Men by it seek to hide a treacherous heart and pretend to put off the All seeing God with an outside and empty Religion and for this reason we have God so often testifying against it in his word as a thing which he is very much displeased at see for this Ezek. 33. 31. they come as my people cometh c. but their heart goeth after their Coveteousness Isa 1. 11 c. to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices c. 48. 1. they make mention of the God of Israel but not in truth and righteousness 6. Hence when this grows general it must needs produce Perilous Times It is dangerous in regard of every individual Professor that is acted by such a spirit and he not a little exposeth himself hereby to the righteous displeasure of God needs then must it have a common influence when it is a growing and prevailing malady among a people and this will be evident in several particulars 1. Such a people shew that they have not a sincere love to God and his ways this is an evidence that their Profession is not built upon right principles All true Obedience is in the Gospel called Love and the reason of it is because love is the root and spring of it and so it is the more distinguishing note between sincerity and hypocrisy Now the love which God requireth is an hearty love Matth. 22. 37. thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and all thy soul this therefore is the charge that God lays upon them in Isa 29. 13. they have removed their heart far from me The want of this shews that men have taken up their profession for by and sinister ends that the Glory of God is not their bottom design in it for if they did indeed love God with their whole heart they could not be content in a meer form if they loved God they could not rest satisfied in the outside performance of duties and in the Service it self and boast themselves meerly in the duty done They would take no content in any Ordinance or Performance in which they did not meet with God and enjoy Spiritual Communion with him which is the true end and usefulness of all the duties which we are commanded to attend upon He who indeed loveth God will seek in all things to Glorify him as that which is the very end of his being and operation now God is not glorified by a meer form but so far as the power of Godliness is denied in any thing which the man doth so far his name is dishonoured and the more by there being a form because hereby their profession is contradicted by their practice and a discovery is made that they were not indeed concerned for his honour but indeed do reproach him and this must needs be very dangerous 2. Scandalous Sins will grow apace among such a people A meer form let it be never so fondly insisted on is no fence against the growth of iniquity but indeed an inlet and introduction to it It is so far from making men take heed to themselves lest they should offend that it is a cover under which they seek to hide their abominations It is the power of Godliness in men which maketh them afraid to sin themselves and puts them upon doing the utmost they can in their places to stop the breaking of it forth in others whereas a meer form makes them cold and careless on these accounts and as they will take very little heed to themselves so others will grow bold upon it when they see that there is but a very little of zeal appearing in their bearing witness against them If Professors be cold in the life of Godliness Profane persons will thereupon grow bold in all manner of exorbitances yea and Professors themselves will grow drowzy and careless and take little heed to their lives but grow licentious whiles they place their whole Religion in their formalities the abounding of iniquity and growing cold of love are joyned together by our Saviour as things concomitant Mat. 24. 12. and indeed if strict enquiry be made into this affair we shall find that evermore Apostasy hath in this way crept into the Church of God men have been very much in the maintaining of their forms and spent their heat there and so have grown lukewarm in their respects unto God and hearty love of him and thought all was well because Religion carrried a fair outside among them and thereupon scandals have broken forth and one sin after another hath dared to look abroad bare-faced and when the first love hath been lost the first works have been neglected 3. They will by degrees lose the form too Things that are meer Engines and have no internal principle of life in them but are moved by the external force of weight and springs will soon be down and then they will stand still how forcible soever their motion was before A Strict Formality at one time serves a worldly interest the man can carry on a carnal design by it and so long as it is thus it hath its weight to keep it going and it will move swiftly but the time may come when it will disserve that interest and cross the designs of it and now the man is ready to knock off Our Saviour instanceth thus the Stony ground Hearers Math. 13. 21. when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word by and by he is offended and also in the thorny verse 22. the cares of this world and deceitfulness of Riches choke the word and he becometh unfruitful Besides the strict outward attendance on the Duties which are prescribed in the Gospel is not easy for the carnal minds of men to comport withal and the gratification of many fleshly lusts is hindered by it the cravings whereof are so eager that they will prompt the man to neglect sometimes one and sometimes another and if they can still but keep up some semblable shew quiet their minds with that they are well sufficed therewithal Strictness of Discipline mainteined in the Churches of Christ is very uneasy to them and they would fain have a latitude and elbow room and large allowances given them and so usually decays in Religion begin there others must be born withal that we may be indulged and we will connive at their scandals that we may have the same measure from them Constancy in Secret Duties of reading the word meditation and prayer is too spiritual a business for them and because they are out of sight and observation they can without open scandal neglect them and so they at first intermit and at length totally omit them Family Worship is a cumber and it gives them too much hindrance in their worldly business and their diversions among their companions which they must allow to themselves and if they do but attend the Worship of Gods House carefully they shall still make a fair shew and be in good repute and
