Let grace have the ordering of your tongues, and of your hands; the moulding of your whole conversation.

Let not humility appear in some actions, and pride in others; holy seriousness in some companies, and vain frothiness in others.

Suffer not the fountain of corruption to mingle with, or pollute the streams of grace.

Write as exactly as you can, after your copy, Christ. O let there not be, as one well expresses it, here a line, and there a blank; here a word, and there a blot. One word of God, and two of the world. Now a spiritual rapture, and then a fleshly frolic. This day an advance towards heaven, and to-morrow a slide back again towards hell.

But be you in the fear of the Lord all the day long. Let there be a due proportion betwixt all the parts of your conversation. Approve yourselves the servants of Christ in all things.

—John Flavel
The Whole Works of the Reverend John Flavel, vol. 1, 537.

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