A39682:414
A Saint Indeed
A saint indeed: or The great work of a Christian, opened and pressed; from Prov. 4. 23 Being a seasonable and proper expedient for the recovery of the much decayed power of godliness, among the professors of these times. By John Flavell M. of the Gospel.
London: printed by W.R., 1668
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. Mot. Your care and diligence in keeping your hearts, will prove one of the best evidences of your sincerity.
I know no external act of religion that ⟨p. 195⟩differences the sound from the unsound professor: tis wonderful to consider, how far hypocrites go in all external duties, how plausibly they can order the outward man, hiding all their indecencies from the observation of the world.
I know no external act of religion that ⟨p. 195⟩differences the sound from the unsound professor: tis wonderful to consider, how far hypocrits go in all external duties, how plausibly they can order the outward man, hiding all their indecencies from the observation of the world.
But then, they take no heed to their hearts, they are not in secret, what they appear to be in public: and before this trial no hypocrite can stand; tis confessed, they may in a fit, under a pang upon a death-bed, cry out of the wickedness of their hearts; but alas! there is no heed to be taken to these extorted complaints▪ in our law no credit is to be given to the testimony of one upon the rack, because it may be supposed, that the extremity of the torture may make him say any thing to be eased, but if self jealousy, care, and watchfulness be the daily workings and frames of thy heart, it strongly argues the sincerity of it: for what but the sense of a divine eye, what but the real hatred of sin as sin, could put thee upon those secret duties, which lye out of the observation of all creatures.