those prayers and so of the rest of Duties of Worship and that may be charged on them Isa 29. 13. with their lips do they honour me but have removed their hearts far from me 3. When all their zeal spends it self in matters of Worship and they are careless in duties of Righteousness The whole revealed will of God is the Rule of Godliness and for men to divide and take but a part of it and neglect the rest is to prove that they are Hypocrites and as there are some who think it enough to follow their Callings and to do no man any wrong and to â—e strict in the Duties of the Second Table which things they ought to do but these alone will not declare them to be Christians so there are others who suppose that if they be but careful and constant in doing the Duties of Natural and Instituted Worship they are truly Godly if they read the Word pray in their Families attend on the Dispensation of the Ordinances of Gods House and do shew life and forwardness in these things they may bolster themselves on this and in the mean while neglect the business of their Calling Iv steal oppress use deceit in their Dealings carry it very loosely in all matters of Sobriety and Righteousness these are not Godly but by thus doing they deny it and say that their Worship is Hypocrisy that is a standing truth 1 Joh. 4. 20. If a man say he loveth God and hateth his brother he is a lyar 4. When they use the pretensions of Godliness for a Cloak to cover their iniquity though they talk of Godliness yet they have perverse designs to hide under it This was a thing which our Saviour charged heavily on the Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 23. 14. they devour Widows houses and for a pretence make long Prayers When Jezebel had a design to perpetrate an horrible Murther she directs to the calling of a Fast for an introduction to it 1 Kings 21. 9. and how many are there who can pray and confess their sins and then sin upon a new score and it may be then to their confessions and prayers again and so in a round What pretences had that Harlot for her insinuations into the Simple Young man Prov. 7. 14. I have peace offerings with me this day I have payed my vows and herein the Ungodliness of those Jews is deciphered by the Prophet Jer. 7. 9 10. Steal Murder c. and come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name and say we are delivered to do all these abominations What is this but to make Godliness a shelter for impiety than which what greater contradiction can there be 5. When they abuse their Christian liberty to defend and encourage the abuse of the things of this life It is a precious truth that Christ hath purchased a right for his people to these things which no Unregenerate man can claim they are all theirs for their use and to Serve God withal but as there is an use so there is an abuse of these things and that not only when the heart is set upon them and they reckon them to be their happiness but also when they allow to themselves an incordinate use of them When they transcend the bounds of that moderation which Christ hath limited the use of them unto and thereby transgress the Rules of Sobriety When meats drinks apparrel recreations are made use of to excess and to the just scandal of serious Christians When men insist upon lawfulness and never consider what is expedient Hence there are cautions given in the Gospel about these things 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. Rom. 13 13. 1 Pet. 3 3. all of which are to put a restraint upon mens taking their liberty too far Such licentiousness is a denying of Godliness in the power of it 6. When they can accommodate themselves to men in all their humours There is a pretence of love and charity and condescendency which men make and plead Religion for it and when it is rightly limited it is good but how many are there who abuse that of Paul 1 Cor. 9. 23. I am made all things to all men They are like the Planet Mercury good with good and bad with bad When they are among serious Christians who more religious and demure in their words and carriages than they are but when they get among loose company and carnal men they can presently turn the Tables and are like pictures that have the Devil on one side and a Saint on the other They can pray and hear and receive the Sacrament with the people of God and they can Drink and Swear and Game and Health and what not with Iewd men and are good Companions for all sorts of Company and is not this to deny the power of Godliness 7. When they are easily allured or discouraged from the strict Serving of God They set out bravely in a Profession but a little thing stops them and makes them either to drive heavily or to stand still for when they go quite off they then lay aside the form too If a temptation of profit or credit among men offereth it self they are ready to follow it and their zeal is damped or when difficulty or disgrace present themselves before them they are ready to flinch and turn aside This is an argument at least that the power is decayed if not that there never was any and to this head do those also belong who in times of Apostasy let the vigour of their profession fall lose some things altogether which belong to the practice of Religion and others are ready to dy as they are charged Rev. 3. begin In all these respects men may be said to deny the power of Godliness 2. Whence is it that a people in general come to do so A. This will be discovered by the following conclusions 1. Man is naturally a stranger to the power of Godliness He is so far from the vigorous activity of it in him that he hath not so much as the principle of it The state of nature since the Apostasy is a state of alienation from God Grace which is the root of true Piety is not redscated in the nature of sallen man but it is a supernatural gift of the Spirit of God bestowed on us in our Regeneration till which we are full of all the principles of Impiety we have a full description of a natural man given us in Rom. 3. 10 to 20. and there is nothing in all of it but what is directly contrary to Godliness and yet thus it is with every Child of Adam by reason of that woful fall of his and the Children of Godly men have it in them as well as others Jew and Gentile share alike in this Rom. 3. 9. they are all under sin The difference between the one and the other is only in this that the one have the means and advantages to seek and obtain a deliverance from it
