A Christian Directory Volume I Part 45

_Direct._ VI. Take notice of the doleful effects of hard-heartedness in the world. This fills the world with wickedness and confusion, with wars and bloodshed; and leaveth it under that lamentable desertion and delusion, which we behold in the far greatest part of the earth. How many kingdoms are left in the blindness of heathenism and Mahometanism, for hardening their hearts against the Lord! How many christian nations are given up to the most gross deceits of popery, and princes and people are enemies to reformation, because they hardened their hearts against the light of truth! What vice so odious, even beastly filthiness, and bitterest hatred, and persecution of the ways of G.o.d, which men of all degrees and ranks do not securely wallow in through the hardness of their hearts! This is the thing that grieves the G.o.dly, that wearieth good magistrates, and breaks the hearts of faithful ministers: when they have done their best, they are fain, as Christ himself before them, to grieve for the hardness of men's hearts. Alas! we live among the dead; our towns and countries are in a sadder case than Egypt, when every house had a dead man. Even in our churches, it were well if the dead were only under ground, and most of our seats had not a dead man, that sitteth as if he heard, and kneeleth as if he prayed, when nothing ever pierced to the quick. We have studied the most quickening words, we have preached with tears in the most earnest manner, and yet we cannot make them feel! as if we cried like Baal's wors.h.i.+ppers, O Baal, hear us! or, like the Irish to their dead, Why wouldst thou die, and leave thy house, and lands, and friends? So we talk to them about the death of their souls, and their wilful misery, who never feel the weight of any thing we say: we are left to ring them a peal of lamentation, and weep over them as the dead that are not moved by our tears: we cast the seed into stony ground, Matt. xiii. 5, 20; it stops in the surface, and it is not in our power to open their hearts, and get within them. I confess that we are much to blame ourselves, that ever we did speak to such miserable souls, without more importunate earnestness and tears; (and it is because the stone of the heart is much uncured in ourselves; for which G.o.d now justly layeth so many of us by;) but yet, we must say, our importunity is such, as leaveth them without excuse. We speak to them of the greatest matters in all the world; we speak it to them in the name of G.o.d; we show them his own word for it; and plead with them the arguments which he hath put into our mouths; and yet we speak as to posts and stones, to men past feeling. What a pitiful sight was it to see Christ stand weeping over Jerusalem, for the hardness of their hearts, and the nearness and greatness of their misery! while they themselves were so far from weeping for it, that they raged against the life of him that so much pitied them! We bless G.o.d that it is not thus with all. He hath encouraged some of us with the heart-yielding, obedient attention of many great congregations: but, among the best, alas! how many of these hardened sinners are mixed! and, in many places, how do they abound! Hence it is that such odious abominations are committed; such filthiness, and lying, and perjury, and acts of malicious enmity against the servants of the Lord; and that so many are haters of G.o.d and G.o.dliness. If Satan had not first hardened their hearts, he could never have brought them to such odious crimes, as now with impudency are committed in the land. As Lot's daughters were fain to make their father drunk, that he might commit the sin of incest; so the devil doth first deprive men both of reason and feeling, that he might bring them to such heinous wickedness as this, and make them laugh at their own destruction, and abhor those most that fain would save them. And they are not only past feeling, but so hate any quickening ministry, or truth, or means which would recover their feeling, that they seem to go to h.e.l.l as some condemned malefactors to the gallows, that make themselves drunk before they go, as if it were all they had to care for to keep themselves hoodwinked, from knowing or feeling whither they go, till they are there.

See what a picture of a hardened people G.o.d giveth to Ezekiel, chap.

iii. 7, "But the house of Israel will not hearken to thee; for they will not hearken to me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted." Observe but what a case it is that they are so insensible of, and then you will see what a hard-hearted sinner, past feeling, is.

1. They are the servants of sin, Rom. vi. 16; in the power of it, corrupted by it; and yet they feel it not.

2. They have the guilt of many thousand sins upon them, all is unpardoned that ever they committed; and yet they feel it not.

3. They have the threatenings and curses of G.o.d in force against them in his word; even words so terrible, as you would think might affright them out of their sins or their wits; and they take on them to believe this word of G.o.d; and yet they feel not.

