Page:A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace (John Ball).djvu/196

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184
Of Truth and Uprightnesse.

shall dispence with himselfe in the transgression of any one commandment, or any branch thereof, he is a trespasser, he shall be accounted guilty.

2. To be upright is to stand, as it were in Gods presence,2 Cor. 12.19.
2 Cor. 2.17.
& 4.2. & 7.12.
as one of the words doth signifie, Isa. 57. 2. as was shewed before, I have set the Lord alwaies before me, Psal. 16. 8. So David protesteth his uprightnesse, for all his judgements were before me: and I did not put away his Statutes from me. I was also upright before him, and I kept my selfe from mine iniquity.Psal. 18.22,23. And I have kept thy precepts, and thy testimonies: for all my waies are before thee.Psal. 119.168. Thus Job proveth himself to be no hypocrite, as his friends imagined; Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will prove mine owne waie before him. He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him.Job. 13.15,16. And seeing he walketh as under the eye, and in the sight of the Almighty, therefore in some measure he is alike in all places and companies, because he remembreth well, that God is present in every place, and doth behold and discerne all his actions, yea his secret imaginations.

3. The third effect of uprightnesse is hatred of all sinne, of our bosome, delightfull, profitable sins, of secret sins, of the sins of our inclination, custome, education, whatsoever, but more in our selves then in others: and love of good, specially the best and chiefest good, in others, as in our selves. Homebred sin is most hatefull, because most hurtfull to the soule, pernicious to our State, dishonourable to God. And it is a good token of a plaine and down-right heart, when a man is willing to see, ready to acknowledge, and can with eagernesse of affection set against his owne sinne, rather then against the sins of other men. For the love of sin is abandoned, the heart is framed to self-deniall, which it hath not by nature, but by grace: and sinne will have no pleasure to lodge in that heart where it is thus pursued. But true goodnesse is lovely in all men, because it proceeds from God, conformeth a man after the image of God, and inableth to the obedience of his commandment: and whose heart is right with God, he cannot but rejoyce to see his name glorified by whomsoever.

4. Delight in the most high at all times, in all conditions, prosperity and adversity, evill report and good report, making Godthe