A39695:104
The touchstone of sincerity, or, The signs of grace and symptoms of hypocrisy opened…The touchstone of sincerity, or, The signs of grace and symptomes of hypocrisie opened…
The touchstone of sincerity, or, The signs of grace and symptoms of hypocrisy opened in a practical treatise upon Revelations III 17, 18 being the second part of the Saint indeed / by John Flavell ...The touchstone of sincerity, or, The signs of grace and symptomes of hypocrisie opened in a practical treatise upon Revelations III 17, 18 being the second part of the Saint indeed / by John Flavell ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1698
Title page typeset from the transcription.
THE Touchstone of Sincerity: OR, THE SIGNS Of GRACE, AND Symptoms o… › Chapter 2 › Section 3
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.
And this Taste which comes so near to the experience which the sanctified soul enjoys: these things seem to put their condition beyond all controversy, and lay a foundation for their ill built confidence; nothing is more apt to beget and nourish such a Confidence than the meltings and workings of our affections about spiritual things; for as a grave Divine hath well observed,1 such a man seems to have all that is required of a Christian, and to have attained the very end of all knowledge, which is operation and influence upon the affections. When they shall find heat in their affections, as well as light in their minds; how apt are they to say (as these self-deceivers in the Text did) they are rich, and have need of nothing! Now of all the false signs of grace, by which men cozen themselves, none are so dangerous and destructive to souls, as those that come nearest true ones: never doth Satan more effectually and securely manage his cheats, than when he is transformed into an Angel of light.
And this Taste which comes so near to the experience which the sanctified soul enjoyes: these things seem to put their condition beyond all controversie, and lay a foundation for their ill built confidence; nothing is more apt to beget and nourish such a Confidence than the meltings and workings of our affections about spiritual things; for as a grave Divine hath well observed,1 such a man seems to have all that is required of a Christian, and to have attained the very end of all knowledge, which is operation and influence upon the affections. When they shall find heat in their affections, as well as light in their minds; how apt are they to say (as these self-deceivers in the Text did) they are rich, and have need of nothing! Now of all the false signs of grace, by which men couzen themselves, none are so dangerous and destructive to souls, as those that come nearest true ones: never doth Satan more effectually and securely manage his cheats, than when he is transformed into an Angel of light.
- 1Mr. A. Burges.