A39695:511
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 9 › 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.
4. Fourthly, By trials grace is kept in exercise, and the gracious soul preserved from security and spiritual slothfulness: trials are to grace what the estuations and continual agitations of the waters are to the sea: or what the racking of Wines from the Lees is to it: were it not for our frequent trials and exercises, we should quickly settle upon the Lees; and our duties would be (as God complains of Ephraim) like sour or dead drink, Hos. 4. 18. flat, and spiritless. Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; neither hath he gone into Captivity; therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed, Jer. 48. 11.
4. Fourthly, By tryals grace is kept in exercise, and the gracious soul preserved f•om security and spiritual slothfulness: tryals are to grace what the estuations and continual agitations of the waters are to the sea: or what the racking of Wines from the Lees is to it: were it not for our frequent tryals and exercises, we should quickly settle upon the Lees; and our duties would be (as God complains of Ephraim) like sowre or dead drink, Hos. 4. 18. flat, and spiritless. Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; neither hath he gone into Captivity; therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed, Jer. 48. 11.
Much after that rate it would be with our hearts, did not the Lord frequently try and exercise them: let the best man be without some trial or other but a few months, & you may find the want of it in his prayers and conferences quickly. O what a tan• of formality will be found in them! an is it for the honour of God or profit of hi people that it should be so? no, no, the Lo knows it is not; but how shall their spiri