A20762:414
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. III.
Of our adhering and cleaving unto God, with the full purpose and resolution of our hearts.
Of our adhering and cleauing vnto God, with the full purpose and resolution of our hearts.
§. Sect. 1 Of the sum of the first Commandment.
§. Sect. 1 Of the summe of the first Commandement.
WE have spoken of piety, which is the sum of the first Table. And now it followeth, that we speak briefly of the particular precepts; the first whereof is contained in these words: Thou shalt have no other gods before me, or before my face. The main scope and sum whereof is this, that we know, acknowledge and worship Jehovah, the Father, Son and holy Ghost, in Trinity of persons, and unity of Essence, and no other gods besides him. For to have God, is, in our minds and understandings to know and acknowledge him, to be our God, all-sufficient, incomprehensible, omnipotent, immutable, eternal, just, merciful, and infinite in all perfection; in our hearts and affections to adhere and clean unto him with faith, affiance, hope, love, zeal, whom we know to be the chief Goodness and supreme cause of all our happiness; in our wills, with all earnest desire and constant resolution to serve and obey him in all his Commandments, with all the power and faculties of our bodies and souls, whom we know and acknowledge to be the chief end of all things, and so infinitely good & gracious unto us; and with our bodies, actions and endeavours, to worship and serve him alone, with all our might and strength. So that the true saving knowledge of God is the ground of all other virtues and obedience, as we have showed; and therefore if we would embrace any virtues, or perform any Christian duties of a godly life, we must