N00254:317
Practical truths tending to promote the power of godliness
Practical truths tending to promote the power of godliness: wherein several important duties, are urged, and the evil of divers common sins, is evinced; delivered in sundry sermons. / By Increase Mather, teacher of a church at Boston in New-England. ; [Ten lines of Scripture texts]
printed by Samuel Green upon assignment of Samuel Sewall, 1682
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.
It is the Property of a Sincere Godly Man, Not to Sit with Vain Persons.
PSAL. 26. 4. I have not Sat with vain Persons.
The Prophet David, being sensible of those us just Reproaches and Slanders, which Saul and his Servants had taken up against him, he Appeals to God concerning his […]ocency, desiring that the Lord would […] his Judge and his Examiner. And that is the scope and sum of the •wo first verses of this Psalm. Having asserted h•s integrity, he produceth sundry arguments as evidences thereof. 1. His having the Image of God upon him in respect of mercy and truth, argued his sincerity in the Lords sight. Ver.3. For thy loving kindness is before mine eyes, and I have walked ⟨p. 161⟩in thy Truth. Out of respect to the honour of God, he had showed kindness to those that were unworthy of it following the Lord example therein; and he had approved himself true and faithful in all his ways. 2. He proveth his sincerity in that he had declined the society of sinners. 3. In that he was one who did […] Conscience to prepare for, and that delighted in the Worship of God. He was where […] would be, when attending upon the Lord in the […] of his Worship, especially as to public Worship, and those holy Ordinances which are of Divine Institution. Delight wherein […] a great sign of true Grace. ver. 6. 7, 8.