A20762:609
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 The sum of the seventh Commandment▪ The duties which it enjoineth, and vices which it forbiddeth.
§. Sect. 1 The summe of the seuenth Commandement▪ The duties which it inioyneth, and vices which it forbiddeth.
The three following Commandments respect the adjuncts of our neighbours persons: for after that God had provided for the life and person of our neighbour and our selves (which is the chief and principal) in the former Commandment he descendeth down lower, to make provision for the good, and preservation of all that belong both unto them and us. And these are either internal or external: internal, as the chastity and purity of our own, and our neighbours persons, in the seventh Commandment: external, as the preservation of propriety in goods in the eighth, and our own and neighbours good name in the ninth. Next unto the Commandment that respecteth life, the seventh Commandment which provideth for the chastity and purity of the person, hath place, as coming nearest unto life in worth and excellency, and to be preferred before all outward things, either goods or good name. For if the persons of men be unchaste, and defiled with unclean lusts, then must also marriage, ⟨p. 155⟩which is the fountain of life and generation, be defiled; and from such a fountain what can spring, but an unclean and filthy life, which is not to be preferred before death it self? And therefore next unto the preservation of our lives, our chiefest care must be to preserve our chastity and purity, which is the very life of our life, and without which, it would bring no true joy or comfort unto us. The which, the Lord requireth of us in the seventh Commandment, in these words; Thou shalt not commit adultery. In which words, the Lord forbiddeth all unclean lusts, with all the means and signs of them, and also that we should be accessary unto the uncleanness of others; and contrariwise commandeth the preservation of our chastity and purity, with the means and signs of it, and also, that as much as in us lieth, we provide for the chastity of our neighbours. Now this chastity is either inward in the soul and heart, or outward in the body. First then, we must preserve the inward chastity of the soul, from all motions and passions of unclean lusts, and