more in ruin We are therefore told how the way of mans Salvation came to be known 2 Tim. 1 10. hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel God hath not seen meet to impart the Gospel unto all nay there are but a few in comparison to whom the clear light of it is revealed and this is the priviledge which they enjoy by it that Salvation is come to their doors and the things of their peace are offered to them whereas others that have it not remain in darkness and in the regions of the shadow of death according to that awful word 2 Cor. 4. 3. if our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost This therefore is mentioned as Israels prerogative Psal 147. 19 20. he gave his laws to Jacob c he hath not dealt so with any Nation For though there are many other Religions in the world yet there is none of them will afford fallen man any help to escape eternal misery under which all are held by nature and to obtain eternal felicity which every one is grasping after this is the alone prerogative of the Christian Religion 2. That it is a great and singular kindness of God so to reveal this Religion unto men There needs no more to prove this then to consider the former head viz the singular priviledge which is enjoyed by it and the unavoidable misery of those that have it not But this will farther appear if we consider that God owed it to none The Salvation it self that is discovered by it is such as none of the race of fallen men deserved to be made to partake in it was Gods meer good will which provided it for them and if he had left all Adams Posterity to have been for ever without it he had therein declared his Justice and done them no wrong Besides that all those to whom he sends these glad tidings of peace and offers of Salvation were in themselves no better than others who are left without them nor could make a better claim to them than they he was under no greater obligations to these than to those from whom he hath with held them and so leaves them to dye without knowledge They were equally Children of wrath with the other Eph. 2. 3. they were not in themselves better disposed or enclined to give entertainment to this Salvation than the rest of mankind Nor could God foresee any better inclination in them to accept of this grace then what he purposed of himself to bestow upon them they were every way as bad thus the Apostle remarks Tit. 3. 3 4. we our selves were sometimes foolish disobedient c. but after the kindness and love of our God and Saviour toward man appeared c. 3. That the great business which the Gospel points to and calls for of man is Godliness What is intended by Godliness hath before been observed Now this summarily comprehends the aim of the Gospel taking it in the more large sense of it It is certain that the Christian Religion is not meerly Theoretical but Practical It is called a Rule and the use of a Rule is to guide to the practice of that which it is a Rule of Now that which the Gospel giveth us instruction and direction about is Godliness it teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly Insts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this world Tit. 2. 11 12. It calls upon all men to live a godly life and it shews them the things wherein they are to do so in all respects and points them whither to go that they may be enabled so to do who of themselves have no ability to do any thing as they ought Mic. 6. 8. he hath shewn thee Oh man what is good c. It was for this that God gave his Word and Ordinances to men and in this it is that he commands them thus to live When Mâ—ses had given Gods Statutes and Laws unto Israel which were no other than a more dark and shaded Dispensaâ—ion of the Gospel he reduceth their duty upon it hither Deut. 10. 12 and now Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God to walk in all his ways and to love him c. 4. That true Godliness is always accompanied with life and power It is true in the exercising of it there is not always the same force and efficacy of this life exerting it self and appearing in the prosecution of their Christian Conversation and the reason of it is because the grace which is in the children of God is too often overcome with the remaining corruption which is in them and hindereth them from doing that which they would But this notwithstanding true Godliness hath always in it a principle of Spiritual Life which shall never be extinguished Grace is the root of it and that is a living principle which is put into the man and where this life is there is power for life is a power of performing life acts When God infuseth a Spirit of Godliness into the Souls of any he is said to quicken them Eph. 2 1. You hath he quickned who were dead c. There is no man that is really Godly but such an one as hath received the Spirit of God who dwelling in him by his Grace efficaciously enableth him to serve and glorifie God by believing in Christ and following of Holiness where this great change hath not past upon the man he is not Godly but remains under the powerful dominion of sin and impiety 5. Hence where there is only a form without the power it contradicts the very end or design of the Gospel If by a form we only understand the order and method of outward Worship and Service of God and the practice of those several Duties which are required of Christians in the Gospel this is that which ought to be because God hath commanded it and if men allow themselves in the neglect thereof they do both despise Gods authority over them and do what in them lieth to hinder themselves of the power inasmuch as God hath made this the way in which we are to have communion with him who is the author of all saving influences it is therefore certain that God requires of all Christians that they live in outward conformity to his revealed will But if men rest here and look no farther they take up with an outside and content themselves with it much more if all their design be to make a shew in formalities and all their zeal expireth in that they come short of what God requireth and expecteth of them This therefore is that which our Saviour taxeth the Scribes and Pharisees withal Mat. 23. 23. ye tith mint anise and cummin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law God requireth inward sincerity in the Serving of him Psal 51. 6. thou desirest truth in the inward parts Whereas this is only a cover of falshood and deceit
