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Title:  Life eternall or, A treatise of the knowledge of the divine essence and attributes Delivered in XVIII. sermons. By the late faithfull and worthy minister of Iesus Christ, Iohn Preston, D. in Divinity, chaplaine in ordinary to his Majestie, master of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inne.
Author: Preston, John, 1587-1628.
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him, and upon nothing besides. If a man will have an eye to men, to the praise, or dis∣praise that shall follow the performance of the duty, he doth so farre worship men. But hee serves God and worships him in spirit, when his heart is left naked, and stripped of all other re∣spects in the world, and so filled, and over∣awed with the presence of God, that all other respects doe vanish. This it is to worship God in singlenesse of heart; and this is opposed to outward performance Col. 3.22.Col. 3.22. for eye-ser∣vice is but onely a bodily and outward wor∣ship: but when a man doth it with singlenesse of heart, then it is not eye-service as there; that is, it is not outward onely. Now, singlenesse of heart is this; when the minde hath but one single object to looke upon; so that to looke, not upon any creature, but upon God, and none besides. This is to worship God in singlenesse of heart, which is the same with holinesse of spirit. As the holinesse of the vessell in the old law was when it was set apart from all other services to God alone, so the holinesse of a mans spirit is, when it is separated from all by-respects and aimes, and is wholly devoted to him (whence our word, Devotion doth spring) and when a man worships God with this naked∣nesse, with this singlenes and holinesse of spirit, then he worships God in spirit. But when thou commest to performe any duty, as to preach a Sermon, or to pray, and thou lookest what men will thinke of thee, and what praise and credit thou shalt get by it, this pollutes your spirit; so 0