4. They are in the power of the devil; ruled and deceived by him, and taken captive by him at his will, Acts xxvi. 18; 2 Tim. ii. 26.

5. They may be certain that if they die in this condition they shall be d.a.m.ned, and they are uncertain whether they shall live another day; they are never sure to be one hour longer out of h.e.l.l; and yet they feel not.

6. They know that they must die, and that it is a great change, and of the greatest endless consequence, that death will make with them; and they know that this is sure and near, and are past doubt of it; and yet they feel it not.[146]

7. They must shortly appear before the Lord, and be judged for all that they have done in the body, and be doomed to their endless state; and yet they feel not.

8. They know that life is short, and that they have but a little time to prepare for all this terrible change, and that it must go with them for ever, as they now prepare; and yet they feel not.

9. They hear and read of the case of hardened, wicked men, that have gone before them, and have resisted grace, and lost their time, as they now do; and they read or hear of the miserable end that such have come to; and yet they feel not.

10. They have a world of examples continually before them; they see the filthy lives of many for their warning, and the holy lives of others for their imitation, and see how Christ and Satan strive for souls; and yet they feel not.

11. They are always before the eye of G.o.d, and do all things before his face; he warneth them, and calleth them to repentance; and yet they feel not.

12. They have Christ as it were crucified before their eyes, Gal. iii.

1: they hear of his sufferings; they may see in him what sin is, and what the love of G.o.d is; he pleadeth with them his blood and sufferings against their obstinate unkindness; and yet they feel not.

13. They have everlasting joy and glory offered them, and heaven so opened to them in G.o.d's promises, that they may see it as in a gla.s.s, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. They take on them to believe how much the blessed spirits there abhor such wickedness as theirs; and yet they feel not.

14. They have the torments of h.e.l.l opened to them in the word of G.o.d; they read what impenitent souls must suffer to all eternity; they hear some in despair in this life, roaring in the misery of their souls; they hear the joyful thanksgivings of believers, that Christ delivereth them from those torments; and yet they feel not.

15. All the promises of salvation in the gospel do put in an exception against these men, "unless they be converted:" they are made to the penitent, and not to the impenitent. There is justification and life; but not for them. "There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," Rom.

viii. 1. "But he that believeth not, is condemned already," John iii.

18, 36. And they that "after their hardness and impenitent hearts, do treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, shall have tribulation and anguish," Rom. ii. 5-7. Here is comfort for repenting sinners, but none (but on condition they repent) for them: when others are welcomed to Christ's marriage feast, he saith to these, "How came you in hither?" and yet they feel not.

16. They still carry about with them the doleful evidences of all this misery. One would think the ambitious, and covetous, and voluptuous might see these death-marks on themselves; and the unG.o.dly might feel that G.o.d hath not their hearts; especially they that hate the G.o.dly, and show their wolfish cruelty against them, and are the progeny of Cain; and yet they feel not any of this, but live as quietly, and talk as pleasantly, as if all were well with them, and their souls were safe, and their calling and election were made sure. Alas! if these souls were not hardened in sin, we should see it in their tears, or hear it in their complaints; they would after sermon sometimes come to the minister, as they, Acts ii. 37; xvi. 30, "Sirs, what must we do to be saved?" or we should see it in their lives, or hear of it by report of others, who would observe the change that grace hath made; and sermons would stick longer by them, and not at best be turned off with a fruitless commendation; and saying, it was a good sermon, and there is an end of it. Judge now by this true description which I have given you, what a hardened sinner is. And then the G.o.dly may so see cause to bewail the remnants of this mischief, as yet to be daily thankful to G.o.d that they are not in the power of it.

_Direct._ VII. Live, if you can possibly, under a lively, quickening ministry, and in the company of serious, lively christians. It is true, that we should be deeply affected with the truths of G.o.d, how coldly soever they be delivered. But the question is not, what is our duty; but what are our disease, and our necessity, and the proper remedy. All men should be so holy, as not to need any exhortations to conversion at all: but shall the ministers therefore neglect such exhortations, or they that need them turn away their ears? Hear, if possible, that minister that first feels what he speaks, and so speaks what he feels, as tendeth most to make you feel. "Cry aloud; spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Israel their sins," Isa. lviii. 1, 2.

