The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal…

I• any say that charity ought to judge such a man¹ sincere seeing it can have no more? Ans. 1. What may be a persons p•vat thoughts upon these grounds we are not to determine; we only say, that this acknowledgement cometh not to be judged by a Church judicatory upon that account. And, Secondly These who desire more for the constituting of Church members, require beside this, evidences of the work of grace upon the heart, and expressions and narrations to that purpose. And indeed if the accounting of a person •o be gracious and sincere, were the alone account, upon which a person were to be admitted or restored to an actual right to the Ordinances, such a serious profession would not be sufficient for the convincing of Church-officers of a persons graciousness even probably; for that which is to be accounted a probable sign of saying grace, must be that which though it doth not always hold and be convincing, yet for the most part doth so; for if it doth more ordinarily fail than hold, it cannot be called probable: ⟨p. 96⟩but experience in all times will confirm this, that more frequently such a profession faileth, and afterward the person is found not to be gracious; therefore it cannot be a probable sign, nor are we to account it such: we suppose, that if all the Churches of Christ that have been gathered, and all the penitents that have been received, were compared together, it will be found, that there have been many moe hypocrites than sincere Believers, yet in these cases this serious profession was called for. And, though it might be pleaded, that charity may construct the best of a person, where the case is doubtful, yet (to speak abstractly of a sign) to account that a probable sign of sincerity, and such which ought to sway charity to account a person gracious, when yet it is clear in reason, that such a sign is ordinarily but an indicium or evidence of moral sincerity, but not of saving grace, were against reason; for, even in bodily diseases, that cannot be counted a probable sign of health, to ground a judgement of such a persons liveliness, with which many moe do die than recover. Nor can it be called uncharitableness, because the profession is not so accounted;

I• any say that charity ought to judge such a man