Godliness
Godliness [1]
strictly taken, in right worship or devotion, but in general it imports the whole of practical religion ( 1 Timothy 4:8; 2 Peter 1:6). It is difficulte, as Saurin observes, to include an adequate idea of it in what is called a definition. "It supposes knowledge, veneration, affection, dependence, submission, gratitude, and obedience; or it may be reduced to these four ideas: knowledge in the mind, by which it is distinguished from the visions of the superstitious; rectitude in the conscience, that distinguishes it from hypocrisy; sacrifice in the life, or renunciation of the world, by which it is distinguished from the unmeaning obedience of him who goes as a happy constitutions leads him; and, lastly, zeal in the heart, which differs from the languishing emotions of the lukewarm." The advantages of this disposition are honor, peace, safety, usefulness, support in death, and prospect of glory; or, as the apostle sums up all in a few words, "It is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come" ( 1 Timothy 4:8). In 1 Timothy 3:16, it means the substance of revealed religion as furnished in the various particulars enumerated. — Barrow, Works, 1:9; Scott, Christ. Life; Scougal, Life of God in the Soul of Man; Saurin, Sermons, Engl. trans. 5, serm. 3.
