is the strait gate and narrow way that few men find Here he must be excused God is no God for him upon these terms And he cannot and will not be his God on any other terms Christ is no Christ for him unless he will excuse him from this trouble and bear with him in his carnal course that is unless he will be indeed no Christ to him Heaven is no heaven for him unless he may pass to it through prosperity and sin and unless he may have it without the trouble of a holy life that is unless God will be unjust or false and heaven cease to be heaven and God cease to be God But yet these men are convinced that God is their rightful Governour and that indeed they should love him and serve him with all their heart and might and that without true Religion and godliness there is no salvation To be irreligious and prophane they know is a state that can afford no comfort or shelter from the wrath of God and therefore some Religion they must have They are not able to endure the thoughts of lying under the curse of God To conclude themselves to be utterly graceless and the children of the Devil and in a state of condemnation is so terrible that they are not able to endure it Then every Sermon they hear would torment them and every Chapter they read would torment them and their pleasures would all be imbittered to them and nothing that they enjoy in all the world would quiet and content them No nor shall do long And therefore they must needs take up some Religion to quiet them for a little while and to make them hope that for all their sins they are not so bad nor in so dangerous a case as Preachers tell them some Religion they must needs have for fear of being damned A sound and serious Religion they will not have because they love the world and sin which it would deprive them of And therefore they patch up a Vain Religion composed of so much truth and duty as will stand with their prosperity and beloved pleasures which will not save them but sufficeth to deceive them Two parts make up this self deceiving frame as consistent with their sins The one is the formal outward easie cheap part of duty to God and man in their practise leaving out the spiritual inward difficult dear self-denying part The other is the strictest parts of Religion in bare opinion and notion while they shut it out of their hearts and lives For both these may stand with a sensual worldly selfish life He may read or say his prayers and be a worldling still He may come to Church and with the greatest ceremony and seeming reverence receive the Sacrament and bow before the Lord his Maker and yet be sensual or a worldling still And he may be of the strictest party or opinion and notionally condemn all sin and justifie the most holy life and yet be sensual and worldly still And therefore this much he may be perswaded to take up to save himself from the lashes of his conscience And so the use of the Hypocrites Religion is to be a skreen betwixt him and the flames of wrath that would scorch him too soon if he were of no Religion and to be to him as a tent or pentise to keep off the storms that would fall upon him while he is trading for the world and working for the flesh His Religion is but the sheath of his guilty conscience to keep it from wounding him and cutting his fingers while they are busie in the brutish service of his lusts It is but as a glove to save his skin when he hath to do with the nettles and thorns of the threatenings of God and the thoughts of vengeance that else would rack his guilty soul It is but as his upper garment to save him from a storm and then to be laid by as an unnecessary burden when he is at home The Hypocrites Religion is but as his shooe he can tread it in the dirt so it will but save his foot from galling As a man that hath an unquiet scolding wife is fain to speak her fair by flatteries lest he should have no rest at home or as a thief is fain to cast a crust to the dog that barketh at him to stop his mouth so is an ungodly sensual person fain to flatter his conscience with some kind of Religiousness and to stop its mouth with some kind of devotion and seeming righteousness that may deceive him into a belief that he is the child of God Religion is the Soveraign in a gracious soul and the Master in an upright conscience and ruleth above all worldly interests But with the unregenerate it is but an underling and servant that must do no more then the flesh and the world will give consent to and is regarded no further then for meer necessity and when it hath done the work which the Hypocrite appointed it it is dismissed and turned out of doors God is acknowledged and loved by the Hypocrite but not as God Christ is believed in and accepted but not as Christ but as an underling to the world and a journy-man to do some job of work for a distressed wrangling conscience or as an unwelcome Physician to give them a Vomit when they have taken some extraordinary surfeit of sensual delights When they have faln into great affliction or into any foul disgraceful sin then perhaps they take up their prayer books or call upon Christ and seem devout and very penitent But their piety is blown over with the storm The effect ceaseth with the cause It was not the Love of God or of his holy wayes and service that set them upon their devotions but some tempest of adversity or shipwrack of their estates or friends or consciences and when the winds are laid and the waves are still their devotion ceaseth with their danger 3. Add hereunto to shew you the reason of the Hypocrites self-deceit that he is one that never practically saw the amiableness of holiness in it self and never had a heart that was touched with the love of it by the Spirit of holiness and therefore he taketh it but for meer necessity and therefore he taketh up no more then he thinks is of necessity to save him from damnation when he can live in the pleasures of the world no longer God never had his heart He had rather be about his sports or worldly business if he durst and thought he could be so excused He loveth a pair of Cards or Dice or a Harlot or his ambitious designs and honours better then he loveth the holy Scriptures and the heavenly discourse or contemplation of the life to come And therefore he will have no more Religion then needs he must because he taketh it not for love but need The matters of the world and the flesh are his dyet and his extraordinary successes and prosperity are his feast
think you will not If you are such as you profess you are all Saints and shall be saved If any of your be not such they can be nothing else but Hypocrites Seeing therefore that you are all either Saints or Hypocrites come now to the bar and refuse not a tryal that may prevent the errors of another kind of tryal that you cannot refuse And here let me set before you your Profession and then try your selves Whether you are such as you profess your selves to be or not And I think I may take it for granted that the Articles of the Creed and the Bâ—ptismal Covenant is the least that every one of you do profess and that the desires implyed in the Petitions of the Lords Prayer you all profess to be your own desires and that you take the 〈◊〉 Commandâ—ments for part of the rule of your obedience Let us peruse them briefly in the several parts 1. Do you not all say that you Believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and earth and that you will have no other gods but him and are you not accordingly engaged in Covenant with him you will not deny it And what is the meaning of this much of your profession It is no less then to take God for the only infinite good to be loved with the chiefest love and to take him for your absolute Lord and Governour the Owner of you and all you have to whom you owe universal absolute obedience and that you are truly willing to love him above all and fear him and trust him and obey him accordingly though your flesh and all the world should be against it He that meaneth not all this doth dissemble or lye when he saith he taketh God to be his God For to be God is to be this much to us And really is it thus with you as you profess speak but as men that dare not lye before the Lord that knows your hearts Do you indeed Love God as God with your superlative love Are your hearts set upon him Do you make it your principal care to please him Is it your delight to do his will Is it sweeter to you to think and speak of him then of the world Doth it grieve you most to offend him In a word you are not such strangers to Nature but you know what love is And you are not such strangers to your own hearts but you know what it is to love your pleasure your profit your honour and your friend can conscience say before the Lord that you love him better then all these if not more passionately yet more deeply effectually and resolvedly with a love that will cause you to deny and part with all for him If you thus truly love him as God and above all how comes it to pass that you seek the world more carefully and eagerly then him and that you are more pleased with worldly thoughts and speeches and employments then with divine were not the Hypocrite justly blinded and a willfull stranger to himself he could not but know that he loveth not God as God and above all And to love him in subordination to your flesh and its contents is not at all to love him as God As it is no degree of conjugal love to love a wife but as a servant nor no degree of the love due to your Soveraign to love him as an equal or as a slave And if really you take God for your absolute Lord and Governour why is it then that you take no pleasure in his Laws but count them too strict and had rather be at your own dispose why is it that you obey your fleshly desires before and against the God whom you acknowledge why will you not be perswaded to that holiness justice and charity which you know his Law commandeth you why do you willfully continue in those sins which conscience tells you God forbids will you live in willfull disobedience and love your sins and loath your duty and obstinately continue thus and yet profess that you take God for your God and consequently for your Lord and Governour and yet will you not confess that you are dissembling Hypocrites 2. Do you not all profess that you believe in Jesus Christ and have you not in Covenant taken him for your Saviour and Lord And do you so indeed or do you not play the Hypocrites If you believe in Christ and take him for your Saviour you then take your sins for the disease and misery of your souls and you are so grieved for them and weary of them and humbled in the apprehension of your lost estate that you fly to Christ as your only refuge from the wrath and curse of the offended Majesty and value his justifying and healing grace before all the riches of the world and you are willing to take his bitterest medicines and use the means appointed by him for the destruction of your sin and the perfecting of his graces And is it thus with you that have unhumbled hearts that never felt the need of Christ as condemned miserable men must do and that love the sin that he would cure and are unwilling to be mortified and sanctified by his grace Unless a carkass be a man such Hypocrites as these are no true Christians and have but a seeing self-deceiving faith 3. Do you not all profess to believe in the Holy Ghost and are you not engaged to him in Covenant as your Sanctifier And do you not grosly play the Hypocrites here If not how comes it to pass that you stick in your natural state as if you had no need of sanctification and live as quietly without any acquaintance with true Regeneration and the Spirit to dwell and rule within you as it you needed no such change Or else that you take up with a Formal an affected or a forced kind of Religion in stead of Sanctification and spiritual devotion And how comes it to pass that you distaste the highest degrees of holiness and that you will not be brought to the mortification self-denyal and unreserved obedience which are the essence of sanctification As for the more deboist prophane sort of Hypocrites that make a common mock of godliness and scorn at the very name of Holiness and Sanctification and deride at all that pretend to have the Spirit I had rather tremble at the thought of their misery then now stand to reprove that notorious hypocrisie which professeth to believe in the Holy Spirit which they deride and Covenanteth with the Sanctifier while they hate and mock or at least do obstinately refuse sanctification When God himself tells us Rom. 8. 9. That if any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his And therefore to deride a man for professing that he hath the Spirit is to deride him for professing to be a Christian 4. Do you not all profess to Believe the Holy Catholick Church that is that Christ hath a people dispersed through the
