A39695:160
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.
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.
Shall I say it is the most sweet and comfortable thing that ever the soul was acquainted with in this World, next Jesus Christ, the Author and Fountain of it? Sure if I so speak, I have as many witnesses to attest it, as there be gracious souls in the World: nothing is more comfortable than grace, except Christ, and yet without grace no soul can feel the comforts of Christ, in the troubles of life, or in the straits of death: this is a spring of comfort.
Shall I say it is the most sweet and comfortable thing that ever the soul was acquainted with in this World, next Iesus Christ, the Author and Fountain of it? Sure if I so speak, I have as many witnesses to attest it, as there be gracious souls in the World: nothing is more comfortable than grace, except Christ, and yet without grace no soul can feel the comforts of Christ, in the troubles of life, or in the straits of death: this is a spring of comfort.
6. Sixthly, Consider it in its design & scope; and you will still discern more and more of its precious excellency: for what is the aim and end of God in the infusions and improvements of Grace, but to attemper and mould our Spirits by it, into a meetness and fitness for the enjoyment of himself in the world to come? Col. 1. 12. giving thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light▪ compare this with 2 Cor. 5. 5. now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.
O blessed design! how precious must that work be, which is wrought for so high and glorious a purpose as this is! no work mor• excellent, no end more noble.