SINCERITY STRENGTHENS THE CHRISTIAN’S SPIRIT

‘Girt about with truth.’

           Having despatched the first reason, why sincerity is compared to the soldier’s girdle or belt, and dis­coursed of this grace under that notion, we proceed to the second ground or reason of the metaphor, taken from the other use of the soldier’s girdle, which is, to strengthen his loins, and fasten his armour, over which it goes, close to him; whereby he is more able to march, and strong to fight.  Girdling, in Scripture phrase, imports strength.  ‘Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle,’ Ps. 18:39.  He ‘weakeneth the strength of the mighty,’ Job 12:21; in the Hebrew it is, he looseth their girdle, sincerity doth bear a fit anal­ogy.  It is a grace that establisheth and strengthens the Christian in his whole course; as, on the contrary, hypocrisy weakens and unsettles the heart.  ‘A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.’  As it is in bodies, so in souls.  Earthly bodies, because mixed, are corruptible; whereas the heavenly bodies, being simple and unmixed, are not subject to corrup­tion.  So much a soul hath of heaven’s purity and incorruptibleness as it hath of sincerity.  ‘Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity,’ with incorruption, Eph. 6:24.  The strength of every grace lies in the sincerity of it.  So that without any more ado, the point which offers itself to our consideration from this second notion of the girdle, is this,

           Doctrine. That sincerity doth not only cover all our infirmities, but is excellent, yea necessary, to establish the soul in, and strengthen it for, its whole Christian warfare.  ‘The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them,’ Prov. 11:3.  The hypocrite falls shamefully, and comes to naught, with all his shifts and stratagems to save himself; whereas sincerity carries that soul, that dares follow its conduct, safe above all dangers, though in the midst of them.  But open the point.  There is a threefold strength sin­cerity brings with it, which the false hypocritical heart wants.  First. A preserving strength.  Second. A recovering strength.  Third. A comforting strength.