"And if I have a gossib, or a friend,
(Withouten gilt) thou chidest as a frend,
If that I walke or play into his hous."
And in Spenser, Faerie Queene, b. i. c. 12.:
"One mother, when as her foole-hardy child
Did come too neare, and with his talons play,
Halfe dead through feare, her little babe reuil'd,
And to her gossips gan in counsell say."
Master Richard Verstegan is more to the point:
"Our Christian ancestors, understanding a spiritual affinity to grow between the parents and such as undertooke for the child at baptisme, called each other by the name of Godsib, which is as much as to say, that they were sib together, that is, of kin together through God. And the child, in like manner, called such his God-fathers, or God-mothers."—Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, ch. vii.