in subtilty of argument but you could say that against the necessary means of your own salvation that none can answer when you die by your wisdom and have disputed your selves out of the reach of mercy will you not bewail it then as folly Is he wiser that being hungry eats his meat or he that gives such reasons for his refusing it and pleadeth so learnedly against eating and drinking that none can answer him Is the condemned man wiser that makes friends for a pardon or he that with unanswerable subtilty reasoneth against it till the ladder be turned such is your vain and seeming wisdom You are not wise enough to be cured but to give reasons why you should continue sick In the issue it will prove that you were not wise enough to be saved but notably wise to resist salvation and plead your selves into hell 2. You pretend that you have a saving faith when your hearts refuse that salvation from sin and that rule of Christ which is the object of faith and when you will not believe the doctrines precepts or threatnings that cross your own conceits and when your belief of heaven will not carry your hearts from earth nor work you to a holy heavenly life 3. You pretend to Repentance as I said before while you hold fast the sin and give not up your selves to God when as if your neighbour or Master or Husband should but beat one of you and tell you when he hath done that he repenteth and do this as oft as you commit your willful sins and say you repent I am confident you would not take it for true repentance You repent but will not confess when it is to your disgrace as long as you can hide your sin You repent but will not make restitution or reparation of injuries to your power You repent but your heart riseth against him that reproveth you You repent but you had rather keep your sins then leave them What 's this but to deceive your own hearts and to mock your selves with a seeming vain and mock-repentance 4. You pretend to love God above all as was before said when you love not his Image waies or communion but love that which he hateth and still prefer the world before him 5. You pretend that you have true desires to be godly and what God would have you be But they are such desires as the sluggard hath to rise and as the slothful hath to work that is if it could be done with ease and without labour you lie still and use not the means with diligence for all your desires When you can fit and have your work done with wishes and your families maintained and your necessities all supplied with wishes you may think to come to heaven with wishes The good desires that the poor may be warmed and cloathed that James speaks of Jam. 2. 15. did neither relieve the poor nor save the wisher The desire of the slothful killeth him because his hands refuse to labour Prov. 21. 15. Up and be doing according to thy desires or else confess that thy wishes are hypocritical and that thou deceivest thy own heart by Vain desires 6. You also pretend to be sincere worshippers of God You pray and you read the Scripture and good books and you hear the Word and receive the Lords Supper But I have before shewed you your hypocrisie in these you pray against the sin that you love and would not leave you pray for holiness when you hate it or desire it not in any degree to cross your flesh you serve God with meer words whether of your own conceiving or of others prescribing with some forced acknowledgement of that God that hath not your hearts or lives Let Christ pass the sentence on you and not I Matth. 15. 7 8 9. Ye hypocrites well did Esaias Prophesie of you saying This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me But in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandements of men You like that teaching that sooths you in your own opinions and galleth not your consciences in the guilty place A Ministry you would have that should stand like an adorned Idol that hurts no body and toucheth not your sores or that is but instead of a pair of Organs or a tinckling Cymbal to tickle your fancy and make Church-worship to be as a kind of religious stage-play to you But a true Minister of Christ to open to you the doctrine of the Kingdom and roundly to awake you from security in sin and to call you up to the most serious holy heavenly life and follow you and let you take no rest till you yeild and practise it and to call you to open confession of your open scandalous sins that you may make such reparation to the wronged honour of God and souls of men as you are capable of and accordingly to absolve you or to bind you over to answer it at the bar of God and charge the Church to avoid communion with you if you are impenitent and incorrigible such a Ministry as this which is the Ministry of Christs appointment you abhor at least when they come to touch your sores Then you are too proud to be taught and ruled by such as these though you hypocritically profess to be ruled by Christ who ruleth his Church by his Spirit Word and Ministers conjunct Then you say who gave you authority to do thus and thus by me As if you knew not that Christ in Scripture hath described confirmed and limited the Ministerial office Like condemned Traytors that should say to him that â—â—â—ngeth them a pardon Who 〈◊〉 you authority to make so 〈…〉 me or like a man that hath the plague or leprosie that asketh the Physician Who gave you authority to tell me that I am sick and put me on such medicines as these or as the Israelite to Moses Exod. 2. 14. Who made thee a Prince and a Judge over us not understanding that God by his hand would deliver them saith Stephen Act. 7. 25. Or as the Jews to Christ when he was teaching men the way to heaven Matth. 21. 23. By what authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this authority so because you hate the way of your recovery you will not be saved without authority nor be satisfied of their authority that would save you but are like a beggar that should proudly refuse a piece of gold and ask By what authority do you give it me A Ministry that agreeth with Gods dâ—scription you cannot abide Act. 20. 〈…〉 36. Heb. 13. 7 17. 1 Cor. 4. 〈◊〉 1 Thes 5. 12 13. 1 Tim. 5â— 17. 20. and 2 Tim. 4. 1. So that indeed it is but a mock-minister a mock-sacrament a mock-prayer and so a seeming vain Religion which you desire 7. Lastly you pretend also to sincere obedience If we ask you whether you are willing to obey God you will
proudest and securest of them all For God shall wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses Psal 68. 21. He is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with him The foolish shall not stand in his sight he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal 5. 3 4. The ungodly that delight not in the Law of the Lord are like the chaffe that the wind driveth away They shall not stand in judgement nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous Psal 1. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the Nations that forget God Psal 9. 17. Cannot you endure to hear and consider of these things How then will you endure to feel them God will not flatter you If all your greatness enable you not to repulse the assaults of death nor to chide away the gout or stone and all your honour or wealth will not cure a feaver or ease you of the tooth-ake how little will it do to save you from the everlasting wrath of God or to avert his sentence which must shortly pass on all that are impenitent And yet prosperity so befooleth sensual men that they must hear of none of this at least not with any close and personal application If you speak as Christ did to the Pharises Mat. 21. 45. that they perceived that he spake of them they take you for their enemy for telling them the truth Gal. 4. 16. and meet our doctrine as Ahab did Elijah 2 King 21. 20. Hast thou found me O mine enemy and 1 King 18. 17. Art thou he that troubleth Israel or as the same Ahab of Micaiah 1 King 22. 8. There is one man Micaiah of whom we may enquire of the Lord but I hate him for he doth not prophesie good concerning me but evil Or as Amaziah the Priest said of Amos to King Jeroboam He hath conspired against thee the land is not able to bear all his words Amos 7. 10. And ver 13. Prophesie not again any more at Bethel for it is the Kings Chappel and it is the Kings Court They behave themselves to faithful Ministers as if it were a part of their inviolable honour and priviledge to be mortally sick without the trouble of a Physician and to have no body tell them that they are out of their way till it be too late or that they are in misery till there be no remedy and that none should remember them of heaven till they have lost it nor trouble them in the way to hell nor seek to save them lest he should but torment them before the time And thus prosperity makes them willingly deaf and blind and turn away their ears from the hearing of the Law and then their prayers for mercy in their distress are rejected as abominable by the Lord Prov. 1. 24. to 33. and 28 9. 7. Yea if there be any persecution raised against the Church of Christ who are the chief acters in it but the prosperous blinded sensual great ones of the world The Princes make it their petition against Jeremy to the King We beseech thee let this man be put to death for thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war and the hands of all the people in speaking such words unto them for this man seeketh not the welfare of his people but the hurt Jer. 38. 4. It was the Presidents and Princes that said of Daniel We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel except we find it against him concerning the Law of his God Dan. 6. 