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…

And it cannot be doubted if we consider, the principle by which all unregenerate Men are acted, is sense not faith: hence Jobs friends would have argued his Hypocrisy, Job 36. 21. and had their application been as their rule, it would have concluded it. This (viz. Sin) hast thou chosen, rather than affliction.

And it cannot be doubted if we consider, the principle by which all unregenerate Men are acted, is sense not faith: hence Iobs friends would have argued his Hypocrisie, Iob 36. 21. and had their application been as their rule, it would have concluded it. This (viz. Sin) hast thou chosen, rather than affliction.

I do not say that an upright man cannot commit a moral evil, to escape a penal evil. O that daily observation did not too plentifully furnish us with sad instances of that kind! but upright ones do not, dare not upon a serious deliberate discussion and debate choose sin rather than affliction; what they may do upon surprisals, and in the violence of temptation is of another nature.

I do not say that an upright man cannot commit a moral evil, to escape a poenal evil. O that daily observation did not too plentifully furnish us with sad instances of that kind! but upright ones do not, dare not upon a serious deliberate discussion and debate chuse sin rather than affliction; what they may do upon surprisals, and in the violence of temptation is of another nature.

But a false and unsound heart discovers it self in the choice it makes upon deliberation, and that frequently, when sin and trouble come in competition: put case, saith Augustine, a Ruffian should with one hand set the cup of drunkenness to thy mouth, & with the other a dagger to thy breast; and say, drink or die: thou shouldst rather choose to die sober, than to live a drunkard: and many Christians