Though such "as seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinances of their G.o.d." G.o.d is the chief agent; but he useth to work according to the fitness of the instrument. O woeful case! to hear a dead minister speaking to a dead people, the living truths of the living G.o.d! As Christ said, "If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch." And if the dead must raise the dead, and the unG.o.dly enemies of a holy life must bring men to G.o.dliness and to a holy life, it must be by such a power as once made use of clay and spittle, to open the eyes of the blind. It seems it was a proverb in Christ's days, "Let the dead bury their dead:" but not, Let the dead raise the dead. G.o.d may honour the bones of the dead prophet, (2 Kings xiii. 21,) with the raising a corpse that is cast into its grave, and toucheth them. A meeting of a dead minister and a dead people, is like a place of graves: and though it be a lamentable thing to hear a man speak without any life, of life eternal, yet G.o.d can concur to the quickening of a soul. But sure we have no great reason to expect that ordinarily he should convert men so miraculously, without the moral apt.i.tude of means. It is most incongruous for any man in his familiar discourse, to speak without great seriousness and reverence of things concerning life eternal. But for a preacher to talk of G.o.d, of Christ, of heaven, and h.e.l.l, as coldly and sleepily, as if he were persuading men not to believe him, or regard him, that no more regards himself, is less tolerable. It is a sad thing to hear a man draw out a dreaming, dull discourse, about such astonis.h.i.+ng weighty things; and to speak as if it were the business of his art, to teach men to sleep while the names of heaven and h.e.l.l are in their ears; and not to be moved while they hear the message of the living G.o.d, about their life or death everlasting. If a man tell in the streets of a fire in the town, or a soldier bring an alarm of the enemy at the gates, in a reading or jesting tone, the hearers will neglect him, and think that he believeth not himself. I know it is not mere noise that will convert a soul: a bawling fervency, which the hearers may discern to be but histrionical and affected, and not to come from a serious heart, doth harden the auditors worst of all. A rude, unreverent noise is unbeseeming an amba.s.sador of Christ. But an ignorant saying of a few confused words, or a sleepy recital of the most pertinent things, do as little beseem them. Christ raised not Lazarus by the loudness of his voice: but where the natural ears are the pa.s.sage to the mind, the voice and manner should be suitable to the matter. Noise without seriousness and pertinent matter, is like gunpowder without bullet, that causeth sound and no execution. And the weightiest matter without clear explication and lively application, is like bullet without powder. If you will throw cannon bullets at the enemy with your hands, they will sooner fall on your feet than on them. And it is deadness aggravated by hypocrisy, when a lifeless preacher will pretend moderation, as if he were afraid of speaking too loud and earnestly, lest he should awake the dead, whom lightning and thunder will not awake: and when he will excuse himself by accusing those that are not as drowsy or dead as he; and would make men believe that seriousness is intemperate rage or madness. If you are cast upon a cold and sleepy minister, consider the matter more than the manner; but choose not such a one for the cure of hardness and insensibility of heart.

_Direct._ VIII. Take notice, how sensible tender-hearted christians are of sins far less than those that you make a jest of; and how close those matters come to their hearts, that touch not yours. And have not you as much cause to be moved as they? and as much need to lay such things to heart? Did you but know what a trouble it is to them, to be haunted with temptations to the unbelief and atheism which prevaileth with you, though they are far from choosing them, or delighting in them; did you see how involuntary thoughts and frailties make some of them weary of themselves; and how they even hate their hearts for believing no more, and loving G.o.d no more, and for being so strange to G.o.d and heaven, when yet there is nothing in the world so dear to them, nor hath so much of their estimation or endeavour; you would think, sure, that if such hearts had your sin and misery to feel, they would feel it to their grief indeed, unless the sin itself did hinder the feeling, as it doth with you. Let tender-hearted christians instruct you, and not be witnesses against you.

