A39695:664
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.
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.
Christian, if ever thou wilt manifest and maintain thine integrity, be a man but of one design, & be sure that be an honest and good design, to secure heaven whatever becomes of earth: to hold fast integrity, whatever thou art forced to let go for its sake.
Take heed of pious frauds: certainly it was the Devil that first married those two words together, for they never did nor can agree betwixt themselves, nor was ever such a marriage made in heaven.
Never study to model Religion and the exercises thereof in a consistency with, o• subserviency to your fleshly interests: if ⟨p. 199⟩your Religion be but a mock Religion, your reward shall be but a mock heaven, that is, a real hell.
O the vanity and inutility of these projects and designs! men strive to cast themselves into such modes, and stint themselves to such measures of Religion, as they think will best promote, or secure their earthly interests: but it often falls out contrary to their expectation, their deep policies are ridiculous follies, they become the grief and shame of their friends, and the scorn and song of their enemies. And often it fares with them, as with him that placed himself in the middle of the Table, where he could neither reach the dish above him, nor that below him, Esuriunt medii, &c. and (which is the very best of it) if earthly interests be accommodated by sinful neutrality, and a Laodicean indifferency in Religion, yet no good man should once feel a temptation to embrace it, except he think what is wanting in the sweetness of his sleep, may be fully recompensed to him by the stateliness of his bed, and richer furniture of his Chamber; I mean that a fuller and higher condition in the world, can make him amends for the loss of his inward peace, and the quiet repose of a good conscience: these by-ends and self-interests are the little passages through which hypocrisy creeps in upon the Professors of Religion.