each of us to try our selves how far we are personally guilty of or free from this Sin If we be not careful on this account we may deceive our selves there are many ways in which we may contract Guilt upon this account and how deeply should it abase us when it is so and if by the Grace of God we have been preserved it will be matter of inward consolation under the grâ—atest troubles that are before us But how shall we know this but by a diligent self search Let us then at such a day as this is be very industrious and curious about it and here let us in general observe that it is not enough for us to cry out of the evil of the times and make a great many of pathetical complaints about the degeneracy of the age and the decays which are come upon Religion and lay abundance of blame on this account on this or that person or order of men among us there is a great deal of this zeal to be seen and heard proceeding from such as are evidently themselves not a little guilty on this account yea such is the deceitfulness of sin that is lodged within us that if we take not the more heed to our selves it will draw us to hide our own formality and hypocrisy under this very disguise and thereby not only blind others with it and cheat them in a good opinion of us whiles we cover our sin with it but put a cheat too upon our own Souls by perswading our selves that this heat proceeds from a sincere heart when it is a meer imposture Give me leave then to offer a few Rules of Trial and let us deal faithfully with our own Souls in the application of them 1. Are we content with a name or do we restlesly seek after the truth of Godliness It may be we have made a fair and formal profession and carried it very acceptably to those whom we live among and have the good word and abounding charity of the best who take us for Israelites indeed and have given us a great room in their hearts and affections It is no doubt but that every truly Godly man accounts it to be no small blessing to have the hearts and love of those that fear God hence Paul desired prayers on this account Rom. 15. 31. Strive in your prayers for me that my Service may be accepted of the Saints But it is another thing to do all for applause and look no further in the things that we do than to be seen of men and to have praise from them on account thereof Our Saviour taxeth those Hypocrites with this as that which belonged to their character and an evidence that they were such Mat. 6. begin and you may know whether you do thus or no by this enquiry viz. if you do obtain the good word of men do you take up with this and satisfie your selves in it as a good reward and count it enough to settle you in this perswasion that all is well and so you trouble your selves no further in searching into your own estate but conclude upon it that all must needs be right He who builds his assurances on the good opinion which holy men have of him and seeks not for a better establishment of them than that amounts to is a meer Formalist Whereas if you have any of the power of Godliness in you you will allow this but its due when you enjoy the greatest measures of it you will reflect and say it is indeed a mercy in it self and if I am sound it is a fruit of Gods love to me to give me such a room in the hearts of his Children but I may not I dare not rest here I have to do with the heart searching God I may deceive the wisest and most discerning Christians who cannot see my inside or know what are my principles or aims but I cannot impose upon him who seeth my inward parts and will ere long call me to the strictest trial and lay me open and this will put you upon a deeper search it will be so far from nourishing carnal security in you that it will stir you up to the exercise of an holy jealousy as knowing that none can see into your inward state and frame but only God and your own Consciences Thus Paul speaks 1 Cor. 4. 3. It is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of mans judgment and we know that Sardis had a name to live and yet was dead Rev. 3. 1. 2. Do we lay out all our care and cost on the out side of duties or are we most sollicitous about the inside of them There is the External part of the duties that we are called to do and we are not to be negligent in it there is a right and decent carriage of our bodies in the worship of God which is not to be neglected a suitable expressing of our selves in our words when we address our selves to God in our Prayers a decorum to be used in every Service that we engage in the performance of but still this is the least thing that is to be minded in it but if we make this our all or if it be the principal care that we concern our selves about we think we have done enough if we have been accurate in this it argueth Hypocrisy If when we come to an Ordinance our utmost concern is to lift up our hands or turn up our eyes or frame our selves to an outward reverential gesture or if when we pray all our business is to put our Confessions or Petitions or Thanksgivings into handsome words or expressions or curious Language or laying out our gifts and making a flourish with them in any duty that we are engaged in this is meer formality If there be any power of Grace stirring in us our great business in addressing our selves to any duty will be to search for our hearts and see where they are and how they are disposed and in pursuing the discharge of these duties to look after our hearts and see that they do not steal from us and get into the Corners of the earth we shall be solliciâ—ous that our Graces may be brought into exercise that in our hearing of the word of God dispensed to us we may be waiting to hear what the Lord hath to say to us and that with a preparedness of Soul to submit to his will and receive his truth in the love of it that in our Prayers to God we may have an active lively sense of our Spiritual wants and that our faith be in a suitable exercise David in this regard first takes notice of his heart Psal 57. 7. My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed I will sing and give praise 3. Do we content our selves with doing of Religious duties or do we insatiably seek after Communion with God in them God hath appointed the Ordinances of the Gospel and the several Duties which he
weep in secret places for your pride and mine eyes shall weep sore and run down with tears thus good Lots integrity is expressed 2 Pet. 2. 8. this righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds and how acceptable this spirit is to God appears by the care that he takes of such in an evil day Ezek. 9. 