5. Were it not lest some malicious hearer should misapply it and think I sought to diminish the reputation of Magistrates while I shew the effects of the prosperity of fools I should give you abundance of such lamentable instances and tell you how commonly the great ones of the world have in all ages set themselves and taken counsel against the Lord and against his Christ Psal 2. and stumbled upon the corner-stone and taken no warning by those that have been thus broken in pieces before them How ready is Herod to gratifie a wanton dancer with a Prophets head In a word as Satan is called the Prince of this world no wonder if he rule the men of the world that have their portion in this life Psal 17. 14. and can command his armies and engage them and enrage them against the servants of the Most High that run not with them to the same excess of ryot 1 Pet. 4. 4. And as James saith as aforecited Do not the rich oppress you and draw you before the judgement seats Do they not blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called Jam. 2. 6 7. 8. And in all this sin and misery how senseless and secure are these prosperous fools as merry within a year or month or week of hell as if no harm were near How wonderful hard is it to convince them of their misery The most learned wise or godly man or the dearest friend they have in the world shall not perswade them that their case is such as to need a conversion and supernatural change They cannot abide to take off their minds from their sensual delights and vanities and to trouble themselves about the things of life eternal come on 't what will they are resolv'd to venture and please their flesh and enjoy what the world will afford them while they may till suddenly God surprizeth them with his dreadful call Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided Luke 12. 20. So is he that layeth up riches for himself and is not rich towards God ver 21. II. I Should next shew you how it is that prosperity thus destroyeth fools Briefly 1. By the pleasing of their sensitive appetite and fancy and so overcoming the power of reason Perit omne judicium cum res transit in affectum Violent affections hearken not to reason The beast is made too headstrong for the rider Deut. 32 15. Jesurun waxed fat and kicked then he forsook God that made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation 2. The friendship of the world is enmity to God and if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Jam. 4. 4. 1 Joh. 2. 15. And undoubtedly the more amiable the world appears the more strongly it doth allure the soul to love it And to the prosperous it appeareth in the most entising dress 3. And hereby it taketh off the soul from God We cannot love and serve God and Mammon The heart is gone another way when God should have it It is so full of love and desire and care and pleasure about the creatures that there is no room for God How can they love him with all their hearts that have let out those hearts to vanity before 4. And the very noise and busle of these worldly things diverts their minds
and every comfortable Sermon or discourse which he heareth is abused to increase his self-deceit 11. It increaseth the Hypocrites self-deceit when he findeth some partial reformation in himself and that he hath mended many things that were amiss This he takes for a true conversion and thinks that the civilizing and smoothing of his life the change of his opinion and the taking up a form of godliness are true Sanctification and that he is not the man that once he was and therefore is in a safe condition Though alas he hath never yet known by experience the new heart the new ends the new resolutions affections and conversation of a Saint 12. Lastly he deceiveth himself by misunderstanding the nature of hypocrisie Because he perceiveth not that he is a gross dissembler but meaneth as he speaks so far as he goes therefore he thinks he is no Hypocrite Whereas besides the gross Hypocrite that knoweth he doth dissemble and only deceiveth others there are also close Hypocrites that know not they are Hypocrites but deceive themselves And these are they that my Text here speaks of when it saith He deceiveth his own heart It is Hypocrisie to seem better then one is and to profess to be a sincere Christian when he is none though he confidently think that he is what he professeth himself to be III. BUt what is it that can move a Reasonable creature to be willfully guilty of such self-deceit in the day-light of the Gospel when he hath so much help to see his way Answ 1. The are first acceived by the vanities of the world and the pleasures of sin before they deceive themselves by their Religion Their Religious self-deceiving is but subservient to their fleshly servitude and the worlds deceit They are carnal from the birth for that which is born of the flesh only is but flesh Joh. 3. 6. and custom in sinning fixeth and increaseth their sinful disposition Their hearts are engaged to their worldly accommodations and to their vain-glory and the things that please the flesh They are willing slaves to their conâ—upiscence And therefore they cannot admit of that Religion which would deprive them of that which they most dearly love Christ speaks too late to them They tell him they are promised already Their affections are pre-engaged sin hath taken up the chiefest rooms And the heart that loveth sensuality and prosperity best cannot love God best too for it can have but one best The 〈◊〉 of true Sanctification is to 〈…〉 the darling of a carnal 〈◊〉 and to cross it in its dearest loves and to lay that at our feet that before was as our treasure and to tame that body and bring it into subjection which before was in the throne The motions of such a change will not be acceptable till they are made so effectual as to cause that change The command will be unpleasant till the heart be suited to the nature of the command He that seeth what care and labour there is to gather a worldly treasure and what a stir is made in the world about it can never expect that all this should be vilified and despised at a word and that any doctrine how true and heavenly soever can be wellcome to these worldly men that would debase their glory and embitter their delights and make their Idol seem but dung The doctrine of Christ would take the old heart out of their bodies and they will not easily leave their hearts It doth not only command the drunkard to live soberly and the glutton temperately and the lascivious filthy sinner chastly and the proud person humbly and the covetous to live contentedly and liberally but it commandeth the hearty forsaking of all for the sake of Christ Luke 14. 33. and the accounting them but as loss and dung that we may win him Phil. 3. 7 8 9. and mortifying of that flesh which before we daily studyed to please Col. 3. 4 5. and the crucifying of its affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. and the denyal even of our selves Luk. 9. 23 24. And for a carnal mind to love and yield to such commands were no other then to cease to be a carnal mind All this is largely expressed by the Apostle Rom. 8. 1 c. They that are in Christ Jesus walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit For to be carnally-minded is death but to be Spiritually minded is life and peace Because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if through the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live You see here why it is that the self-deceiver will not entertain the power of godliness nor be Religious seriously according to the true intent of the Gospel and the nature of Christianity even because he is engaged to a contrary object and hath another game in chase which he will not leave and which true Religion requireth him to leave and will not give him leave to follow And therefore he parteth with the Religion which would have parted him from that which he will not part with 2. But withall he is all this while under the threatenings of the Law of God and conscience is ready to bear witness against him and betwixt Law and Conscience the poor wretch is as the corn between two Milstones he would be ground to powder and tortured with terrors before his time if he had not some opiate or intoxicating medicine to ease him by deceiving him and to abate his fears and quiet his conscience as long as a palliate cure will serve turn So that here are two things for which the self-deceiving Hypocrite is fain to fall into his Vain Religion The one is that it may be a cloak to the sin which he will needs keep The other is that it may save him from the terrors and disquietments that for this sin his conscience would else afflict him with A belief that he may be saved for all his sin is the relief that he hath against the terrors of the Law of God He therefore chooseth out such parcels of Religion as may serve him for this use and yet will not separate him from the sin that he delighteth in The power of godliness will not consist with his coveâ—ous proud or fleshly life but the form and outside will And therefore this regeneration and mortification and self-denyal and subjection to the whole will of God and this heavenly mindedness and watching the heart and walking with God and living above the trifles of this world and making it the chief business to prepare for another this kind of Religion which is Religion indeed he cannot because he will not entertain This
and therefore he will take as much of them as he can and dare But Religion is but his Physick and therefore he will take it as little and seldom as he dare Had he but seen the face of God by faith and had he but the heart of a true believer that is suited by holyness to the holy works that God commandeth as the heart of a true friend is suited to the will of him whom he loveth he would then be no longer Religious against his will and consequently in Vain but he would think the most pure and heavenly mind and life and the highest degree of love and holiness to be the best and most desirable state for his soul as every true believer doth Had this Hypocrite any true love to God as he deceitfully pretends to have he would love his Image and Word and wayes and then he would love best that kernel and marrow of Religion that life and soul of worship and obedience which now he savoureth not but shiftethâ—off as a needless or tedious or unattainable thing The nature and use of these Hypocrites Religion is to save them from Religion They carry an empty guilded scabberd accusing the sword of a dangerous keenness as a thing more perillous then necessary to their use When they seem most zealous they are but serving God that they may be excused from serving him and they worship him of purpose to shift off his worship They offer him the lips that the heart may be excused and complement him with cap and knee that they may excuse themselves from real holiness They offer him the empty purse for payment and tender him a sacrifice of husks and shells and lifeless carkasses They will abound in the shadow and ceremony that they may be excused from the spiritual life and substance Alas that dead hearted hypocrite that sits there and heareth all this is so great a stranger to the opening of the heart and the deep entertainment of saving truth and to the savoury relish of the searching healing quickening passages of holy doctrine and to the thankfull wellcoming of an offered Christ and to the lookings and longings of the soul