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

Unto a godly life therefore it is required, that we hate and forsake all evil, and that we embrace and practise that which is good; that is, that we abhor and renounce sin in all kinds, without exception, and those most of all, which whilst we lived in the state of infidelity, we most loved, and to which, as yet our corrupt nature most inclineth, seeing they are our greatest and most dangerous enemies, & like traitorous Rebels, raising intestine war within us, do as much as in them lieth, expose us to the malice of our open enemies, the devil and the world. In which total relinquishing of sin, we must be constant in our resolutions and endeavours, and not do it by fits and flashes, as we shall see hereafter. And with the like constancy, we are to settle our selves, in embracing and practising all good duties, whether they be hard or easy, pleasant or displeasant, profitable to our worldly estate, or to our loss and hinderance. Now, because the Word and revealed will of God is the rule and squire, according to which, we are to judge of good and evil, that being good which it commandeth, and evil which it forbiddeth; therefore a godly life consists in our conformity & obedience to Gods will revealed in his Word, or to all Gods Commandments contained both in the Law and Gospel. For because we cannot perform obedience to the Law legally, that is, in that perfection which the Law requireth, therefore a godly life is not, as we understand it in this Treatise, an absolute conformity unto the Law (though it be most absolute when it is most conformable) but when we conform our selves and all our actions, according to the rule of the Law, after an Evangelical manner, that is, desire, resolve, and endeavour to perform