_Direct._ IX. Take heed of hardening company, examples, and discourse.

To hear men rail and scoff at holiness, and curse, and swear, and blaspheme the name and truth of G.o.d, will at first make you tremble; but if you wilfully cast yourself ordinarily into such company, by degrees your sense and tenderness will be gone, and you will find a very great hardening power, in the company, and frequent discourse, and practices, which yourselves condemn.

_Direct._ X. Take heed of wilful sinning against knowledge; much more of lying in such sin, unrepented of. It greatly hardeneth, to sin against knowledge; and much more to commit such sins over and over.

This grieveth and driveth away the Spirit, and dangerously provoketh G.o.d to leave men to themselves.

_Direct._ XI. Take heed of being customary in the use of those means that must be the means of curing hardened hearts. If once the lively preaching, and holy living, and fervent praying, of the servants of G.o.d, be taken by thee but as matters of course, and thou go with them to church and to prayers, but as to eat or drink, or kneel with them but for custom, thou wilt be as the smith's dog, that can sleep by the anvil, while the hammers are beating, and the sparks are flying about his ears. It is dangerous to grow customary and dull, under powerful, lively helps.

_Direct._ XII. Be often with the sick, and in the house of mourning, and read thy lesson in the churchyard, and let the grave, and bones, and dust instruct thee. When thou seest the end of all the living, perhaps thou will somewhat lay it to heart. Sight will sometimes do more than the hearing of greater things. Fear may possibly touch the heart, that hath not yet so much ingenuity as to be melted by the force of love. And ordinarily, the humbling and softening of a hard, impenitent heart begins in fear, and ends in love. The work of preparation is in a manner the work of fear alone. The first work of true conversion is begun in a great measure of fear, and somewhat of love; but so little as is scarce perceived, because of the more sensible operations of fear. And as a christian groweth, his love increaseth, till perfect love in the state of perfection have cast out all tormenting fear, though not our reverence or filial fear of G.o.d.

Look, therefore, into the grave, and remember, man, that thou must die!--thou must die!--it is past all controversy that thou must die!

And dost thou know where thou must appear, when death hath once performed its office? Dost thou not believe that after death comes judgment? Dost thou not know that thou art now in a life of trial, in order to endless joy or misery? and that this life is to be lived but once? and if thou miscarry now, thou art undone for ever? and that all the hope of preventing thy d.a.m.nation, is now, while this life of trial doth continue? "Now is the accepted time: this is the day of salvation." If h.e.l.l be prevented, it must be now prevented! If ever thou wilt pray, if ever thou wilt be converted, if ever thou wilt be made an heir of heaven, it must be now! O man! how quickly will patience have done with thee, and time be gone! and then, O then, it will be too late! Knowest thou not, that all the care, and labour, and hope of the devil for thy d.a.m.nation, is laid out this way, if it be possible, to find thee other work, or take thee up with other thoughts, or keep thee asleep with presumptuous hopes, and carnal mirth, and pleasures, and company, or quiet thee by delays, till time be gone, and it be too late? And wilt thou let him have his will, and pleasure him with thy own perdition? Dost thou think these are not things to be considered on? Do they not deserve thy speediest and most serious thoughts? At least use thy reason and self-love to the awakening, and moving, and softening thy hardened heart.

PART III.

_Directions against Hypocrisy._

Hypocrisy is the acting the part of a religious person, as upon a stage, by one that is not religious indeed;[147] a seeming in religion to be what you are not, or to do what you do not; or a dissembling or counterfeiting that piety which you have not. To counterfeit a state of G.o.dliness is the sin only of the unregenerate, who at the present are in a state of misery: to counterfeit some particular act of G.o.dliness, or some higher degree, is an odious sin, but such as a regenerate person may be tempted into. This act of hypocrisy doth not denominate the person a hypocrite; but the state of hypocrisy doth.

