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…

And yet how difficult soever it be to bring our hearts to the work, it's certainly much more difficult to manage it successfully, and bring the great question of our sincerity to a clear result and issue. O how many upright hearts have sate close to this work many a year, and lifted up many a cry to heaven, and shed many a secret and undissembled tear about it; and yet still are in the dark, and their minds greatly perplexed, and filled with fear about it: what would they not do, what would they not suffer? what pleasant enjoyment would they not gladly part with to arrive at the desire of ⟨p. 175⟩their souls, the full assurance of their sincerity! It was the saying of a pious woman, I have born (said she) seven Children, & they have cost me as dear as ever Children did cost a Mother; yet would I be content to endure all that sorrow over again, to be assured of the love of God to my soul.

And yet how difficult soever it be to bring our hearts to the work, it's certainly much more difficult to manage it successfully, and bring the great question of our sincerity to a clear result and issue. O how many upright hearts have sate close to this work many a year, and lifted up many a cry to heaven, and shed many a secret and undissembled tear about it; and yet still are in the dark, and their minds greatly perplext, and filled with fear about it: what would they not do, what would they not suffer? what pleasant enjoyment would they not gladly part with to arrive at the desire of ⟨p. 175⟩their souls, the full assurance of their sincerity! It was the saying of a pious woman, I have born (said she) seven Children, & they have cost me as dear as ever Children did cost a Mother; yet would I be content to endure all that sorrow over again, to be assured of the love of God to my soul.

Motive 2. Secondly, And as the work is full of difficulty, so the discovery of your sincerity will be full of sweetness, and joy unspeakable: it will never repent you that you have prayed and mourned, that you have trembled and feared, that you have searched and tried: nay, it will never repent you that God hath tried you by thousands of sharp afflictions and deep sufferings; if after all, your sincerity may be fully cleaed up to the satisfaction of your souls; for in the same day your sincerity shall be cleared, your title to Christ will be made as clear to your souls as your sincerity is: you may then go to the promises boldly, and take your own Christ into the arms of your faith, and say, my beloved is mine, and I am his: yea, you may be confident it shall be well with you in the Judgment of the great day, for God will not cast away the upright man,