemies, when as we have betimes betaken us to our weapons, and put on our Christian armour, before we have put on our clothes. Our hearts will be filled with joy and comfort in God, when as we do thus often reassure our selves of his love; and we shall be safe under his gracious protection, seeing if we thus wake with God; and seek him