Every hypocrite therefore is an unG.o.dly person, seeming G.o.dly; or one that indeed is no true christian, professing himself a christian. Of hypocrites there be two sorts: some desire to deceive others, but not themselves, but know themselves to be but dissemblers; and these are commonly called, gross hypocrites: and some deceive both themselves and others, and think they are no hypocrites, but are as confident of their honesty and sincerity, as if they were no dissemblers at all: but yet they are as verily hypocrites as the former, because they seem to be religious and sincere, when indeed they are not, though they think they are; and profess themselves to be true christians, when they are nothing less. These are called close hypocrites, because they know not themselves to be hypocrites; though they might know it if they would. This is the commonest sort of hypocrites.

There are also two degrees of hypocrites: some of them have only a general profession of christianity and G.o.dliness, which is the professed religion of the country where they live; and these are hypocrites because they profess to be what they are not: and others make a greater and extraordinary profession of special strictness in their religion, when they are not sincere; and these are eminently called hypocrites: such as the Pharisees were among the Jews, and many friars, and Jesuits, and nuns among the papists, who by their separating vows, and orders, and habits, profess extraordinarily an extraordinary measure of devotion, while they want the life of G.o.dliness.

In all hypocrisy there is considerable, 1. The thing pretended; 2. The pretence, or means of seeming, or the cloak of their deceit. 1. The thing pretended by common hypocrites is to be true christians, and servants of G.o.d, and heirs of heaven, though not to be so zealous in it as some of a higher degree. The thing pretended by eminent hypocrites is to be zealous, eminent christians, or at least to be sincere in a special manner, while they discern the common hypocrite not to be sincere. 2. The cloak of seeming or pretence by which they would be thought to be what they are not, is any thing in general that hath an appearance of G.o.dliness, and is apt to make others think them G.o.dly. And thus there are divers sorts of hypocrites, according to the variety of their cloaks or ways of dissimulation; though hypocrisy itself be in all of them the same thing. As among the very Mahometans, and heathens, there oft arise some notable hypocrites, that by pretended revelations and austerity of life, profess themselves (as Mahomet did) to be holy persons, that had some extraordinary familiarity with G.o.d or angels. So among the papists there are, besides the common ones, as many sorts of hypocrites as they have self-devised orders. And every where the cloak of the common hypocrite is so thin and transparent, that it showeth his nakedness to the more intelligent sort: and this puts the eminent hypocrite upon some more laudable pretence, that is not so transparent.

As for instance, the hypocrisy of common papists, whose cloak is made up of penances and ceremonies, of saying over Latin words, or numbering words and beads for prayers, with all the rest of their trumpery before named, (chap. iii. gr. direct. xv. direct. xi.) is so thin a cloak that it will not satisfy some among themselves, but they withdraw into distinct societies and orders, (the church and the profession of christianity being not enough for them,) that they may be religious, as if they saw that the rest are not religious. And then the common sort of unG.o.dly protestants have so much wit, as to see through the cloak of all the popish hypocrisy; and therefore they take up a fitter for themselves; and that is, the name of a protestant reformed religion and church, joined to the common profession of christianity. The name and profession of a christian and a protestant, with going to church, and a heartless lip-service or saying their prayers, is the cloak of all unG.o.dly protestants. Others, discerning the thinness of this cloak, do think to make themselves a better; and they take up the strictest opinions in religion, and own those which they account the strictest party, and own that which they esteem the purest and most spiritual wors.h.i.+p: the cloak of these men is their opinions, party, and way of wors.h.i.+p, while their carnal lives detect their hypocrisy. Some that see through all these pretences, do take up the most excellent cloak of all, and that is, an appearance of serious spirituality in religion, with a due observation of all the outward parts and means, and a reformation of life, in works of piety, justice, and charity; I say, an appearance of all these, which if they had indeed, they were sincere, and should be saved; in which the G.o.dly christian goeth beyond them all.

By this it is plain, that among us in England all men that are not saints are hypocrites, because that all (except here or there a Jew or infidel) profess themselves to be christians; and every true christian is a saint. They know that none but saints or G.o.dly persons shall be saved; and there is few of them that will renounce their hopes of heaven; and therefore they must pretend to be all G.o.dly. And is it not most cursed, horrid hypocrisy, for a man to pretend to religion as the only way to his salvation, and confidently call himself a christian, while he hateth and derideth the power and practice of that very religion which he doth profess? Of this see my Treatise of "The vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite."