after God and to the serious desires and hopes and labours of a gracious soul for life eternal that he is idle asleep and dead as to all this spiritual work and if he had not some customary service to perform and some ceremonies or external task to do and some bodily worship to be employed in he would find little or nothing to do in the Assemblies but might sit here as a bruit or as one of a strange language that comes but to see and to be seen And therefore if there be not somewhat more suitable to him then power and spirituality it seemeth as no worship to the formal hypocrite It is the pretty jingles and knacks of wit and the merry jears at the preciser sort or some scraps of Greek and Latin Authors or shreds of Fathers or Philosophy or at best an accurate well set speech that makes the Sermon good and acceptable to this hypocrites ears It is not spirit and life within him that brought him hither nor is it spirit and life that he savoureth and that he came for And therefore it is that this sort of hypocrites are usually most impatient of a misplaced word or of a worship performed in the primitive simplicity If a man deliver the Lords Supper but as Christ did and receive it but as the Apostles did or serve God but as the Churches in their dayes he will seem unreverent and slovenly and sordid to these self-deceiving Formalists They are set upon excess of ceremonies because they are defective in the vital parts and should have no Religion if they had not this All sober Christians are friends to outward decency and order But it s the empty self-deceiver that is most for the unwarrantable inventions of men and sticketh in the bark of Gods own Ordinances that taketh the garments for the man and useth the worship of God but as a Masque or Poppet play where there 's great doings with little life and to little purpose The chastest woman will wash her face but it s the harlot or wanton or deformed that will paint it The soberest and the comelyest will avoid a nasty or ridiculous habit which may make them seem uncomely when they are not But a curious dress and excessive care doth signifie a crooked or deformed body or a filthy skin or which is worse an empty soul that hath need of such a covering Consciousness of such greater want doth cause them to seek these poor supplies The gawdiness of mens Religion is not the best sign that it is sincere Simplicity is the ordinary attendant of sincerity It hath long been a proverb The more ceremony the less substance and the more complement the more craft And yet if it were only for want of inward true Religion that the hypocrite setteth up his shews it were bad enough but not so bad as with most of them or all it is For it is an enmity to Religion that accompanyeth their Religion As in lapsed man the body that was before the souls obedient attendant is become its Master and the enemy of its perfection and felicity so in the carnal Religion of the Hypocrite the outside which should be the ornament and attendant of the inward spiritual part hath got the Mastery and is used in an enmity against the more noble part which it should serve and much more are his humane inventions and mixtures thus destructively imployed His bellows do but blow out the candle under pretence of kindling the fire He sets the body against the soul and sometime the cloathing against both He useth forms to the destruction of knowledge and quenching of all seriousness and fervour of affection By Preaching he destroyeth Preaching and prayeth till prayer is become no prayer but the image or carkass of prayer at the best And useth his words to the destruction of the due Principle sense and ends Having still his carnal self for his end he preacheth and prayeth and serveth God in a manner that seems most suitable to his end so that it is not Gods means that he useth when he useth them but his own Nor doth he indeed worship God while he seems to worship him nor is indeed Religious but seems Religious It is materially perhaps Gods work that he doth and his means that he useth but Formally they are his own and not Gods at all when we meet with abundance of our people that are most nimble in their accustomed forms that know not what Religion or Christianity is nor who Christ is nor almost any of the substance of the Gospel it assures us that its easie to be Infidels with Christian expressions in their mouths and that its easier to teach a Parret to speak then to be a man As their bodies are but the prisons or dungeons of their souls so their formal words and
it is partly malice and partly the recriminations of a guilty galled conscience that fain would steal a little peace by thinking others to be as bad as you I shall dismiss this unhappy sort of men with these two requests 1. You are the men that of all others have the most notable advantage for your conviction of the misery of your present state and therefore I beseech you take that advantage One would think it should be the easiest matter in the world for such as you to know that you are ungodly that hate godliness and oppose it you have no plausible pretence for self-flattery or self-deceit And therefore confess your misery and look out to Christ for help and pardon while there is hope and time 2. For the time to come will you but try a serious holy life before you speak against it any more For shame speak not evil of the things you know not as those bruits described Jud. 10. And holiness was never well known but by experience O that you would be intreated but to yeild to this most equal motion Away with your worldly fleshly lives and live in faith and holiness a just a spiritual and heavenly life but one year or one quarter or one moneth and then if by experience you find just cause for it reproach a holy life and spare not II. TO the second sort that speak evil of men upon differences of opinion especially while they profess the same Religion in all the essential necessary parts I shall propose these aggravations of their sin for their humiliation 1. Consider can you think it agreeable to the Law of Christ to reproach men behind their backs and unheard for that which you never soberly and Christianly told them of to their faces Did you lovingly first admonish them and impartially hear what they can say for themselves what is your end in speaking against your brother Is it to do him hurt or good If hurt be sure you do him Justice and backbiting is not the way of Justice If good you cross your own intention For what good can it do him that another hears him evil spoken of 2. If you are Christs Disciples it must be known to all men by your special love to one another Joh. 13. 35. And is reproach and evil-speaking the fruit or evidence of such love can you talk so of the friends that are most dear to you or that you love indeed how do our hearts rise against that man that speaks reproachfully of our dearest friends Love would scarce suffer you to endure such abuse of Christians in another without a serious reprehension much less to be the abuser of them your selves 3. Your evil speaking of your brethren destroyeth love in others as it proves the want of it in your selves And to destroy their love is to destroy their souls You do your worst to quench the love both of him that you speak evil of and of them to whom you speak it Good is the object of love and therefore to speak of men and manifest them to be lovely is the only way to make them loved Evil is the object of hatred and therefore to speak evil of them is to make them seem hateful and draw men to the guilt of hating them To praise a man will do more to make him loved then if you only intreat another to love him And to dispraise a man will do more to make him hated then if you directly perswade another to hate him And what service you do the Devil and what disservice unto Christ by destroying love and sowing hatred among his servants were you impartial you might easily discern 4. Is it not shame and pitty that the followers of Christ should imitate the Devil and ungodly men as by detraction and reviling words they do you aggravate your brethrens faults and find faults where there are none and so do Satan and ungodly men You have a secret desire to make them seem contemptible and vile and so have Satan and ungodly men And hereby you seem to justifie the wicked and encourage them in their reproaching They think they may boldly speak such language of you all as they hear you speak of one another O what pitty is it to hear the professed children of the Lord to use the hell-bred language of his enemies as if they had gone to school to Satan 5. Are there not tongues enough sharpened against us in the world but we must wound each other with our own Is it not enough if we are the seed of Christ that every where the serpents seed do hate us and that all manner of evil is falsly spoken of us and that we are made as the scorn and the off-scouring of all things but we must also hate and reproach each other Have you not load enough from the world Have you not enemies enough to do the work of enemies but friends must do it And hath not Satan instruments and tongues enough of his own but he must use those that are Christs against himself 6. If thou hate thy brother yet sure thou dost not hate thy self Why then dost thou hurt and shame thy self His hurt is but to be defamed which is little if any thing at all for it is much in himself whether it shall hurt him But thy hurt that dost it is to provoke God against thee and incur his wrath and wound thy soul by the guilt of sin And if another hurt thee in the heel wilt thou therefore stab thy self to the heart If another be bad wilt thou become so by unjust defaming him And how dost thou cross thine own intentions The stone that thou castest at him flyes back in thy face Thou proclaimest thy own transgressions and shame when thou art uncharitably proclaiming his Is not a backbiter a reviler if not a malicious calumniator a worse name which thou tak'st to thy self then that which thou canst fasten on him whom thou dost reproach 7. Thy uncharitable speeches are a dangerous sign of an unhumbled and unpardoned soul If thou canst not forgive thou art not forgiven Did you know your selves it would teach you to deal more compassionately with others You would have the act of Oblivion as extensive as you could if you knew what danger you are in your selves Do you not know as much by your selves as you have to reproach your brother with Do you not then invite both God and man to take you at the worst and use you as you use your brother methinks you should rather be desirous of a more tender and indulgent way as knowing what need your selves have of it If you say O but he hath done thus and thus against me Let conscience say what you have done your selves against God others If you say He is a Schismatick an Hypocrite or this or that remember that malice is blind never wants matter of accusation or reproach innocency is no defence against it else Christ and his
