A39695:421
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 7 › Section 2
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.
Certainly Reader, There is a time when God comes nigh to men in duty, when he deals familiarly with men, and sensibly fills their souls with unusual powers and delights. The near approaches of God to their souls are felt by them, (for souls have their senses as well as bodies;) and now are their minds abstracted and marvellously refined from all that is material and earthly, and swallowed up in spiritual excellencies and glories.
These are the real prelibations or foretastes of glory, which no man can by words make another to understand, as he himself doth that feels them.
These seasons I confess do but rarely occur to the best of Christians,1 nor continue long when they do: alas! this wine is too strong for such weak bottles as we are. Hold Lord (said an holy man once) it is enough▪ thy poor creature is a clay vessel, and can hold no more: this is that Joy unspeakable and full of glory, which is mentioned, 1 Pet. 1. 7, 8. something that words cannot describe: these seasons are the golden spots of our lives, when we are admitted to these near and ineffable views and tastes of God: possibly some poor Christians can say but little to these things; ⟨p. 122⟩their sorrows are exercised in duties mo•• than their Joys: they are endeavouring […] mount, but the stone hangs at the heel: they essay, but cannot rise to that height tha• others do, who are got up by their labouring faith into the upper Region, and ther display their wings and sing in the Sunbeams: but though they cannot reach thi height, yet have they no satisfaction in d ties wherein there is no intercourse betwixt God and their souls.