4. And this mourning if it be right will drive you to importunate prayers unto God and hard wrestlings with him for such a people and for such persons that he would give them Repentance and spare them How is it then with you in this regard is it thus Are yon secretly affected with all the decays you see in the midst of us 7. Are we constant in maintaining close Communion with God in secret duties It is true an Hypocrite may do the matter of secret Duties as constantly as a godly person though usually when he doth them it is with a trumpet blown at the door but it is certain that there is more of Temptation either to neglect altogether or else to be very slight and perfunctory in the performance of such services as have no witness of them but God and our own Souls hence there is not a better proof of the power of Godliness to a mans own Conscience than what may be observed in the carriage of himself before God in secret If you are not only conscientious to do the duties themselves for that a natural enlightned conscience may prompt a man to and make him afraid to neglect it but if you are as careful of your hearts as if all the world stood by and were able to read them if you really seek God in these performances and are not satisfied but in the manifestation of himself to you and the experience of the fruits of his grace in you and do truly be moan your deadness and indisposedness in these duties and humbly seek to him for the pardon thereof and help against it you have then a witness within you that you are more than formalists and a testimony which is better than all the applause and commendation of the best most discerning Christians Let us not then be perfunctory but thorough in these enquiries as knowing that it is of unspeakable concernment that we be not mistaken in this affair USE III. Let this Doctrine serve for Exhortation And that 1. In general to us all for we are all concerned in it and there are several lessons of advice which it will afford us especially these 1. Beware that you do not reject the external part of Godliness on this pretence There is an unhappy Generation of men in the world who would fain perswade others to think that they have arrived at higher degrees of perfection than their neighbours and among other their egregious follies this is one because God condemns the form which is without the power they thereupon cast off all form and call all external Worship so and because God is a Spirit and requires of them that Worship him that they do it in spirit and in truth they upon this restrain all Worship to that which is internal and reject all that is bodily to the Old Testament and Legal Dispensation and that which is antiquated now in the days of the Gospel whereupon they pronounce all those to be carnal who plead for or practice it It is upon this score that they will acknowledge no such thing as a Sabbath or separated time that is made holy by Gods so separating of it for the holy Services of his people giving out that all time is now holy to the people of God and every day a Sabbath to those that are spiritual They will have no Humane Preaching because they are all taught of God and have the Spirit in them to lead them into all truth and that anointing whereby they need not that any should teach them They despise the Gospel Sacraments as carnal things and spare not to mock at them and plead they have already received that which is the spiritual design of them it would be a thing superfluous in such as them any further to make use thereof yea they endeavour to make a ridicule of the Ordinances themselves and of the Elements which are made use of in them Yea to that height of spiritual frenzy are they arrived that they cast contempt on the very written Word of God they call it a dead Letter paper Divinity and strenuouslâ— deny it to be a perfect Rule of Faith and Manners and say that all those that bind themselves to it take it for their directory are guilty of despising the spirit and his teachings This and a great deal more of such like stuff they seek to infect mens minds withal But these are so far from being truly spiritual that they are in truth enemies to the power of Godliness and it concerns us all to avoid them as felthy dreamers Here then to establish you in this point Consider 1. There is an external part of Religion required of us by God God indeed requires the heart and without it all the rest will not be accepted but he requires not that only but the body too Man consists of these two parts he is to glorify God with them both being both bought with a price for that very end 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. The body is the Souls Organ and it is to perform its Imperate acts in and with it and if the heart be right set the whole man will follow after it For this reason God hath prescribed in the Gospel external Duties to his people and requireth of them a Conformity thereunto he hath appointed the Dispensers of the Gospel for the benefit of men and in this respect they are reckoned among the Afcension Gifts of Christ Eph. 4. 10 c. these are to preach the word in season and out of season 2. Tim. 4. 2. what use would there be of these if there were none to be hearers Christ hath appointed Sacraments to be celebrated in remembrance of him till he cometh they are therefore to continue of use until then yea all the parts of Outward Worship are laid down in the Gospel and it is not for nothing and Christians are warned not to neglect the assembling themselves together Heb. 10. 25 and to exhort one another daily Chap. 3. 13. Surely then we cannot omit or neglect much more reject these Ordinances of Christ without bringing upon our selves the guilt of neglecting his Command 2. Hence true inward Godliness will make men to be Conscientious of attending on these Duties Godliness teacheth men to worship fear and reverence God and this fear if genuine will exert it self in Obedience to his precepts they are put together Eccle. 12. 13. Fear God and keep his Commandments If Godliness be rooted in the heart it will sanctify the Soul to the discharge of its work and that belongs to it
to use the outward means as an instrument to help us in our Serving God and as the things wherein we testify our acknowledging his Authority over us and in this it eyes his precepts as the Rules by which it is to act So that when it sees that God hath required such duties as these of us it disputeth not the rationality of them nor demurs about the natural efficacy there is in them for the advancing the design of them but it acquiesceth in the will of God and dareth not but to pay conformity thereunto This therefore all Christians are to be taught by the Ministry of the word Matth. 28. 20. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you 3. It must then needs follow that to cast off the form of Godliness is a farther step of Apostasy We have already observed that to be content with the form without the power is a woful degeneracy and shews that men do contradict their own Profession but yet it is a more audacious discovery of mens being departed from God and having forsaken his fear when they put off their vizar and appear bare faced in their Irreligion The former supposeth them to be in their Consciences convinced of the worthiness of the true Religion and that it is a thing which God requires of men though they want a love for it but this casts the greatest open contempt upon it that can be and let men please themselves as they will with their own deceivings yet they are nothing better who reject it upon Spiritual Pride then such as do so to gratify their own Carnal Lusts 2. Beware of censuring these for Hypocrisy who are careful to keep up the form which God himself hath prescribed to us That God hath not only directed us how we are to Serve him with our inward man but that he hath also told us how he expects that we worship him with the outward man is a truth unconfutably grounded in the Second Commandment Now there are many that make nothing of this but can take up with any form and if there be any who pretend Conscience to keep close to what God hath revealed of his mind in this respect and not to dare to go beyond it they are ready to charge Hypocrisy on them but let us consider 1. That the most powerfully Godly will be most Conscientious in this matter True to stickle here and to regard nothing else but in other things to lead a loose Conversation among men is enough to detect men of falshood and shews that it is not the fear of God which acts them in this regard But it is a thing to be observed that God hath in all ages of the Church made his Institutions the great Test of the External Obedience of his professing people and herein he hath asserted his Prerogative to appoint what shall be the Media of Communion between him and them and hereupon if we look into the affairs of the Church of God in former times we shall find that the most holy men have been the most afraid of deviating here and those mysterious Prophesies in the latter part of Ezekiels Visions have an eye to Gospel times and we there find how God speaks to the Prophet Ezek 43. 11. Shew them the form of the house and the fashion thereof and the goings out thereof and the comings in thereof and all the forms thereof and all the Ordinances thereof and all the Laws thereof Again there are some who are more careful than others in attending on external duties they dare not to neglect them or put them off upon vain pretences and how many are there who condemn them for this as if they did it all but for a shew that they read hear pray in their Families and wait upon the publick Ordinances in season and out of season only to make men think them better Christians than others whereas doubtless the most holy men are the most careful in these performances only they dare not to rest in these things 2. Thus to censure them is to usurp Gods Prerogative in judging the heart When men do their duty in the outward part of it it is so far well and though it be a truth that there are those that make a great shew and yet do all with a false heart yet all that use care in this are not such and it is a great sin for you to judge all because we are told that there are some such and the more sinful is it when we have no other reason for our thus judging of them but only because they are more careful in the doing of the things which God hath commanded them than we are as if it were a crime for any to outdo us in the practise of Religion or as if it were necessary that men must be profane if they would escape having the brand of Hypocrisy set upon them by a loose Generation which they live among If men discover the falshood of their hearts by any evil acts of theirs and they be such as do manifestly declare them to be false and we censure them accordingly for it we do then judge of the tree by its fruits and it is a right judgment according to Mat. 7. 20. by their fruits ye shall know them but if there be no such thing appears but in all things they carry it regularly and yet we condemn them we take Gods work out of his hand and may be guilty of condemning the Generation of the just 3. This is also to sin against the Rule of Christian Charity We observed that Charity is the very bond of Christian Communion in this World Now the proper nature of Charity is to think the best of others so far as we may have any encouragement so to do surely then when we see men to be zealous for the Ordinances of Christ and careful in doing according to his commands therein and therein shewing a respect to all his Precepts this bespeaks in our Consciences that they do well and unless we have reason from their other conversation among men to condemn them we ought to judge them sincere nor are the common infirmities incident to the Children of God in this life to weaken our Charity on this account If we are mistaken in this it will do us no hurt and to their own master they must stand or fall but if we wrong them in our censures of them we bring guilt upon our selves and provoke Gods just displeasure against us 3. Have a care that you do not take up with and rest in a form of Godliness and it concerns us all to take great heed to our selves on this account and that upon these three considerations 1. There is great danger of it It is a thing which sinful man is in great hazard of as will be evident if we consider 1. The natural deceitfulness and wickedness of the heart we are told Jer. 17. 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked Now the wickedness which is in the heart naturally inclineth us to all manner of sin and is continually prompting of us that way Gen. 8. 21. the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth So that it will do its utmost to keep out every thing that is truly good and if we add to this the guile which it is full of and the innumerable cunning tricks that it hath to impose upon men by yea upon the man himself we may be convinced that we have great reason to be afraid of being trapanned by it It is certain that true Godliness is a thing contrary to the resentments of the corrupt heart in us if therefore it can but reach to the sinister ends upon which unregenerate men do engage in the profession of Religion and yet keep sin upon the throne within it will certainly do it and it will encourage the man to go through all the formalities of it too with the greatest shew that can be and if you trust to it you will beyond question be imposed on and never go beyond a form hence we have that advice Prov. 28. 26. