A39695:242
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 5
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. Thirdly, Prosperity and comfortable providences do usually become cautions against •in when they meet with a sanctified soul. This is the natural inference of a gracious soul from them, Hath God pleased me, then hath he obliged me to take more care to please him. O let me not grieve him, that hath comforted me. So Ezra 9. 13. After such a deliverance, as this, should we again break thy Commandments! what! break his Commandments who hath broken our bonds! God forbid.
It was an excellent resolution of a Christian once, who receiving an eminent mercy, at the same time he felt himself under the power of a special Corruption; Well, (saith he) now will I go forth in the strength of this mercy to mortify and subdue that Corruption. I will not measure every Christian by the eminent workings of grace in some one; but surely so far I may safely go, That sincerity knows not how to sin, because grace hath abounded, any more than it dare sin, that grace may abound.
It was an excellent resolution of a Christian once, who receiving an eminent mercy, at the same time he felt himself under the power of a special Corruption; Well, (saith he) now will I go forth in the strength of this mercy to mortifie and subdue that Corruption. I will not measure every Christian by the eminent workings of grace in some one; but surely so far I may safely go, That sincerity knows not how to sin, because grace hath abounded, any more than it dare sin, that grace may abound.
4. Fourthly, A truly gracious soul will not be satisfied with all the prosperity and comforts in the world for his portion. Not thine ⟨p. 66⟩