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.

§. 3 The examples of securitie in others seuere∣ly punished, ought to be warnings vnto vs.

To this purpose our Sauiour also produceth examples, mouing vs to bee wise by the experience of others harmes. As the example of those who liued before the Flood, and of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who liued securely in their sinnes, eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, marrying and giuing in marriage, as though they had beene free from all danger, and sure that those pleasures would haue euer lasted. But the issue of this sinfull secu∣ritie was, that they were surprised with Gods fearefull Iudgements at vnawares; For no sooner was Noah entred into the Arke, but the Flood came and drowned them all; and presently after that Lot was gone out of Sodom, those sinfull and secure Cities with all their Inha∣bitants, were terribly consumed with fire and brimstone. And from both these Parables and Examples, the Lord raiseth admonitions and inforceth exhortations, mouing vs to shake off carnall securitie, and being affected with Christian feare, to stand carefully vpon our watch, and to be instant in prayer, that we may be found readie at Christs ap∣pearing. Watch therefore, for you know not what houre your Lord doth come. And againe, Let your loynes be girded about, and your lights bur∣ning. And ye your selues like vnto them that wait for their Lord when hee will returne from the wedding, that when hee commeth and knocketh, they may open vnto him immediately. Blessed are those seruants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching, &c. And this know, that if the good man of the house had knowne what houre the Thiefe would come, he would haue watched, and not haue suffered his house to be broken tho∣row. Be therefore readie also; for the Sonne of Man commeth at an houre when ye thinke not. And elsewhere: Take you heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is, &c. least comming suddenly, he find you slee∣ping. By all which wee see the necessitie of an holy and religious feare, stirring vs to watchfulnesse, and the extreme danger of carnall securitie. For if that bee not without much hazard and perill, and ought to bee carefully shunned of vs, whereof our Sauiour giueth vs once warning, then how jeaperdous and full of extreme danger is this carnall securitie, and with how great care to bee auoyded of vs, of which Christ giueth vs so many warnings, as of nothing else more oft and earnestly, in so many and such great varietie of Parables, Ex∣amples and Admonitions. And withall, thus much is implyed here∣by, that as this sinne of securitie is great and dangerous, so we are na∣turally most prone to be ouer-taken by it, which moueth our Sauiour

to vse so many and effectuall meanes to preserue vs from it, or to a∣waken vs out of it, if wee bee alreadie fallen into this spirituall Lethargie.

Notes

• Luk. 17. 26.
• Matth. 24. 42.
• Luk. 12. 35, 36.
• Mark. 13. 35, 36.