At this point we can turn away from some of the more public aspects of godly spirituality and examine some of the ‘inward and spiritual’ pieties that interested Arthur Hildersham. From this, as will become clear, it is useful to return to questions of godly sociability. The conviction that saints could find evidence of their election in this life is a critical point in any attempt to explain the individual spiritual practices of the godly. Devotional exercises have to be understood in the context of experimental Calvinism. Experimental Calvinists gave more than a theoretical assent to the dogmas of the ordo salutis, they made the search for the marks of election central to a practical divinity. Stephen Marshall identified two forms of the knowledge of spiritual life: the first was theoretical, the second, ‘experimental, and practical, and real and convincing. Now the notional knowledge … by the Common light that accompanies the Ministry of the Word, may break in upon some men: but for the experimental, real inward knowledg of it, they will be strangers to it.’

From the 1580s, a steady stream of devotional manuals was produced as a consequence of this outlook, with a great deal of advice contained tending to encourage self-examination. Perhaps the most famous of these works was the Seven Treatises of Richard Rogers. The fourth treatise, of 150 pages, is the ‘treatise of the daily direction’, setting down in great detail the most spiritually effective way for the aspiring saint to lead his or her life.