A20762:68
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. 3 That the practice of godliness is an infallible sign of the sincerity of our knowledge and profession.
§. Sect. 3 That the practice of godlinesse is an infallible signe of the sincerity of our knowledge and profession.
Again, as the practice of all Christian duties in a godly life, is to be preferred before knowledge and profession of Religion; so is it the sign and seal whereby we may know if our knowledge be sound and saving, 1and our profession in truth and without hypocrisy. For an idle and fruitless knowledge furthereth not our salvation, but rather leaveth us without excuse, aggravateth our sins, and increaseth our condemnation: for they are not blessed, who know the greatest mysteries of Christs Kingdom, but they who make an holy use of what they know; not they that know these things (saith our Saviour) but they who do them: not they that hear the Word only, but they who keep it, are blessed. Not the hearers of the Law, but the doers thereof are justified, saith the Apostle Paul. And the 2Apostle James exhorteth us to be not only hearers of the Word, but doers also, seeing otherwise we shall but deceive our selves, and utterly lose all the 3fruit of our labours. Without which practice, knowledge puffeth up: not 4making us solidly wise, but (like bladders filled with wind) easily tossed up and down at the pleasure of those who extol us with their praises: and is no christian knowledge, though it comprehend the greatest mysteries of Christianity, seeing we truly know only what we practise. For as the Apostle John, teaching us to examine the truth of our knowledge, saith, Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his Commandments. And he