A39695:198
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 4 › Section 1
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.
1. First, The opinions and Judgments of men are tried as by fire, in which sense we are to understand that place, 1 Cor. 3. 12, 13. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones; wood, hay, stubble every mans work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is.
1. First, The opinions and Judgments of men are tryed as by fire, in which sense we are to understand that place, 1 Cor. 3. 12, 13. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones; wood, hay, stubble every mans work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is.
This text speaks of such persons as hold the foundation of Christianity, but yet superstructed such doctrines and practices, as were no more able to endure the Trial, than hay, 1wood, or stubble can endure the fire. Such a person hereby brings himself into danger, and though the Apostle will not deny the possibility, yet he asse•ts the difficulty of his salvation: he shall be saved, 2yet so as by fire, (i. e.) as a man is saved by leaping out of his house at midnight when it is all on fire about his ears: for so that phrase imports, Amos 4. 11. and Jude 23. glad to escape naked, and with the loss of his goods, blessing God, he hath his life for a prey: as little regard shall such have to their ⟨p. 51⟩