A39695:36
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 1
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.
Not that all were equally guilty, but the greatest part (from which the whole is denominated) were lukewarm professors; who •ad a name to live, but were dead, who being never throughly engaged in Religion, easily embraced that principle of the Gnost•ks which made it [Greek or Hebrew] a matter of indifferency ⟨p. 3⟩to own or deny Christ in time of persecution. The most saving Doctrine that •me Professors are acquainted with. This •kewarm temper Christ hated, he was sick […] them, and loathed their indifferency: I •ish (saith he) v. 16. thou wert either cold or •t; an expression of the same amount with •at in 1 King. 18. 21. how long halt you between […] opinions? And is manifestly translated •om the qualities of •ater, 1which is either •ld, or hot; or lukewarm, a middle temper betwixt both, & more •aucious to the stomach than either of •e former. Cold is the complexion and natural temper of those ••at are wholly aliena•d and estranged from Christ and Religion. •ot, is the gracious temper of those that now and love Jesus Christ in an excelling degree. Lukewarm, or tepid, is the temper of •ose who have too much Religion to be e•eemed Carnal, and too little to be truly spiritual; a generation that is too politic to •enture much, and yet so foolish as to lose all: ey are loth to forsake Truth wholly, and ore loth to follow it too closely: the form of religion they affect as an honour, the power of […] they judge a burden.