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool 2. These declining times afford great Temptations to it It is an hour of great trial upon this account it is a day wherein men generally content themselves with a form of Godliness and count that to be sufficient yea there are a great many who esteem that too much Observe the frame of many Professors and it looks as if they were afraid of having too much of Religion as if heart piety were a needless thing as if it were not a credit but rather a reproach to a man to be sincerely Godly If you will do as the most do a form will be enough for you if you will go farther and resolve to live up to the Rules of the Gospel and lead a Conversation in all things worthy of Christ and carefully avoid the appearances of evil you must expect to meet with scorn and reproach and cruel mockings you will hereby practically condemn the Generation you live in if you will now build an Ark they will malign you for it and you must look to have it cast in your dish as a matter of ignominy If now you will consult with flesh and blood and hearken to carnal reasonings they will bid you to be content to do as others do and tell you that you shall fare as well as they and that it is pride in you to think your selves wiser than your neighbours or suppose that none shall obtain heaven and happiness but such scrupulous persons as you are Certainly then you ly open to no small hazard 2. There is great danger in it if you are thus imposed on it will certainly expose you and you will sooner or later find it to your sorrow for consider 1. You cannot impose upon God You have not only so deal with men in this matter but with the heart searching God now God requires your hearts in all your duties as well as the careful observance of the duties themselves they are put together Prov. 23. 26. My son give me thine heart and let thine eyes observe my ways we are told Psal 51. 6. that God requireth truth in the inward parts When you go about any Service God doth not only see what formality you use but he enquires where your hearts are those Jews were as fair and plausible in their carriage as could be but God made that observation upon them Ezek. 33. 31. Their heart is gone after their coveteousness and you cannot by all your curious and cunning contrivances deceive him all your covers and pretences hide not from him Psal 139. 12. the darkness hideth not from thee We are therefor warned on this account Gal. 6 7. Be not deceived God is not mocked God remarks not only what men do right but whether they do it with a perfect heart such a note is made upon him 2 Chron. 25. 2. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord but not with a perfect heart 2. You will therefore perish for all this All the formality which you can possibly use in your profession will not save you from destruction if you rest in that you may take all manner of pains in it be very curious and exact in the performance of the duties of Worship toward God and of righteousness towards men you may pray read confer be diligent in your Calling honest in your Commerce charitable in your distributions yet loose all your works and be your selves numbred with the workers of iniquity and doomed to depart with them Luk. 13. 26 27. when God comes to reward all men according as their works have been he will not recompence you according to your formality but according to your hypocrisy and that will be a fearful thing God threatens them that come to enquire of him and set up their idols in their heart that he will answer them according to their Idols Ezek. 14. 4. 3. Nay there will be less hope of you than of others Your Salvation will hereby be rendred far the more desperate of all the men in the world there is none in more fearful danger of unavoidable perdition than such an one as hath taken up with and sheltered himself under a form of Godliness without the power of it There is more hope of a profane and prodigal sinner who hath allowed himself in the greatest neglects of duty and excesses of immorality than of him It is a fearful word of Christ to the formalists of that time when he was conversant among men Mat. 21. 31. Verily I say unto you that the Publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you We can easier reach the consciences of such which will more readily accuse them of the enormities which we apply the awful threatnings of the Word of God unto and say unto them thou art the man Whereas these are secure and confident in their good estate and can put away all awakenings and warnings and counsels from them as things that they are not at all concerned with and can sleep in a whole skin under all the rousing truths that are spoken to them in the Ministry If once you arrive hither you are setled on your lees and little hope is left of your being converted and saved beware then of this frame lest you rue it for ever 4. You will be guilty of making the times perilous Our Text tells us that this is one and a principal cause of their being so God is a God of Judgment and he will bear witness against this wickedness as well as any other and the more there are of such persons the more do such a people ly exposed When Gods Judgments come upon the Land there are none that have more reason to look upon themselves as the procurers of them than such as you are When you look upon all the evils
a corrupt part remaining within them which they do find work enough to suppress at any time and it will certainly take advantage to urge hard when it hath motives from without to back it's suggestions withall nor will all your Confidence secure you against the assaults of it but it will be too hard for you if you be not very headful to your selves You have awful instances of this to give you warning Peter for all his resolution and repeated purposes was yet fearfully over come when the tryal was upon him Matth. 26. Barnabas was drawn into a Scandalous dissimulation when Peter had begun Gal. 2. 12. You had need to be well provided if you will stem the stream of the times and hold out against all that would allure you from your fidelity to Christ when you may be called to part with every thing else though never so dear to you if you will preserve your integrity immaculate and for your help on this account 1. See to your hearts that they be right in all that you do in your profession If God mainly regards the heart it concerns all that would approve themselves to him to do so too If you can once get them to be right your main business is done and till you have made this sure you cannot do any thing well See then to your through Conversion that indeed is not all that you have to do but it is the first thing because there can nothing be done right without it It is impossible that an unconverted heart should be a sincere heart in Gods account and acceptance till you have gotten a new heart you can never go beyond formality in any thing you do and if you would have such an heart as this you must go to God for it It is he alone who can give it to you and you must ask it of him Ezek 36. 26. a new heart will I give you You must also call for your heart every time that you go about any duty and be sure to take it along with you if you would be cordial in it it will be away if you do not heedfully look after it and too often doth a Godly man perform this and that Service in formality because of his inadvertency in this regard or because he trusts his heart too much which as often as he doth so deceiveth him how careful is David in this respect Psal 57. 