by his own iniquities crying out Unclean and loathing himself for all his abominations weary of his sin and heavy-laden as all must be that are fit for Christ Read Isa 57. 15. 66. 2. Psal 51. 17. 34. 18. Lev. 13. 44 45. Ezek. 36. 31. 20. 43. 6. 9. Matth. 11. 28. Rom. 7. 24. 4. This mans Religion must needs be Vain for he wanteth the life of faith it self and heartily believeth not in Christ He hath but an opinion of the truth of Christianity through the advantage of his education and company and thereupon doth call himself a Christian and heartlesly talk of the mysterie of Redemption as a common thing But he doth not with an humbled broken heart betake himself to Christ as his only refuge from the wrath of God and everlasting misery as he would lay hold on the hand of his friend if he were drowning The sense of the odiousness of sin and of the damnation threatned by the righteous God hath not yet taught him to value Christ as he must be valued by such as will be saved by him These hypocrites do but talk of Christ and turn his name as they do their prayers into the matter of a dry and customary form They flie not to him as the only Physician of their souls in the feeling of their festring wounds they cry not to him as the Disciples in the tempest Save Master we perish They value him not practically though notionally they do as the pearl for which they must sell all Matth. 13. 44 45 46. Christ doth not dwell in his heart by faith nor doth he long with all the Saints to comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge Eph. 3. 17 18 19. He counteth not all things loss for Christ and the excellency of his knowledge nor doth he count them as dung that he may win Christ and be found in him not having his own righteousness but that which is through the faith of Christ Phil. 3. 8 9 10. nor can he truly say that he desireth to know nothing but a crucified Christ 1 Cor. 2. 2. and that the life that he now liveth in the flesh he liveth by the faith of the Son of God that loved him and gave himself for him Gal. 2. 20. He is not taken up with that admiration of the love of God in Christ as beseems a soul that is saved by him from the flames of hell and that is reconciled to God and made an heir of life everlasting He hath not understandingly deliberately seriously and unreservedly given up himself and all that he hath to Christ and thankfully accepted Christ and life as given on the Gospel terms to him This living effectual faith is wanting to the Hypocrite whose Religion is Vain 5. This Vain Religion doth never practically shew the soul the amiableness and attractive goodness of God so far as to win the heart to a practical estimation of him and adhering to him above all nor so far as to advance him above all the creatures in the practical judgement will and conversation nor doth it cause the soul to take him for its portion and prefer his savour before all the world and devote it self and all unto his interest and will and give him the superlative and soveraign honour both in heart and life Psal 63. 3. and 30. 5. and 4. 6 7. and 16. 5. and 17. 14. Mat. 10. 37. 6. This Vain Religion is alwayes without that serious belief of the life to come which causeth the soul to take it for its happiness and treasure and there to set its desires and its hopes and to make it his principal care and business to attain it and to make all the pleasures and profits and honours of the world to stoop to it as preferring it before them all Matth. 6. 20 21. and ver 33. Luk. 18. 22 23. and 14 33. Col. 3. 1 2 3 4 5. Phil. 3. 18 19 20. The Hypocrite taketh heaven but for a reserve and as a lesser evil then hell and seeks it but in the second place while his fleshly pleasures and interest have the preheminence and God hath no more but the leavings of the world and he serveth him but with so much as his flesh can spare 7. This Vain Religion consisteth principally in external observances If he be a Formalist that hath it his Religion lyeth in his beads and prayer books in going so oft to Church and keeping holy dayes and fasting dayes and saying over such and such words and using such and such gestures and ceremonies and submitting to Church orders and crying down Sectaries and preciseness and jearing at the simplicity of plain hearted Christians that never learnt the art of dissimulation Their Religion is but a pack of Complements a flattering of God as if they would mock him with cap an knee who will not be mocked Gal. 6. 7. while they draw near him with their lips their hearts are far from him Mat. 15. 7 8 9. They wash the outside and pay tithe of all and give some almes and forbear disgraceful sins which would make them be esteemed ungodly among men Mat. 15. 2 3. Mar. 7. 4 8. Matth. 23. 25 26 c. Mat. 6. 1 4 6. c Isa 1. 11 12 13 14. Isa 58. 1 2. But these self-deceivers are strangers to the inward spiritual work of holiness Their hearts are not busie in the worship of God by fervent desire and exercise of other graces while their tongues are put into an artificial pace and they are acting the part of men that seem to be Religious If they be cast into the Sectarian mold they place their Religion in the strictness of their Principles and Parties and in contending for them and in their affected fervour and ability to speak and pray ex tempore But the humble holy inward workings of the soul toward God and its breathings after him and the watch that it sets over the heart this hypocrite is much a stranger to If he be brought up among the Orthodox in well ordered Churches he placeth his Religion in the holding of the truth and taking the right side and submitting to right order and using Gods ordinances but the most of an upright mans employment is at home within him to order his soul and exercise grace and keep down sin and keep out the world and keep under the flesh and carnal self and do the inward part of duty And he is as truly solicitous about this as about the outward works and contenteth not himself to have said his prayers unless indeed his heart have prayed nor to have heard unless he have profited or heard with obediential attention And he makes conscience of secret duties as well as of those that are done in the sight of men But this the hypocrite comes not up to to trade in the internal spiritual part 8. The Religion that is Vain is without
an universal hatred of known sin and an actual conquering of it so far as to live out of gross sin which some call mortal and to be weary of infirmities and to be truly desirous to be rid of all and to be willing to use Gods means against it Thus it is with the sincerely Religious but not with these hypocrites that deceive themselves Joh. 3. 19 20. Rom. 7. 24. Luk. 13. 3 5. Rom. 8. 1. to the 14. Gal. 6. 7 8. The hypocrite hath not only some particular sin which all his Religion makes him not willing to see to be a sin or to forsake but his very state is sinful in the main by the predominancy of a selfish carnal interest and principle And he is not willing of close plain dealing much less of the diligent use of means himself to overcome that sin because he loveth it 9. This Vain Religion is not accompanied with an unseigned Love to a life of holiness which every true believer hath delighting to meditate in the Law of God with a practical intention to obey it and delighting in the inward exercise of grace and outward ordinances as advantages hereunto desiring still more of the grace which he hath tasted and grieving that he knoweth and trusteth and loveth and feareth and obeyeth God so little and longing to reach higher to know and love and fear him more Psal 1. 2. and â—19 1 2 3 4 5 9 10 c. Heb. 12. 14. 2 Pet. 3. 11. Matth. 7. 13 14. But the self-deceiver either hath a secret dislike of this serious diligence for salvation and loving God with all the soul and might because he is conscious that he reacheth it not himself or at least he will not be brought to entertain any more then will stand with his carnal ends 10. A Vain Religion doth not so far reveal the excellency of Christs image in his servants as to cause an entire Love to them as such and to delight in them above the most splendid and accomplisht persons that are strangers to the life of grace and so far to love them as when Christ requireth it to part with our substance and hazard our selves for their relief Thus do the truly Religious Psal 16. 2. and 15. 4. 1 Joh. 3. 14. Matth. 10. 40. 11. 42. and 25. 34 35 40 42 45 46. But the hypocrice either secrâ—tly hateth a heavenly holy life and consequently the people that are such because they seem to condemn him by overgoing him and differing from him or at least he only superficially approveth of them but will forsake both Christ and them in tryal rather then forsake his earthen God I have now shewed you what the self-deceiver wants in which you may see sufficient reason why his Religion is but Vain II. WE are next to shew you How these Hypocrites do deceive themselves and wherein their self-deceit consisteth It may seem strange that a man of reason should do such a thing as this when we consider that truth is naturally the object of the understanding and that all men necessarily love themselves and therefore love what they know to be simply good for them How then can any man that hath the use of reason be willing to be deceived yea and be his own deceiver and that in matters of unspeakable consequence But it is not as falshood nor as deceit that they desire it but as it appeareth necessary to the carnal ease and pleasure which they desire The way by which they deceive their own hearts consisteth in these following degrees 1. The hypocrite resisteth the Spirit of grace and rejecteth the mercies offered in the Gospel and so by his refusal is deprived of a part in Christ and of the life of grace and the hopes of glory which were tendered to him 2. But withal he is willing of so much of this mercy as consisteth with his sinful disposition and carnal interest He is willing enough to be happy in general and to be saved from hell fire and to be pardoned and to have such a heaven as he hath framed a pleasing imagination of 3. And therefore he maketh him up a Religion of so much of Christianity as will stand with his Pleasures profits and reputation in the world that so he may not be left in despair of being saved when he must leave the world that he must loved The cheap and the easie parts of Christianity and those that are most in credit in the world and that flesh and blood have least against these he will cull out from among the rest and make him a Religion of passing by the dearer and more difficult and spiritual parts 4. Having gone thus far he perswadeth his own heart that this kind of Religion which he hath patcht up and framed to himself 〈…〉 Religion the Faith the Hope the Charity the Repentance the Obedience to which Salvation is promised And that he is a true Christian notwithstanding his defects and that his spots are but such as are consistent with grace and that his sins are but pardoned infirmities and that he hath part in Christ and the promises of life and shall be saved though he be not of the preciser strain When he committeth any sin he confidently imagineth that his confession and his wishing it were undone again when he hath had all the pâ—easure that sin can give him is true repentance and that as a penitent he shall be forgiven And thus while he thinketh himself something when he is nothing he deceiveth himself Gal. 6. 3. He hath a counterfeit of every grace of God A counterfeit Faith and Hope and Love and Repentance and Zeal and Humility and Patience and Perseverance and these he will needs take to be the very life and image of Christ and the graces themselves that accompany salvation 5. Having got this Carkass of Religion without the soul he makes use of all those things to confirm him in his deceit which are appointed to confirm true Christians in their Faith and Hope When he reads or thinks of the infinite Goodness Love and Mercy of God he thinks God could not be so good and merciful if he should refuse to save all such as he When he readeth of the undertaking and sacrifice of Christ and how he is a propitiation for the sins of the whole world he confidently hence concludeth that a Saviour so gracious that hath done and suffered so much for sinners cannot condemn all such as he When he readeth of the extent and freeness of Grace in the promises of the Gospel he concludeth that these promises belong to him and that Grace could not be so free and so extensive if it did shut out all such as he When he observeth the Mercies of God upon his body in his friends and health and credit and prosperity he concludeth that surely God loveth him as a child in that he dealeth so Fatherly with him If he suffer adversity he thinks that it is the Fatherly chastisement of
