A20762:1380
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.
CAP. I.
That all duties universally of a godly life, must be performed in sincerity and integrity of heart.
That all duties vniuersally of a godly life, must be performed in sincerity and integrity of heart.
§. Sect. 1 Of that universal and total obedience which is required.
§. Sect. 1 Of that vniuersall and totall obedience which is required.
Having showed what the godly life is, and the duties which are required unto it generally in the whole course of our conversation, and more specially those which belong unto every day, it now followeth, according to that order which we have propounded, that we entreat of the properties of this Christian life, and the duties belonging to it, which may serve as marks and signs, whereby we may know them, and also distinguish them from all other which are false and counterfeit. All which may be referred to two heads, the first sort, respecting the duties themselves, the other our manner of doing them, and that both in respect of the action, and also the time of their continuance. The first property respecting the duties themselves, or the matter and form of them, is Universality; for God being the universal Creator, preserver, and Sovereign Lord of all things, will have us wholly taken up in performing of all duties of his service, and requireth of us universal and total obedience, both in respect of the subject and object of it. In respect of the subject or person that performeth it, the Lord requireth the obedience, not of some few or many parts alone, but of the whole man, internally in the soul, and all the faculties of it, especially the heart and will; and externally, in all the powers and parts of the body, and chiefly our tongues and speeches, and our works and actions. Internally, God enjoineth us to serve him in the duties of a godly life, with all our hearts and souls, which is that wherein he chiefly delighteth, and without which, all outward actions, be they never so formal and glorious, are vain and worthless, yea loathsome and odious in his sight. And hereunto there are two things required, which are so like and near in nature, that they are commonly taken the one for the other, but yet (as I take it) they may be distinguished, though never severed.