8. Awake my glory awake psaltery and harp I my self will awake early 2. Set your selves ever in the presence of God as of one who seeth and hateth Hypocrisy We are indeed forbidden to do eye-service to men as of a thing which proceeds from a false heart but eye-service to God is every where approved and there is nothing that can be a more powerful and awful consideration on our minds to make us afraid of doing any thing in hypocrisy than to think of those two things and always carry the deep impression of them upon our hearts viz. that God stands by and looks on and that he cannot abide dissimulation for he is our Law giver and our Judge who will call us to an account and he will judge righteous Judgment and cannot be mistaken in it Hence holy men on Scripture Record have always been wary of this when they were in a right frame and made use of it as a caution to excite them to sincerity thus did Job Chap. 31. 4. Doth not he see my ways and count all my steps and David saith Psal 16. 8. I have set the Lord always before me It is therefore the character of wicked men that they think not of God Psal 10. 4. God is not in all his thoughts and they suppose him to be unconcerned about the affairs of the children of men and so not to be feared Ezek. 8. 12. They say the Lord seeth us not the Lord hath forsaken the Earth 3. Maintain and strengthen your love to God and his ways See that you have this principle in you where this love is not the best that you do will be but formality and you had need to be always nourishing this principle in you and getting of it coroborated you will meet with many things that will offer to damp it If you can but attain to do every thing in true love to God delighting in his ways and desiring his glory above all things this will be the best help to do all things uprightly this will make you see to the matter and manner and principle and end that all be accommodated to Evangelical directions and designs and according to the strength and activity of this love in you such will be the power of Godliness appearing in your lives If the Law of God have that vertue and sweetness with you thar it had with David who could say Psal 19. 10. More to be desired than gold than much refined gold sweeter also than honey and the honey comb this will cause you to lay your selves out to the utmost for him and that will be very acceptable to him 4. Labour to experience Communion with God in your serving of him there is a Communion which Godly men have with God in this life he could say 1 Joh. 1. 3. Truly our fellowship is with God the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ this is it which a sincere Christian hath an aim at in all that he doth and there is nothing that can content him without it Now this Communion is to be had in the way of duty If you can do duty contentedly without the enjoyment of it if this be your constant guise you are Hypocrites but if you restlesly seek it and he affords it you make much of it prize it above every thing in the world endeavour to be able to say of it as he Psal 84. 10. A day in thy Courts is better than a thousand and this will certainly put you upon longing for more of it and make you to say as Psal 63. 1 2. My soul thirsteth for thee to see thy power and thy glory as I have seen and there is nothing can carry out your hearts more intensly after the expressing sincerity in your Services than the value you have for this and the fresh apprehension of the delight which you have found in it 5. Despise all the contempt and reproach of carnal and formal men You must expect to meet with enough of it from men of such a spirit if you will go one step before them in the ways of Godliness and if you are so nice and delicate as not to be able to bear the blast of them you will be put upon it to play the Hypocrite many a time and can by no means avoid it You must live among them and have some unavoidable conversation with them and they cannot forbear you must therefore endeavour to imitate your Lord Christ of whom it is said Heb. 12. 2. That he endured the Cross and despised the shame and remember what Christ hath warned you on this account Mark 8. 8. Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the Holy Angels 6. Seek to and depend upon Christ to preserve you in your integrity and there is besides the keeping of Grace alive in you which is an effect of his power the upholding of the lively efficacy of it in exercise to be sought of him else you may fall under those decays which will grievously wound you and bring sorrow upon you this was the Psalmists request unto God Psal 25. 21. let integrity and uprightness preserve me and he acknowledgeth that he had a gracious answer of this prayer Psal 41. 12. as for me thou upholdest me in mine integrity Be therefore ever jealous of your selves sensible of your own insufficiency and renounce trust in your own grace and let that keep you in an humble dependance upon Christ 7. Pray to God to revive dying Religion Truly you cannot keep up the power of Godliness in your selves without this your hearts cannot but be affected with the present state of Christianity and it is God only who can and he can revive it in the midst of the days and if you either love the glory of God or seek the weal of Zion you cannot be silent see for this Isa 62. 1 6 7. For Zions sake I will not hold my peace c. ye that make mention of God keep not silence and give him no rest till he establish and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth pray that he will pour out his spirit upon the dry places and turn the wilderness into a fruitful firld and thus shall you prove your selves to be Israelites indeed 8. Keep upon your thoughts an expectation of the hastening account that you shall be called unto If Ungodly Sinners who please themselves with their outside pretences did really believe and meditate more upon this how would it help to awaken them and if the Children of God would be more conversant with and realizing of this day to themselves it would put them upon the more solemn preparation for it and if we could be always helped to do every thing that we engage in with such a respect and caution that it will shortly be called over before Angels and men and that not only the action it self but the spirit with which it was done how would it be a continual guard against empty formality and put us upon endeavours to express the power of Godliness in all things and it would make us to answer every temptation that would draw us away from our sincerity with his reflection Job 31. 14. What then shall I do when God riseth up and when he visiteth what shall I answer him FINIS