A69235:154
A treatise against lying Wherein is showed what it is, the nature and causes…A treatise against lying Wherein is shevved vvhat it is, the nature and causes…
A treatise against lying Wherein is showed what it is, the nature and causes of this sin, the divers kinds of it; and that all of them are sinful, and unlawful, with the motives and means to preserve us from it, or to cure us of it. By John Downame, B. of D. and preacher of Gods Word.A treatise against lying Wherein is shevved vvhat it is, the nature and causes of this sinne, the divers kindes of it; and that all of them are sinfull, and unlawfull, with the motives and meanes to preserve us from it, or to cure us of it. By John Dovvname, B. of D. and preacher of Gods Word.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Nicolas Bourne, 1636
Title page typeset from the transcription.
A TREATISE AGAINST THE SIN OF LYING. › Chapter 13A TREATISE AGAINST THE SINNE OF LYING. › Chapter 13
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.
But as lies are in these and many other 1respects hurtful to our neighbours, so are they much more pernicious to our selves; and that both in respect of the evil of sin, and also of the evil of punishment. Concerning the former, lying is most pernicious unto our selves in many considerations. For first, it defaceth and blotteth out Gods Image in us, seeing we resemble him not only in wisdom, holiness and righteousness, but also in truth, which hath such relation unto them all, that it is necessarily required to their very essence and being, so that wisdom, righteousness and holiness, are of no worth and existence, unless truth be joined with them. And therefore the Apostle exhorting us to be renewed according to Gods Image, doth bid us to put on the new man, which after 2God is created in righteousness and true holiness, or as the words there signify, holiness of truth. And this the Greek Orator saw by the light of nature, 3for being asked in what things men came nearest to the likeness of GOD, answered, in Trueth and beneficence. Now this Trueth is most opposed and defaced by Lying, and consequently it is most pernicious. For if we esteem it a great hurt, to have our eyes put out, our faces gashed and deformed, and our bodies maimed and dismembered, ⟨p. 127⟩how much more hurtful is it to have these blemishes in our souls and to have Gods image defaced in us? And yet it doth not only blot out of us the image of God, but it also stampeth on us the image of Satan and sin. For the Devil is not only a Liar himself, but also the author and father of lies, according to that of our Saviour; He is a Murderer from the beginning, 4and abode not in the trueth, because there is no trueth in him: when he speaketh a lye he speaketh it of his own, for he is a Liar and the father of it; where (as Saint Basil observeth) our Saviour putteth no difference 5of lies, but speaketh this indefinitely of them all. And this we see in the example of our first Parents, unto whom Satan lieth even against God himself, and also teacheth them to lye; from whom this corruption and disposition of Lying is propagated to all their posterity; in the example of the four hundred false Prophets in whose mouth Satan was a lying spirit teaching them to lye perniciously to Ahab's destruction, as himself confesseth;