A20762:267
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. 1 Of the inward signs of a pure heart.
§. Sect. 1 Of the inward signes of a pure heart.
And these are the causes of a pure heart. The signs whereby we may know whether our hearts be thus purified or no, are either inward or outward. The inward signs are first the love of holiness and purity; for as when our hearts are defiled with natural corruption, we loath sanctity, and love and delight in impure lusts, and the pleasures of sin; so when our hearts are purified by faith, they are chiefly pleased with those things which please God; and loving purity and piety, they delight in the exercises of holiness and righteousness. And therefore when we love purity and holiness, it is an evident sign that our hearts are pure and holy, seeing the cause of love is likeness; and where there is no similitude, there can be no love. The second sign is hatred of sin, which upon the same ground we naturally love; especially of those sins unto which our corrupted nature is most inclined, because they most molest and trouble us, and polluting the heart with their defilements, hinder most our progress in sanctification and holiness. And thus Paul, when his heart was purified, abhorred all corruption, and delighted in Gods Law, hating that sin most, which he did most commit, because, like a Rebel, it warred against the law ⟨p. 59⟩1of his mind, and made him captive to the law of sin. The third sign is, our careful avoiding all means and occasions of spiritual pollution: for as he that hath filthy hands, careth not to handle filthy things; but when they are washed clean, will not willingly touch that which will defile them: so an impure heart shunneth not the occasions and means of impurity, because they cannot make it worse then it is in it own nature, in the quality, though they may increase the pollution, in respect of the degree, yea, rather being like filthy hogs, naturally inclined unto filthiness, they seek the occasions of more uncleanness, and purposely wallow themselves in the sink and puddle of sin, as often as they have opportunity of satisfying their carnal lusts.