A39695:263
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 5 › 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.
SECT. III.
But though the sound and unsound heart differ not in some external carriages under the rod; yet there are effects of adversity which are proper to either, and will discriminate them. To which end let us first see what effects adversity is usually followed withal in unsound and carnal hearts: and we shall find among other, these five symptoms of a naughty heart appearing under crosses and afflictions.
BUt though the sound and unsond heart differ not in some external carriages under the rod; yet there are effects of adversity which are proper to either, and will discriminate them. To which end let us first see what effects adversity is usually followed withal in unsound and carnal hearts: and we shall find among other, these five symptomes of a naughty heart appearing under crosses and afflictions.
1. First, A Graceless heart is not quickly and easily brought to see the hand of God in those troubles that befall it, and be duly affected with it, Isa. 26. 11. Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see: when it hath ⟨p. 73⟩smitten, or is lifted up to smite, they shut their eyes: 'tis the malice of this man, or the negligence of that, or the unfaithfulness of another that hath brought all this trouble upon me: thus the Creature is the Horizon that terminates their sight, and beyond that they usually see nothing: sometimes indeed the hand of God is so immediately manifested, and convincingly discovered in afflictions, that they cannot avoid the sight of it, and then they may (in their way) pour out a prayer before him, but ordinarily they impute all to second causes, and overlook the first cause of their troubles.