© 1994-2018, Scott Sperling
True Godliness
"I know law, and custom, and education, and friends, when they side with
godliness, are a great advantage to it, by affording helps, and removing those
impediments that might stick much with carnal minds. But truth is not your own,
till it be received in its proper evidence; nor your faith divine, till you believe what
you believe, because God is true who doth reveal it; nor are you the children of
God, till you love Him for Himself; nor are you truly religious, till the truth and
goodness of religion itself be the principal thing that maketh you religious. It
helpeth much to discover a man's sincerity, when he is not only religious among the
religious, but among the profane, and the enemies, and scorners, and persecutors of
religion; and when a man doth not pray only in a praying family, but among the
prayerless...; and when a man is heavenly among them that are earthly, and
temperate among the intemperate and riotous, and holdeth the truth among those
that reproach it and that hold the contrary;...and is godly where godliness is
accounted singularity, hypocrisy, faction, humour, disobedience, or heresy; and
will rather let go the reputation of his honesty, than his honesty itself."
-- Richard Baxter (1615-1691)