A20762:1391
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. 4 That our imperfect obedience is accepted of God, if if it be done in sincerity and integrity.
Secondly, this may move us to embrace integrity and sincerity, because the Lord so highly esteemeth it, that he accepteth of our obedience as perfect which springeth from it, though it be stained with much corruption, and joined with many imperfections. Whereof it is, that in the Scriptures integrity and perfection are promiscuously put the one for the other; and those are said to have been perfect before God, who in simplicity and uprightness of heart laboured after perfection, and served God in sincerity and truth; as Noah, Abraham, Job, David, Asa, Zechariah and Elizabeth, though they had many corruptions and imperfections, which in the Scriptures are recorded of them. And contrariwise the best graces, or rather the most glorious shows of them, and the most resplendent and formal actions which are not joined with it, are no better at the best then glorious sins in Gods sight: whereof it is that the Lord specially 1requireth in all our graces and virtuous actions, that they be in sincerity and truth, without dissimulation and hypocrisy. So that wisdom which is from above, is without hypocrisy and dissimulation, though carnal men think them most wise who most excel in it. Our faith must be unfeigned, and so must our repentance also, and with our whole heart; and not like Ahab's, in outward show only, dissembled and disguised. Our love must not be in speech and tongue only, but in deed and truth: we must call 2upon God in truth and sincerity, or else our prayers will be but mere liplabour, which God will not hear or regard. And therefore David useth his sincerity in praying, as an argument to persuade the Lord to give him ⟨p. 406⟩audience; Give ear (saith he) unto my prayers, which go not out of feigned lips. And Hezekiah his integrity of life, as a reason to move him for the repealing 3