The hypocrite's ends in his pretences and dissemblings are not all the same: one intendeth the pleasing of parents, or some friends on whom he doth depend, that will else be displeased with him, and think ill of him. Another intendeth the pleasing of the higher powers, when it falls out that they are friends to G.o.dliness. Another intends the preserving of his esteem with religious persons, that they may not judge him wicked and profane. Another intendeth the hiding of some particular villany, or the success of some ambitious enterprise. But the most common end is to quiet and comfort their guilty souls, with an image of that holiness which they are without, and to steal some peace to their consciences by a lie: and so because they will not be religious indeed, they will take up some show or image of religion, to make themselves as well as others believe that they are religious.[148]

_Direct._ I. To escape hypocrisy, understand well wherein the life and power of G.o.dliness doth consist, and wherein it differeth from the lifeless image or corpse of G.o.dliness. The life of G.o.dliness is expressed in the seventeen grand directions in chap. iii. It princ.i.p.ally consisteth in such a faith in Christ, as causeth us to love G.o.d above all, and obey him before all, and prefer his favour and the hopes of heaven before all the pleasures, or profits, or honours of the world; and to wors.h.i.+p him in spirit and truth, according to the direction of his word. The images of religion I showed you before, page 176. Take heed of such a lifeless image.

_Direct._ II. See that your chief study be about the heart, that there G.o.d's image may be planted, and his interest advanced, and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out, and the love of holiness succeed; and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do good in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a christian is about his heart. There it is that G.o.d dwelleth by his Spirit, in his saints; and there it is that sin and Satan reign, in the unG.o.dly. The great duties and the great sins are those of the heart.

There is the root of good and evil: the tongue and life are but the fruits and expressions of that which dwelleth within.[149] The inward habit of sin is a second nature: and a sinful nature is worse than a sinful act. "Keep your hearts with all diligence: for from thence are the issues of life," Prov. iv. 23. Make the tree good, and the fruit will be good: but the "viperous generation that are evil, cannot speak good; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," Matt.

xii. 33, 34. Till the Spirit have regenerated the soul, all outward religion will be but a dead and pitiful thing: though there is something which G.o.d hath appointed an unregenerate man to do, in order to his own conversion, yet no such antecedent act will prove that the person is justified or reconciled to G.o.d, till he be converted. To make up a religion of doing or saying something that is good, while the heart is void of the Spirit of Christ, and sanctifying grace, is the hypocrite's religion, Rom. viii. 9.

_Direct._ III. Make conscience of the sins of the thoughts, and the desire and other affections or pa.s.sions of the mind, as well as of the sins of tongue or hand. A l.u.s.tful thought, a malicious thought, a proud, ambitious, or covetous thought, especially if it proceed to a wish, or contrivance, or consent, is a sin the more dangerous by how much the more inward and near the heart; as Christ hath showed you, Matt. v. and vi. The hypocrite who most respecteth the eye of man, doth live as if his thoughts were free.

_Direct._ IV. Make conscience of secret sins, which are committed out of the sight of men, and may be concealed from them, as well as of open and notorious sins. If he can do it in the dark and secure his reputation, the hypocrite is bold: but a sincere believer doth bear a reverence to his conscience, and much more to the all-seeing G.o.d.

_Direct._ V. Be faithful in secret duties, which have no witness but G.o.d and conscience: as meditation, and self-examination, and secret prayer; and be not only religious in the sight of men.

_Direct._ VI. In all public wors.h.i.+p be more laborious with the heart, than with the tongue or knee: and see that your tongue overrun not your heart, and leave it not behind. Neglect not the due composure of your words, and due behaviour of your bodies: but take much more pains for the exercise of holy desires from a believing, loving, fervent soul.

