The Epistle to the Reader
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 between them, this is the labor, this is the work. I had hopes that these essays for the searching of the heart might much sooner have followed my former for keeping the heart: but providence has reserved it for the fittest season.
It comes to your 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 [illegible] of astonishment; in a day when [illegible] ready to pass to us, and a storm seems to be rising in the fears of many, and threatening the Protestant interest in these reformed nations. Statesmen very considerable for piety and learning from that scripture, Revelation 13:3, 'The deadly wound (namely, that given the beast by the Reformation) was healed,' have concluded that Popery will once more overrun the reformed nations; and one of great 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, namely, the formal professors of the times.
Oh! 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 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 brains upon some dry school problem, or some nice mathematical point; while no reasons or persuasions can prevail with them to spend one serious hour in the search and study of their own hearts.
It was the saying of the great Cicero, 'I would give all the wealth in the world that I might wholly live in my studies, 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 subject-matter of those studies! Another said, 'Believe me, it were a sweet death to die in the study of the mathematical arts.' And I should be apt 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 mind 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 comes 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 work as this were. Search yourselves, indeed search yourselves before the decree brings forth, as that text may be read (Zephaniah 2:1-2). Enter into your chamber, Christian, and shut your door; apply yourself closely to this employment you are here directed to; and however times shall govern, whether it be fair or foul weather abroad, you shall never repent such an expense of your time. A devout soul once said, 'I never found rest anywhere except in my book and my closet.' I am never better than when I am at my book, 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 their short and dearly 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 knows but he that receives it; for no words can possibly signify to another what that soul tastes and feels in such an hour as that is.
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 own 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.
Reader, the time will come when they that scoff at the serious diligence of the saints, and make many a pleasant jest upon the most solemn and awful things in religion, will tremble when they shall hear the midnight-cry, 'Behold the Bridegroom comes'; and see the lamps of all vain and formal professors expire, and none admitted into the marriage, but such whose lamps are furnished with oil, that is, such whose professions 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 Eisenach in Germany, of the wise and foolish virgins, wherein the Virgin Mary, who was one of the five saints that represented the wise virgins, was brought in with the rest, telling the foolish virgins that cried to her for oil, that it was too late; and then others representing the foolish virgins fell a weeping and making most bitter lamentations.
Hereat Prince Frederick (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, of which 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; oh, think with yourself, Reader, 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 say, and think again, and again, what the dismal effects of such a sight and sound will be upon all that neglect serious preparation themselves, and scoff at them that do prepare to meet the Lord.
The design of this manual is to bring every man's gold to the touchstone and fire, that is, 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 claim no gift of discerning spirits. Such an extraordinary gift there once was in the church, and very necessary for those times (wherein Satan was so busy, and the canon of Scripture not completed) which the Apostle calls the gift of discerning spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10); 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 has utterly ceased now; no man can claim it, but the ordinary aids and assistances of the Spirit are with us still, and the living oracles are among us still, to them we may freely go for resolution of all doubts, and decision of perplexed cases: and thus we may discern our own spirits, though we lack the extraordinary gift of discerning other men's spirits.
I have little to say of this treatise in your hands, more than that it is well aimed, and well designed, however it be managed: the ear tries words, as the mouth tastes meat; these things will relish according to the palates it meets with.
It is not the pleasing, but profiting of men that I have labored for herein. I know of 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 guide, and with that thread in my hand, I have followed the search of hypocrisy through the labyrinths of the heart. Some assistance I hope I have had also from experience; for Scripture and experience are such relatives, and the tie between them so discernible, as nothing in nature can be more so. What we feel in our hearts, we might have read in the Scriptures before ever we felt it.
That the blessing of God may go forth with it, and accompany it to your soul, Reader, is the heart's desire and prayer of
Your and the church's servant in Christ, John Flavel.