God and therefore proveth him to be his son and that he shall have his good things in the world to come because he had his evils here If he suffer any thing for a good cause or a cause that he taketh to be good he taketh himself to be a Confessor and marked out for life eternal If he give any considerable alms he applyeth all the promises to himself that are made to those that are truly charitable though he giveth but the leavings of the flesh and giveth but on common compassions or for applause or for some common end and not as to Christ whom he honoureth in his members as one that hath resigned all unto him If he pray from the lips only or only for pardon and such other mercies as flesh it self would be glad to have without the unexpressable groans of the spirit for spiritual mercies Rom. 8. 26 he presently applyeth all the promises to himself that are made to the upright that call upon God And thus Love Mercy and Christ himself are abused by him to this damning work of self-deceit 6. Moreover he makes use of all the ordinances of God to the deceiving of his own heart The outward part of Baptism perswades him that he is inwardly regenerate He receiveth the Lords supper that he may confirm his presumption and increase his self-deceit as the godly receive it to confirm and increase their saving faith He joyneth with the Church in those prayers and praises that are fitted to the true believers state that he may thence more confidently deceive his own heart with the conceit that he is a true believer And thus he turneth the bread of life and all the helps and means of grace to the strengthening of his sin and the furthering of his perdition 7. Moreover this miserable self-deceiver doth usually get into such company as may further his self-deceit and maketh use of them to that end If he get into any holy well-ordered Church of Christians it is that by his outward communion with the Saints he may seem to himself to have inward communion with them If he get among able godly Ministers and other judicious Christians and finds that he is well esteemed of by them he is confirmed hereby in his presumption and self-deceit when alas we must in charity judge of men as they profess and seem and leave the infallible judgement of the heart to God Vsually this self-deceiving hypocrite doth associate with some carnal or factious men with whom he makes himself a party and such will smooth him up and make a Saint of him either because they are as bad themselves and dare not condemn him lest they condemn themselves or because they are flatterers and dawbers or men that were never themselves acquainted with those saving operations of the Spirit which he wants or because they are partial to one of their own faction And thus a formal hypocrite may be stroaked by Formalists and a Schismatical Hypocrite may be soothed up by those of his own Sect as lamentable experience telleth us that such do to the increase of their pernicious self-deceit Yea more then so if these hypocrites fall in company with the notoriously prophane from them they will fetch some confirmation of their self-deceit when they hear them swear and curse and rant and see them drunk they secretly with the Pharisee rejoyce and say I thank thee Lord that I am not as this Publican And this is one reason why such hypoorites are well content to have some servants in their families or some neighbours or company about them that are notoriously prophane that their deluded consciences considering that they are more civil and religious themselves may hence gather comfort that they are the servants of God and in a state of grace Hence also it is that those of them that go on the Schismatical side do purposely go into separated societies that by withdrawing from so many and as they speak coming out from among them they may seem to themselves to be fellow-Citizens with the Saints and to be of the little flock that shall have the Kingdom This is the use that self-deceivers make of their companions 8. Moreover the Hypocrite confirmeth his self-deceit by observing the great numbers of ungodly persons worse then he that are in the world This makes him think that God should be unmerciful and heaven be empty if all such as he should be shut out the damnation of so many seemeth so incredible to him that it much increaseth his confidence and self-deceit 9. And he deceiveth himself also by a misobserving and misapplying the falls and infirmities of the servants of the Lord and the scandalous lives of many Hypocrites like himself When he readeth of Noahs drunkenness and Lots drunkenness and incest and Davids adultery and murder and Peters denyal of his Master with cursing and swearing he considereth not how much these singular actions were contrary to the scope of their lives nor by what serious repentance they did rise and do so no more but he hence concludeth that sure he is in a state of grace that hath no such heinous sins as these though indeed he hath more heinous continually within him even a love of the world and pleasure above God a secret root of unbelief a servitude to the flesh c. when he seeth any about him that profess the fear of God prove Hypocrites or Apostates or fall into any scandalous sin he strengtheneth his presumption by it and concludeth that this profession of greater holiness then he himself hath is but Hypocrisie and that he is as good as those that seem more devout though he make not so much ado with his religion or at least that such as he shall be saved when those are so bad that are accounted better If there be but a Cham in the Ark and Family of Noah an Ishmael in Abrahams house an Esau in Jacobs an Absalom in Davids a Judas among the Disciples of Christ these self-deceivers will thence fetch matter for their own delusion and perdition as if the rest were all as bad or sanctification were not necessary to salvation 10. The self-deceiver also is confirmed in his presumption by taking to himself the comforts that Ministers hold forth for truly humbled upright souls that are apt to be too much disquieted and cast down Our Congregations are mixt of godly and ungodly and broken-hearted and hard-hearted dejected and self-confident sinners besides all those that are well setled in their spiritual peace And as we cannot tell how to tell the wicked of their misery nor open the Hypocrites self-deceit but the self-suspecting humbled souls will misapply it to themselves and be more dejected by it and say It is thus with me so we cannot tell how to comfort the distressed and clear up the evidences of a drooping soul but the presumptuous Hypocrite will lay hold upon it and think that it belongs to him Every comfortable Book or Scripture that he readeth
the Chappel of a Saint in Pilgrimage in carrying about them a bone or some other supposed relict of a supposed Saint In confessing their sins so often to a Priest and doing penance if he impose it on them And so while they live in whoredom or drunkenness or swearing or lying or all these and many other such it is but confessing and doing penance and to it again on which account whatever some of them say for the necessity of contrition it is usual with them to venture upon the sins of whoredom drunkenness and the rest because they have so easie and cheap a remedy at hand And therefore I wonder not that among Infidels who after Baptism Apostatize to deny the holy Scriptures and the immortality of the soul and the life to come and among common swearers and cursers and whoremongers and drunkards the Papists find their labours most successeful and that no fish will so easily take their bait Nor do I wonder that it is a point of the Popish faith that none but the Children of the Devil that are void of the love of God and are unjustified can possibly turn Papists For they tell us that all are such till they are Papists saving that they are many of them for the salvation of heathens A poor wretch that is captivated to his odious lusts and goes under a galled accusing conscience will be content to take a Popish cure and quiet his soul with a few complements and formalities But to bring one of these men to a through conversion to a true humiliation to a deep hatred of all sin and a love of holiness to close with Christ as his only refuge from the wrath of God and to give up himself without any reservation and all that he hath to the will and service of the Lord to love God as his portion and the infinite transcendent good to take all the honour and riches of the world as loss and dung and use all in due subserviency to everlasting happiness to crucifie the flesh and mortifie all his earthly inclinations and live a life of self-denyal and to walk with God and serve him as a Spirit in spirit and in truth and to keep a watch over thoughts affections words and deeds to live by faith upon a world and happiness that is to us unseen and to live in preparation for their death and wait in hope to live with Christ this is Christianity and true Religion and this is it that they will not so easily be brought to It s easier to make an hundred Papists then one true regenerate Christian Children can make them a baby of clouts And the statuary can make a man of Alabaster or stone But none can give life which is essential to a man indeed but God There needeth the Spirit of the living God by a supernatural operation and a kind of new creation to make a man a real holy Christian But to bring a man to make such a congee or wear such a vesture or say such and such words and make to himself a mimical Religion this may be done without any such supernatural work O therefore take heed of cheating your souls by hypocritical formalities instead of the life and power of Religion Vse 2. ANd now O that the Lord of life would help me so to apply this truth and help you so to apply it to your selves that it might be as a light set up in the Assembly and in all your consciences to undeceive the miserable self-deceivers and to bring poor Hypocrites into some better acquaintance with themselves and to turn their seeming Vain Religion into that which is real and serious and saving And now I am to search and convince the Hypocrite I could almost