The Touchstone of Sincerity: Epistle to the Reader
Among the difficulties and severities of true religion, the faithful searching and diligent keeping of our hearts are found in the first and highest rank of difficulties. These two take up the main work of a Christian betwixt them. I had hopes that these Essays for the searching of the heart, might much sooner have followed my former Treatise for keeping the heart.* But Providence has reserved it for the fittest season.
It comes to thy hand, Reader, in a day of straits and fears, a dark and gloomy season, when the nations about us are made drunk with their own blood, and filled with the wine of astonishment; in a day when the cup is ready to pass unto us, and a storm seems to be rising in the fears of many, and threatening the Protestant interest in these reformed nations. Some men very eminent for piety and learning, from that scripture. Rev. xiii. 3. “The deadly wound,” that is, the wound given the beast by the Reformation, “was healed,” have concluded that Popery will once more overrun the reformed nations. And one of great
The Saint Indeed.
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renown in all the churches of Christ, foretelling this furious but short storm, comforts the people of God with this, that it is likely to fall heaviest upon the worshippers in the outward court, the formal professors of the times. O how much is every man now concerned to have his state and condition well cleared, and to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure!
It should both amaze and grieve a pious mind, to see how some ingenious persons can sit with unwearied patience and pleasure, racking their brams upon some dry school problem, or some nice mathematical point, whilst no reasons or persuasions can prevail with them to spend one serious hour in the search and study of their own hearts!
It was a saying of the great Cicero, “1 would give all the wealth in the world that 1 might wholly live in my studies, and have nothing to hinder me.” A hat a brave offer had that been, if heaven, and the clearing of a title to it, had been the subject-matter of these studies! “Believe me,” says another, “it were a sweet death to die in the study of the mathematical arts.” And 1 should be ready to believe it too, did I not know that eternal judgment immediately follows death; and that they who stand at the door of eternity have higher matters to mnid than mathematical niceties. To discern the harmonies and proportions in nature is pleasant; but to discern the harmony and proportion of the signs of grace laid down in the word, with the works of grace wrought in our souls, is a far more pleasant and necessary employment; and to be extinguished in such a work as this were a lovely death indeed. “Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing!”
My friends, a day of trouble is near, a dying hour approaches us; and, when our eye-strings and heart-strings are breaking, when we are taking the last grasp of Christ and the promises, you will then know to what purpose those hours spent in such a work as this were. Search yourselves, yea, search yourselves, before the decree bring forth, as that text may be read, Zeph. ii. 1, 2. “Enter into thy chamber, and shut thy door;” sit close to this employment thou art here directed to: and however times shall govern, whether it be fair or foul weather abroad, thou shalt never rep(nt such an expense of thy time. “I am never bet’-.er,” said a devout soul, “than when I am at my boo c, or on my knees.”
This may seem but a dull melancholy life to the brisk and airy spirits of these times; but let us be content with it as it is, and leave them, if we cannot have their company, to their sportiveness and frolics, never once grudging them in their short and dear-bought pleasures. Assurance that sin is pardoned and Christ is ours, with the unspeakable joys that are inseparably connected therewith, is that “white stone, and new name, which none knoweth but he that receiveth it;” for no words can possibly explain to another what the soul tastes and feels in such an hour as this. And be not discouraged at the difficulty of obtaining it. This white stone is no philosopher’s stone, which no man could ever say he had in his hand; for many a Christian has really found it in waiting upon the Lord by prayer, and diligently searching the Scriptures and his own heart.
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Reader, the time will come when they who scoff at the serious diligence of the saints, and break many a pleasant jest upon the most solemn and awful things in religion, will tremble when they hear the midnight cry, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh!” and see the lamps of all vain and formal professors expire, and none admitted to the marriage but such whose lamps are furnished with oil, whose professions and duties are enlivened and maintained by vital springs and principles of real grace within them.
It Is a very remarkable story which Melchior Adams records in the life of Gobelinus. He says, that a little before his time there was a play exhibited at Isenach in Germany, of the wise and foolish virgins, wherein the Virgin Mary was one of the five saints that represented the wise virgins. She was brought in with the rest, telling the foolish virgins, who cried to her for oil, that it was too late; and then others representing the foolish virgins, began to weep and make most bitter lamentations. At this Prince Frederic, who was one of the spectators, greatly amazed, cried out, “What is our faith worth, and to what purpose are all our good works, if neither Mary nor any other saint can help us?” And such was his consternation, that it threw him into a sore and violent disease, which ended in an apoplexy, whereof he died about four days after. If the representation of these things in a play ended the life of so great a man so tragically, O think with thyself, reader, what will the effects of the Lord’s real appearance in the clouds of heaven, and the mourning and waihng of the tribes of the earth in that day be! Think, I say, and think again and again, what the dismal effects of such a sight and sound will be upon all who neglect serious preparation themselves, and scoff at them who do prepare to meet the Lord!
The design of this manual is to bring every man*s gold to the touchstone and fire, I mean every man’s grace to the trial of the word; that thereby we may know what we are, what we have, and what we must expect and trust to at the Lord’s coming. I pretend not to any gift of discerning of spirits: such an extraordinary gift there once was in the church, and it was very necessary for those times, wherein Satan was so busy and the canon of Scripture not completed; and some are of opinion, that by virtue of this gift Peter discerned the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira. But whatever that gift was, it is utterly ceased now; no man can pretend to it. But the ordinary aids and assistances of the Spirit are with us still, and the lively oracles are among us still: to them we may freely go for the resolving of all doubts, and the decision of perplexed cases. And thus we may discern our own spirits, though we want the extraordinary gift of discerning other men’s spirits.
I have little to say of this Treatise, more than that it is well aimed and designed, however it be managed. The ear tries words, as the mouth tastes meat. These things will relish according to the palates they meet with. It is not the pleasing, but the profiting of men, that I have herein laboured for. I know nothing in it that is likely to wound the upright, or slightly heal the hypocrite, by crying, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” Scripture light has been my cynosura; and, with that thread in my hand, I have followed the search of hypocrisy through the K 2 labyrinths of the heart. Some assistance I hope I have had also from experience; for Scripture and experience are such relative things, and the tie betwixt them so discernible, that nothing in nature can be more so. What we feel in our hearts, we might have read in the Scriptures before we felt it.
That the blessing of God may go forth with it, and accompany it to thy soul, reader, is the heart’s desire and prayer of.
Thine and the Church’s
Servant in Christ,
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