A39695:272
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.
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 ⟨p. 75⟩have resisted unto blood striving against sin, and with renowned Moses chosen affliction, the worst of afflictions; yea death it self in the most formidable appearance, rather than sin: and it is the habitual temper and resolution of every gracious heart so to do, tho' those holy resolutions are sometimes over-born by violence of temptation.
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 chuse to die sober, than to live a drunkard: and many Christians ⟨p. 75⟩have resisted unto blood striving against sin, and with renowned Moses chosen affliction, the worst of afflictions; yea death it self in the most formidable appearance, rather than sin: and it is the habitual temper and resolution of every gracious heart so to do, tho' those holy resolutions are sometimes over-born by violence of temptation.
But the Hypocrite dreads less the de•ilement of his soul, than the loss of his estate, liberty or life. If you ask upon what ground then doth the Apostle suppose, 1 Cor. 13. 3. a man may give his body to be burnt, and not have charity? that the Salamander of Hypocrisy may live in the flame of Martyrdom? The answer is at hand, they that chose death in the sense of this Text, do not chose it to escape sin, but to seed and indulge it. Those strange adventures (if any such be) are rather to maintain their own honour, and enrol their names among worthy and famous Persons to Posterity; or out of a blind zeal to their espoused errors and mistakes; than in a due regard to the glory of God,