Thou art often crying out, Lord! why is it thus? Why go I mourning all the day, having forrow in my heart? Thus long have I been exercifed with hardness of heart, and to this day have not obtained a broken heart. Many years have I been praying and striving against vain thoughts, yet am still infefted and perplexed with them. O when fhall I get a better heart! I have been in travail, and brought forth but wind; I have obtained, no deliverance, neither have the corruptions of my heart fallen. I have brought this heart many times to prayers, fermons and facraments, expecting and hoping for a cure from them, and fill my fore runneth, and ceaseth

not.

Penfive foul! Let this comfort thee; thy God defigns thy benefit, even by thefe occafions of thy fad complaints. For (1.) Hereby he would let thee fee what thy heart by nature is and was, and therein take notice how much thou art beholding to free grace. He leaves thee under thefe exercifes of fpi rit, that thou mayft lie, as with thy tace, upon the ground, admiring that ever the Lord of glory fhould take fo vile a creature into his bofom. Thy bafe heart, if it be good for nothing elfe, yet ferves to comniend and fet off the unfearchable riches of free grace. (2.) This ferves to beat thee off' continually from refling, yea, or but glancing upon thine own righteoufnefs or excellency. The corruption of thy heart, working in all thy duties, makes thee fenfibly to feel that the bed is too Thort, and the covering too narrow. Were it not for those reflections thou haft after duties, upon the dulnefs and distractions of thine heart in them; how apt wouldft thou be to fall in love with, and admire thine own performances and enlarge ments? For if notwithstanding thefe, thou haft much to do with the pride of thy heart, how much more; if fuch humbl ing and felf-abafing confiderations were wanting. And, lastly, this tends to make thee the more compaffionate and tender towards others: Perhaps thou wouldst have little pity for the distresses and foul-troubles of others, if thou hadst lefs experience of thine own.

3 Comfort. To conclude; God will bortly put a bleffed end to all these troubles, cares and watchings.

The time is coming, when thy heart fhall be as thou wouldst have it; when thou shalt be difcharged of all thefe cares, fears, and forrows, and never cry out, O my hard, my proud, my vain, my earthly heart any more! When all darknefs fhall be banished from thine understanding; and thou shalt clearly dif cover all truths in God, that cryftal ocean of truth: When

all vanity fhall be purged perfectly out of thy thoughts, and they be everlastingly, ravishingly, and delightfully entertained and exercised upon that fupreme goodness, and infinite excellency of God, from whom they shall never start any more like a broken bow. And as for thy pride, paffion, earthliness, and all other the matters of thy complaint and trouble, it shall be faid of them, as of the Egyptians to Ifrael," Stand ftill, and fee "the falvation of God." Thefe corruptions thou feeft to day, henceforth thou fhalt fee them no more for ever! when thou halt lay down thy weapons of prayers, tears, and groans, and put on the armour of light, not to fight, but triumph in.

Lord! when fhall this bleffed day come? How long! how Jong! holy and true? My foul waiteth for thee! Come, my Beloved! and be thou like a roe, or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether. Amen.

THE

TOUCHSTONE OF SINCERITY

OR,

The figns of GRACE, and Symptoms of HYPOCRISY. Opened in a practical Treatife upon Revelation iii,

17, 18.

Reader,

A

The Epiftle to the Reader.

MONG the difficulties and severities of true religion, the faithful fearching, and diligent keeping of our hearts are found in the firft and higheft rank of difficulties These two take up the main work of a Chriftian betwixt them, Hic labor, hoc opus eft. I had hopes that thefe effays for the fearching of the heart, might much fooner have followed my former for keeping the heart. But providence hath referved it for the fittest season.

It comes to thy band, Reader, in a day of ftraits and fears, dark and gloomy feafon; when the nations about us are made

Saint Indeed.

drunk with their own blood, and filled with the wine of ästonishment? in a day when the cup is ready to pass unto us, and a ftorm seems to be rifing in the fears of many, and threatening the proteftant intereft in these reformed nations. Some men, very confiderable for piety and learning, from that scripture, Rev. xiii. 3. The deadly wound," (viz. That given the beaft by the reformation) was healed, have concluded, that Popery will once more over-run the reformed nations: And one of great renown in all the churches of Chrift, foretelling this furious, but fhort ftorm, comforts the people of God with this, That it is like to fall heavieft upon the worshippers in the outward court, namely the formal profeffors of the times.

O how much is every man now concerned to have his estate and condition well cleared, and to give all diligence to make his calling and election fure!

It should both amaze and grieve a pious mind, to fee how fome ingenious perfons can fit with unwearied patience and pleasure, racking their brains upon fome dry school problem, or fome nice mathematical point; whilft no reafons or perfuafions can prevail with them to spend one ferious hour in the fearch and study of their own hearts!

