A39695:273
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 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,1 and the preservation of integrity. I fear to speak it, but it must be spoken; (saith Hierom.) that even Martyrdom it self, when suffered for admiration and applause, profits nothing; but that blood is shed in vain.
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 Hypocrisie 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 erours and mistakes; than in a due regard to the glory of God,1 and the preservation of intiegrity. I fear to speak it, but it must be spoken; (saith Hierom.) that even Martyrdom it self, when suffered for admiration and applause, profits nothing; but that blood is shed in vain.
- 1Timeo dicere, sed dicendum est; martyrium ipsum si ideo fiat ut admirationi & laudi habeatur à fratribus; frustr sanguis effusus est. Hier.