wish that all the upright tender souls that are causelesly in doubt of their own sincerity were out of the congregation lest they should misapply the Hypocrites portion to themselves and think it is their case that I am describing as it is usual with ignorant patients especially if they be a little melancholy when they hear or read the description of many dangerous diseases to think that all or some of them are theirs because they have some symptomes very like to some of those which they hear or read of Or lest their fearful souls should be too much terrified by hearing of the misery of the Hypocrite as a fearful child that 's innocent will cry when he sees another whipt that 's faulty But if thou wilt stay and hear the Hypocrites examination I charge thee poor humbled drooping soul that thou do not misunderstand me nor think that I am speaking those things to thee that are meant to the falshearted enemies of the Lord and do not imagine that thou art condemned in his condemnation nor put not thy self under the stroaks that are given him but rejoyce that thou art saved from this state of self-deceit and misery And that thou mayst have some shelter for thy conscience against the storm that must fall on others look back on the foregoing description of the Hypocrite and thou mayst find that thou hast the saving graces which I there discovered him to want Let these at present be before thine eyes and tell thee Thou art not the person that I mean 1. Thou art humbled to a loathing of thy self for thy transgressions 2. Thou art willing to give up thy self to Christ without reserve that as thy Saviour he may cure thy miserable soul upon his own terms 3. The favour of God is dearer to thee then the favour of the world or the pleasures and prosperity of sinners and thou longest more to love him better and to feel his love then for any of the honours or advancements that flesh and blood desire 4. It is the life to come that thou takest for thy portion and preferest before the matters of this transitory life 5. Thy Religion employeth thee about thy heart as much as about the out side and appearing part It is heart-sins that thou observest and lamentest and a better heart that thou daily longest and prayest and labourest for 6. Thou livest not in any gross and deadly sin and thou hast no infirmity but what thou longest and labourest to be rid of and goest on in the use of Christs holy means and remedies for a cure 7. Thou dislikest not the highest degree of holiness but lovest it and longest after it and hadst rather be more holy then be more honourable or more rich 8. Thou unfeignedly lovest the image of Christ on the souls of all his servants where thou canst discern it and seest a special excellency in a poor humble heavenly Christian though never so low or despicable in the world above all the pompe and splendor of the earth and thou lovest them with a special love and the holier they are the better dost thou love them 9. Thou lovest the most convincing searching Sermons and wouldest fain have help to know the worst that is in thy
world that are sanctified by his Spirit and made a holy peculiar people whom he loveth as his Spouse and as his own Body of which number you must be if you will be saved And yet at the same time the members of this Church you contemn the holiness of it you secretly hate and the faithfull Pastors in it you despise and disobey Is not this Hypocrisie 5. You all profess to Believe the Communion of Saints that is that the true members of the Catholike Church are all Saints that have one and the same Spirit and walk by the same holy Law or Rule and in holiness must converse together and joyn in Church order for the publick worshipping of God according to his own institution and must purely and fervently love each other with such a charity as shall make one as ready to relieve another when God calls for it as if our riches did belong in Common to the Saints This is the meaning of this Article of your Creed And do I then need to ask you Whether those that profess this are not Hypocrites if they hate the Saints and their inward spiritual Communion and if they love them but with that lifeless charity that James describeth Jam. 2. 14 15 c. Or if they despise or hate the Discipline Ordinances and Holy Communion of the Church And if they live in Communion with drunkards with harlots with worldlings or sensual vain or ambitious men and fly from the Communion of Saints what dost thou when thou sayst I believe the Communion of Saints but say I am a dissembling Hypocrite if it he thus with thee 6. You all profess to Believe the forgiveness of sins that is that through the blood of Christ all true repenting and believing sinners shall be forgiven and are not shut up under remediless despair And also I think you all profess that you do Repent your selves that Forgiveness may be yours And yet you love your sin you love not to be told of it you will not believe it to be sin as long as you can strive against conviction and when you must needs confess it you will not forsake it but while you seem to reform by parting with so much as you can spare your dearer sins which pleasure and honour and profit are much engaged in you will not forsake though repentance do consist in turning from sin to God and Christ hath assured you that except you repent you shall all perish Luk. 13. 3 5. Is not this therefore palpable hypocrisie to profess repentance for remission of sin and still keep the sin which you say you repent of as if you thought to mock God with names and shews 7. You all profess to Believe the Resurrection of the body and that Christ shall come again to judge the quick and dead But do you live as men that believe indeed that they are passing unto such a judgement If you seriously expected to be judged for your lives for the words you speak the deeds you do the time you spend the means of grace which you neglect or use and for all that you receive and do is it possible you could so waste your time and neglect the means of your salvation and sin so boldly and obstinately as you do 8. You all profess that you Believe the life everlasting that the Righteous shall go into their masters joy and the rest into everlasting punishment in hell Matth. 25. and 13. But do you not play the Hypocrites Can you heartily believe that you stand so near to heaven or hell to everlasting joy or torments and make no greater a matter of it nor make no better preparation for it nor bestir your selves no more in a case of such unspeakable weight If you believe sincerely the glory of heaven you set your hearts on it more then upon earth and take it for your portion and most desireable felicity But do I need to tell the worldly fleshly Hypocrite how far he is from this 9. You profess as the summ of the ten Commandements that you Love God above all and your neighbours as your selves But doth not your selfishness and quarreling with your neighbours when they do but stand in the way of your honour or commodity convince you of hypocrisie in this profession 10. In the use of the Lords prayer what word do you speak that is not in hypocrisie Do you first and principally desire the hallowing of Gods name the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will when you are far more tender of your own names then of Gods and more regardful of your own honour And when you care more for your own prosperity then for the prosperity of the Church and Gospel and do your selves become the hinderers of his Kingdom and Government in the Church and in the souls of men And when you cannot abide to do his Will when it crosseth the interest of your flesh but dislike it as too strict and had rather the Word and Will of God were agreeable to yours then you will conform your own to his Do you only desire Your daily bread and that in subordination to the honour and Kingdom and will of God Or rather do you not play the Hypocrites in saying so when it is not daily bread that will content you but plenty and prosperity is sweeter to you then holiness When you pray for The forgiveness of your sins as you forgive others you intimate that you are weary of your sins and hate them and would forsake them and that you forgive all that have wronged you out of the sense of your own transgressions and of the love of Christ but is all this so or is it meer dissembling when you forsake not your sin nor are willing to forsake it and when your consciences know that there be some that you forgive not You pray against being led into temptation and yet you love it and cast your selves into it Into tempting company and tempting talk and tempting employments And for recreation meat drink apparel houses attendants estate reputation and almost all things else you love and choose that which is most tempting You pray to be delivered from evil when the evil of your pride flesh pleasing and worldliness you so love that indeed you would not be delivered from them What can you say to excuse all this from palpable Hypocrisie To conclude you pretend to all that necessary to salvation but have you that in reality which you pretend to 1. You think your selves wise enough to be saved But is it not folly that goes under the name of wisedom When you should be converted and lead a holy life you are wise enough to give reasons for the contrary and wise enough to confute the Preacher and prove him a fool instead of obeying the call of God You are wise enough to prove the Physician to be ignorant and to cast away the medicine that should heale you And what if no body could deal with you
at as the only dissemblers of the world You must not only be honest but patiently expect to be accounted dishonest you must not only bewise and sober but patiently expect to be accounted fools and mad men You must not only be liberal charitable and contemners of the world but patiently expect to be called covetous even though you give away all that you have You must not only be chaste and temperate but also patiently expect to be defamed as incontinent and licentious and as Christ was called a wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners A Minister must not only lay out himself wholly for the saving of mens souls and spend himself and all that he hath on his Masters work but also patiently expect to be accounted unfaithful coveâ—ous and negligent and murmured at by almost all whose unreasonable desires he doth not answer and be censured by almost all whose wills and humours he doth not fulfill and that is most that have a self that ruleth at home and therefore they think should be the Idol of others as it is their own and that are but unacquainted with the reasons of those things that do displease them It s little comfort to us to do good if we cannot bear the estimation of doing evil and cannot lose all the observation acknowledgement and applause of man as if we had never done the good at all It is far from Christian perfection to be honest and godly and sincere if we must needs be accounted to be as we are and cannot patiently be esteemed dishonest ungodly and hypocritical and be judged worst when we are best what have the servants of Christ lost their lives for in flames and by other sorts of torments but for the best of their service and greatest of their piety and fidelity When dogs bark at passengers commonly it signifieth but two things viz. that they are persons that they know not or that they hate but it is no sign that the persons are bad or poor or sick For be they never so bad and miserable if they know them and love them the dogs will not bark at them See that thou be not an Hypocrite and then it must be accounted a small matter by thee to be called an Hypocrite yea if persons that fear God themselves shall so esteem thee it is no other affliction but what thou must be armed for and patiently undergo Even from the godly through mistake we oft suffer most for our greatest duties and are censured most for that which God and conscience most approve us for and lose our reputations for that which God would be greatly offended with us if we did otherwise As ever then you would not prove your selves Hypocrites see that you look not for the Hypocrites reward as Christ calls it Matth. 