_Direct._ VII. Place not more in the externals, or modes, or circ.u.mstances, or ceremonies of wors.h.i.+p, than is due; and lay not out more zeal for indifferent or little things than cometh to their share; but let the great substantials of religion have the precedency, and be far preferred before them.[150] Let the love of G.o.d and man be the sum of your obedience; and be sure you learn well what that meaneth, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." And remember, that the great thing which G.o.d requireth of you, is "to do justice, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your G.o.d.--Destroy not him with your meat for whom Christ died." Call not for fire from heaven upon dissenters; and think not every man intolerable in the church, that is not in every little matter of your mind. Remember that the hypocrisy of the Pharisees is described by Christ, as consisting in a zeal for their own traditions, and the inventions of men, and the smallest matters of the ceremonial law, with a neglect of the greatest moral duties, and a furious cruelty against the spiritual wors.h.i.+ppers of G.o.d. Matt. xv. 2, "Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread." Ver.

7-10, "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy 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 do they wors.h.i.+p me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matt.

xxiii. 4-6, 13, 14, &c. "They bind heavy burdens, which they touch not themselves. All their works they do to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments; and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in public, and to be called Rabbi.--But they shut up the kingdom of heaven against men," and were the greatest enemies of the entertainment of the gospel by the people. They "t.i.thed mint, and anise, and c.u.mmin, and omitted the great matters of the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith." They "strained at a gnat, and swallowed a camel." They had a great veneration for the "dead prophets and saints," and yet were persecutors and murderers of their "successors" that were "living," ver. 23, &c. By this description you may see which way hypocrisy doth most ordinarily work: even to a blind and b.l.o.o.d.y zeal for opinions, and traditions, and ceremonies, and other little things, to the treading down the interest of Christ and his gospel, and a neglect of the life and power of G.o.dliness, and a cruel persecuting those servants of Christ, whom they are bound to love above their ceremonies. I marvel that many papists tremble not when they read the character of the Pharisees! But that hypocrisy is a hidden sin, and is an enemy to the light which would discover it.

_Direct._ VIII. Make conscience of the duties of obedience to superiors, and of justice and mercy towards men, as well as of acts of piety to G.o.d. Say not a long ma.s.s in order to devour a widow's house, or a christian's life or reputation. Be equally exact in justice and mercy as you are in prayers; and labour as much to exceed common men in the one as in the other. Set yourselves to do all the good you can to all, and do hurt to none; and do to all men as you would they should do to you.

_Direct._ IX. Be much more busy about yourselves than about others; and more censorious of yourselves than of other men; and more strict in the reforming of yourselves than of any others. For this is the character of the sincere: when the hypocrite is little at home and much abroad; and is a sharp reprehender of others, and perniciously tender and indulgent to himself. Mark his discourse in all companies, and you shall hear how liberal he is in his censures and bitter reproach of others: how such men, and such men (that differ from him, or have opposed him, or that he hates) are thus and thus faulty, and bad, and hateful. Yea, he is as great an accuser of his adversaries for hypocrisy, as if he were not a hypocrite himself; because he can accuse them of a heart sin without any visible control. If he call them drunkards, or swearers, or persecutors, or oppressors, all that know them could know that he belieth them; but when he speaks about matters in the dark, he thinks the reputation of his lies have more advantage. Many a word you may hear from him, how bad his adversaries are; but if such hypocritical talk did not tell you, he would not tell you how bad he is himself.[151]

_Direct._ X. Be impartial, and set yourselves before your consciences in the case of others. Think with yourselves, How should I judge of this, in such and such a man, that I use to blame? What should I say of him, if my adversary did as I do? And is it not as bad in me as in him? Is not the sin most dangerous to me that is nearest me? And should I be more vigilant over any man's faults than my own? My d.a.m.nation will not be caused by his sin; but by my own it may. Instead of seeing the gnat in his eye, I have more cause to cast out a gnat from my own than a camel from his.

_Direct._ XI. Study first to be whatever (judiciously) you desire to seem. Desire a thousand times more to be G.o.dly, than to seem so; and to be liberal, than to be thought so; and to be blameless from every secret or presumptuous sin, than to be esteemed such.[152] And when you feel a desire to be accounted good, let it make you think how much more necessary and desirable it is to be good indeed. To be G.o.dly, is to be an heir of heaven: your salvation followeth it. But to be esteemed G.o.dly is of little profit to you.