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…

It was the saying of the great Cicero, Li•enter omnibus omnes opes concesserim, ut ••ihi liceat, vi nullâ interpellante, isto mo•• literis vivere. I would give all the Wealth •n the World that I might wholly live in my Studies, and have nothing to hinder me. What a brave offer had that been, if Heaven and the clearing of a title to it had been the subject-matter of those studies! Crede mihi, extingui dulce esset, Mathematicarum artium studio, saith another, (i. e.) Believe me, it were a sweet death to dye in the study of the Mathematical Arts: And I should be apt to believe it too, did I not know that eternal Judgment immediately follows death; and that they who stand at the door of eternity have higher matters to mind than Mathematical niceties. To discern the harmonies and proportions in nature is pleasant, but to discern the harmony and proportion of the Signs of Grace laid down in the Word, with the Works of Grace wrought in our Souls, is a far more pleasant and necessary employment; and to be extinguished in such a work as this, were a lovely death indeed; Blessed is that Servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.

It was the saying of the great Cicero, Li•enter omnibus omnes opes concesserim, ut ••ihi liceat, vi nullâ interpellante, isto mo•• literis vivere. I would give all the Wealth •n the World that I might wholly live in my Studies, and have nothing to hinder me. What a brave offer had that been, if Heaven and the clearing of a title to it had been the subject-mat•er of those studies! Crede mihi, extingui dulce esset, Mathematicarum artium studio, saith another, (i. e.) Believe me, it were a sweet death to dye in the study of the Mathematical Arts: And I should be apt to believe it too, did I not know that eternal Iudgment immediately follows death; and that they who stand at the door of eternity have higher matters to mind than Mathematical niceties. To discern the harmonies and proportions in nature is pleasant, but to discern the harmony and proportion of the Signs of Grace laid down in the Word, with the Works of Grace wrought in our Souls, is a far more pleasant and necessary imployment; and to be extinguished in such a work as this, were a lovely death indeed; Blessed is that Servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.