It was the faying of the great Cicero, Libenter omnibus omnes opes concefferim, ut mihi liceat, vi nulla interpellante, ifto modo literis vivere: I would give all the wealth in the world that I might wholly live in my ftudies, and have nothing to hinder me. What a brave offer had that been, if heaven, and the clearing of a title to it, had been the fubject-matter of those studies! Crede mihi, extingui dulce effet, mathematicarum artium ftudio, faith another; i. e. Believe me, it were afweet death to die in the ftudy of the mathematical arts: And I fhould be apt to believe it too, did I not know that eternal judgment immediately follows death; and that they who ftand at the door of eternity have higher matters to mind than mathematical niceties. To difcern the harmonies and proportions in nature is pleafant; but, to discern the harmo ny and proportion of the signs of grace laid down in the word, with the works of grace wrought in our fouls, is a far more pleasant and neceflary employment; and, to be extinguished in fuch a work as this, were a lovely death indeed; "Bleffed *is that fervant, whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find "fo doing!"

My friends, a day of trouble is near, a dying hour approacheth us; and when onr eye-ftrings and heart-ftrings are break, ing; when we are taking the last grasp of Chrift, and the pro

mifes, you will then know to what purpose those hours spent in fuch 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, Christian, and fhut thy door;" fit close to this employment thou art here directed to; and however times fhall govern, whether it be fair or foul weather abroad, thou shalt never repent 'fuch an expence of thy time.' Nufquamt requiem invení, ↑ nifi in libro, & clauftro, faid a devout foul once; I am never better than when I am at my book, or on my knees. .

This may feem but a dull, melancholy life to the brifk and airy fpirits of thefe 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 their short and dear-bought pleasures. Affurance, That fin is pardoned, and Chrift is ours, with the unspeakable joys that are infeparably connected therewith, is that "white ftone, and new name, " which none knows but he that receives it ;" for no words can poffibly fignify to another what that foul taftes and feels in fuch an hour as that is..

And be not difcouraged at the difficulty of obtaining it: This white stone is no philofopher stone, which no man could ever fay he had in his own hand; for many a Christian hath really found it in waiting upon the Lord by prayer, and diligently fearching the fcriptures and his own heart.

Reader, the time will come when they that fcoff at the ferious diligence of the faints, and break many a pleasant jest upon the most folemn and awful things in religion, will tremble when they fhall hear the midnight-cry,," Behold the bride"groom cometh!" and fee the lamps of all vain and formak profeffors expire, and none admitted into the marriage but fuch whofe lamps are furnished with oil; i. e. fuch whofe profeffions and duties are enlivened and maintained by vital springs and principles of real grace within them.

It is a very remarkable story that Melchior Adams records in the life of Gobelinus; that a little before his time there was a play set forth at Ifenach in Germany, of the wife and foolish virgins, wherein the virgin Mary, who was one of the five faints that reprsented the wife virgins, was brought in with the reft, telling the foolish virgins, that cried to her for oil, that it was too late: and then others reprefenting the foolifb virgins, fell a weeping, and making moft bitter lamentations.

Hereat prince Frederic (who was one of the fpectators) greatly amazed, cried out, Quid eft fides noftra Christiana, fi

neque Maria, neque alia Sancta exorari poteft! &c. What is our faith worth, and to what purpose are all our good works, if neither Mary, nor any other faint can help us! And fuch was his confternation, that it threw him into a fore and violent disease which ended in an apoplex, whereof he died about four days after.

If the representation of these things in a play, ended the life of fo great a man fo tragically; O think with thyfelf, Reader, and what will the effects of the Lord's real appearance in the clouds of heaven, and the mourning and wailing of the tribes of the earth in that day be! Think I fay, and think again, and again, what the difmal effects of fuch a fight and found will be upon all that neglect ferious preparation themselves, and coff at them that do prepare to meet the Lord!

4

...The defign 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 truft to at the Lord's coming. I pretend not to any gift of difcerning fpirits; fuch an extraordinary gift there once was in the church, and very neceffary for thofe times (wherein Satan was fo bufy, and the canon of fcripture not completed) which the apoftle calls the gift of difcerning fpirits, 1 Cor. xii. 10. And fome are of opinion, that by virtue of this gift, Peter difcerned the hypocrify of Ananias and Saphira, but whatever that gift was, it is utterly ceafed now; no man can pretend to it; But the ordinary aids and affiftances of the Spirit are with us ftill, and the lively oracles are among us ftill; to them we may freely go for. refolution of all doubts, and decifion of perplexed cafes. And thus we may difcern our own fpirits, though we want the extraordinary gift of discerning other men's fpirits.

I have little to fay of this Treatife in thy hands, more than that it is well aimed and defigned, however it be managed. The ear tries words, as the mouth tasteth meat; these things will relish according to the palates it meets with.

It is not the pleafing, but profiting of men, that I have herein laboured for. I know of nothing in it that is like to wound the upright, or flightly heal the hypocrite, by crying peace, peace, when there is no peace. Scripture light hath been my Cynofura; and with that thread in my hand, I have followed the fearch of hypocrify through the labyrinths of the heart. Some affiftance I hope I have had alfo from experience; for fcripture and experience are fuch relatives, and the tie betwixt them fo difcernible, as nothing in nature can be more fo. What