6. 2. which is to be approved of men be they good or bad men their overvalued applause may be but the Hypocrites reward To be content and patient in doing well and being judged to do ill and in being good and being judged to be bad is the property of him that is sincere indeed therefore to be unthankfully requited and reviled and spit upon and buffeted and shamefully used and put to death even by those whose lives and souls he had with greatest care and condescension pittied this was the pattern of love and self-denyal that was set us by our Lord. And though we cannot reach his measure and distempered Christians find much strugling before they can bring themselves to patience under such ingratitude and unworthy usage from the world especially from their mistaken froward brethren yet in some prevailing measure it must be done For he that cannot serve God without the Hypocrites reward is but an Hypocrite If he will not be a Christian obedient charitable diligent faithful for heaven and the pleasing of God alone he is not a Christian indeed And alas what a pittiful reward is it to be thought well of and applauded by the tongues of mortal men How few were ever the more holy by applause but thousands have been hurt if not undone by it Thou givest all thou hast to the poor thou spendest thy self wholly and all that thou hast for the service of God and the good of others Its well it must be so But after all thou art censured slandered vilified and unthankfully and unmannerly used And what of that what harm dost thou fear by it what advantage thy pride and selfishness might have taken even by due applause and thankfulness its easie to perceive But now the temptation is taken out of thy way thou art secluded from all creature-comforts and so art directed and almost forced to look up to the love of God alone Now thou hast no other reward before thee it s easier to look singly on the Saints reward When God hath no competitour to whom else then canst thou turn thy thoughts when all others abuse thee it is easiest to have recourse to him When earth will scarce afford thee any quiet habitation thou 'lt surely look to heaven for rest Thus much I thought meet to interpose here for the confirmation of the sincere on occasion of the worlds unjust accusations and so to perswade them to be satisfied in the portion of the sincere I now return again to the self-deceiver ANd here I shall conclude all with these two requests to you which as one that foreseeth the approaching misery of self-deceivers I earnestly intreat you for the sake of your immortal souls that you will not deny me The first is that you will be now but as willing to try your selves as I have been to help you and as diligent and faithful when you are alone in calling your own hearts to a close examination as I have been to hold the light here to you O refuse not delay not to withdraw your selves sometimes from the world and set your selves as before the eye of God and there bethink your selves whether you have been what you have vowed and profest to be and whether that God hath been dearest to your hearts and obeyed in your lives and desired as your happiness who hath been confessed and honoured with your lips Consider there that God judgeth not as man nor will he think ever the better of you for thinking well of your selves and that there must go more to prove your approbation with God then commonly goes to keep up your reputation in the world The Religion that serveth to honour you before men and to deceive your selves will never serve to please the Lord and save your souls And the day is at hand when nothing but God can give you comfort and when self-deceivers will become everlastingly self-tormentors O therefore go willingly and presently to the Word to your lives and hearts and consciences and try your selves and try again and that with moderate suspicion that in so great a business you may not be deceived and be self-deceivers 2. My second request is that if you do
discover or but justly suspect your selves of hypocrisie and self-deceit you would stick there no longer but presently change your vain Religion your seemings and formalities for the power of godliness and sincerity of heart But I suppose that some of you will say There lies the difficulty O that we could do it But how should it be done I answer If thou be really willing to be above Hypocrisie and a vain Religion the cure is half wrought at least And I will not tire thee now with many but help and try thee by these few directions In general Be but what thou hast promised and vowed to be in thy Baptism and what thou still dost profess to be as a Christian and it will serve the turn what that is I have told you before More particularly Direct 1. Deliberately renew thy Covenant with God and with a grieved heart bewailing that thou hast been a Covenant-breaker give up thy self presently to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as thy Creatour Redeemer and Sanctifier thy Owner thy Ruler and thy Father 2. Renounce sincerely the Devil the World and the Flesh and be at a point with all below and quit all conceits and hopes of felicity or rest on earth And absolutely devote and resign thy self and all thou hast to the will and service of thy Lord without any secret exceptions or reserves This is the property and plague of Hypocrites that secretly they have exceptions and reserves in giving up themselves to God They will follow him except it would disgrace them or undo them in the world he shall have all provided the flesh may not be too much pinched that is in plain English they take him not for God but for a second to themselves and the world and will give him but what the flesh can spare 3. Fix the eye of a lively faith upon God and upon the everlasting joyes and there take up thy whole reward and look for no other Quit all expectations of a reward from men Let it seem a small thing to thee what any mortal man shall think or speak of thee unless as Gods honour or interest is concerned in thine I have told you before that he is an Hypocrite that will not be godly without the Hypocrites reward and that can sail no further then he is moved by the wind of mans applause or of some other worldly end 4. Stick not in any externals of Religion nor in notions and barren uneffectual opinions So far art thou Religious as thy soul is engaged unto God and thy life imployed for him And so far thou dost truly worship him as thy heart is drawn up to him in love and as thou dost fear him admire him trust him and take thy pleasure in him Think not that it is a saving Religiousness to be of such or such an opinion or such a party or such a Church or to say over so many words of prayer or to keep a task of outward duties or to be of a ready voluble tongue in Preaching Prayer or Discourse Religion lyeth in the Heart and Life 5. Indulge not thy self in one known sin Retain no gross or willfull sin Plead for no Infirmity but make it the business of thy life to extirpate the relicts of the body of death Be willing of the most searching Word and of the plainest reproof and of all the help thou canst get against so dangerous an enemy 6. Stint not thy self in any low degrees of holiness but love and long and strive after the highest If thou bear a secret core of distast against those that outgo thee it is a mortal sign Thou must be perfect in desire or thou art not sincere 7. Walk alwaies as in the presence of the holy dreadful heart-searching God Remember that he seeth thy ends thine affections and all thy thoughts Be the same therefore in secret as thou art in publike sincerely search the Word of God and know what it is that he would have and that resolve on if all the world should be against it Unresolvedness is hypocrisie and temporizing or following the greater side for the security of the flesh is no better Never think thou canst be too holy or too obedient But make it thy study to do God all the service that thou canst whatever suffering or cost it put thee to Be not ashamed openly to own the cause of Christ In the presence of the greatest remember that thy master is so much greater that they are worms and vanity to him Take heed of culling out the easie and cheap part of Religion and laying by the difficult and dear Thy Religion must be as the heart in thy breast which is alwaies working and by which thou livest which cannot stop long but thou wilt die But the Hypocrites Religion is like the Hâ—t upon his head for ornament and shelter from the weather and not for life in the night when none seeth him he can lye without it and in the day he can put it off for the sake of a friend and perhaps stand bare in the presence of a greater person that expecteth it So can the Hypocrite too oft dispense with his Religion 8. Be hearty and serious in all thou dost Hear and read and pray as for thy life Sincerity consisteth much in seriousness Remember thou art almost at another world while I am speaking and thou art hearing we are both hasting to our endless state O how should men live on earth that must live here for so short a time and must live for ever in heaven or hell These things are true and past all question and therefore for your fouls sake lose not heaven by trifling Pray not in jeast and serve not God in jeast and resist not sin in jeast least you be damned in good sadness When you are at work for eternity its time to do it with all your might O what unconceivable mercies are now offered you O what an excellent price is in your hands and nothing is so likely to deprive you of the benefit as dreaming and dallying when you should be up and doing as if this were not your business but your play and salvation and damnation were matters of sport O do but set your selves to the pleasing of God and the saving of your souls with all your might and ply it with diligence as your chiefest work and then you are out of the danger of the Hypocrite But if still you will give the world the preheminence and your flesh must be pleased and your prosperity secured and God must have but complements or the leavings your misery is at hand and vengeance shall undeceive those hearts that would not be undeceived by the Word And you shall remember to the increase of your anguish that you were told this day that your seeming trifling Religion would prove vain But I beseech you as you are men as you love your souls dismiss us with some better hopes and now resolve to be downright