SECOND APPLICATION: The grounds of a hypocrite’s profession and their falsities 2/2

3. False Ground.  ‘Sure,’ saith another, ‘I am not a hypocrite; for I perform secret duties in my closet. The hypocrite is nobody, except on the stage.  That is the brand of the hypocrite—he courts the world for its applause, and therefore does all abroad.’

           Answer.  Though the total neglect of secret du­ties in religion speaks a person to be a hypocrite, yet the per­forming of duties in secret will not demon­strate thee a sincere person.  Hypocrisy is in this like the frogs brought on Egypt.  No place was free of them, no, not their bed-chambers.  They crept into their most inward rooms.  And so doth hypocrisy into closet duties, as well as public.  Indeed, though the place be secret where such duties are performed, yet the matter may be so handled, and is by some hypo­crites, that they are not secret in their closets; like the hen that goes into a secret place to lay her egg, but by her cackling, tells all the house where she is, and what she is doing.  But where this is not, it is not enough; for we must not think but some hypocrites may and do spin a thread finer than other.  In all arts there are some exceed others, and so in this trade of hypocrisy. The gross hypocrite whose drift is to deceive others, his religion commonly is all without doors; but there is a hypocrite that labours to keep a fair quarter with himself, and is very desirous to make conscience on his side, to procure which, he will go to the utmost link of his chain, and do anything that may not sep­arate him and his beloved lusts.  Now secret prayer and other duties may be so performed, as that they shall not more prejudice a man's lusts than any other. It is not the sword, though very sharp, that kills, but the force that it is thrust withal.  Indeed, there are some secret duties, as examination of our hearts, trying of our ways, and serious meditation of the threatenings of the word against such sins as we find in our own bosoms, which with close application of them to ourselves would put sin hard to it.  But the hypocrite can lay this sword so easily and favourably on, that his lusts shall not cry ‘Oh!’ at it, therefore still there needs a melius inquirendum—a further search before thou canst come off.

4. False Ground.  ‘Sure I am not a hypocrite, for I do not only pray, and that in secret too, against my sins, but I also fight against them, yea, and that to good purpose, for I can show you the spoils of my vic­tories, that I have got over some of them.  There was a time I could not by the ale-house, but my lust bade me stand, and pulled me in; but now I thank God, I have got such a mastery of my drunken lust, that I can pass by without looking in.’

           Answer. It is good when thou dost say, and I wish all thy drunken neighbours could speak as much, that—when the magistrate will not, or cannot, spoil that drunken trade—they that keep those shops for the devil, might even shut up their windows for want of customers; but is it not pity that what is good should be marred in the doing?  Yet it is too common, and may be thy case.

1. Let me ask thee, how long it hath been thus with thee? Lusts, as to the actings I mean, are like agues, the fit is not always on, and yet the man not rid of his disease.  And some men’s lusts, like some agues, have not such quick returns as others.  The river does not move always one way.  Now it is com­ing, anon, falling water; and, though it doth not rise when it falls, yet it hath not lost its other motion. Now the tide of lust is up, and anon it is down, and the man recoils and seems to run from it; but it returns again upon him.  Who would have thought it to have seen Pharaoh in his mad fit again, that should have been with him in his good mood, when he bid Moses and the people go?  But alas! the man was not altered.  Thus, may be, when a strong occasion comes, this, like an easterly wind to some of our ports, will bring in the tide of thy lust so strongly, that thy soul that seemed as clear of thy lust as the naked sands are of water, will be in a few moments covered, and as deep under their waves as ever.  But the longer the banks have held, the better; yet, shouldst thou never more be drunk as to the outward fulfilling of the lust, would this not be enough to clear thee from being a hypocrite?  Therefore,
2. Let me ask thee what was the great motive to take thee off? That which keeps thee from the ale-house now, may be as bad, in some sense, as that which heretofore drew thee to it.  It is ordinary for one lust but to spoil another’s market.  He that should save his money from guzzling it down his throat, to lay in more finery on his back, what doth this man, but rob one lust to sacrifice it to another? Whether was it God or man, God or thy purse, God or thy pride, God or thy reputation, that knocked thee off?  If any but God prevailed with thee, hypo­crite is a name will better now become thee than when in the ale‑house.  Again, if God, what apprehen­sion of God were they that did it?  Some, the wrath of God for some particu­lar sin hath so shaked them, that, as one scared with an apparition in a room, cares not for lying there any more, so they dare not, at least for a long time, be acquainted with that practice again.  And as it is not the room but the apparition, that the one dislikes, so it is not the sin, but the wrath of God that haunts it, which the other flees from.  In a word, may be thou hast laid down this sinful practice; but didst thou hate it and love God, and so leave it?  Thou art become strange to one; have you not got acquaintance with another the room of it?  Thou hast laid down the commission of an evil; but hast thou taken up thy known duty?  He is a bad husbandman that drains his ground, and then neither sows nor plants it.  It is all one if it had been under water, as drained and not improved.  What if thou cease to do evil, if it were possible, and thou learnest not to do well?  It is not thy fields being clear of weeds, but fruitful in corn, that pays thy rent and brings thee in thy profit; nor thy not being drunk, unclean, or [guilty of] any other sin, but thy being holy, gracious, thy having faith unfeigned, pure love, and the other graces, which will prove thee sound, and bring in evidence for thy interest in Christ, and through him, in heaven.

SECOND APPLICATION: The grounds of a hypocrite’s profession and their falsities 1/2

           First. I shall lay down the grounds with which a hypocrite shores up his rotten house, and will show the falsities of them.  The hypocrite will stand upon his defence, his heart is sincere.  Well how will he prove it?

1. False Ground.  The hypocrite will say ‘Sure I am no hypocrite, for I cannot endure it in another.’

           Answer. This is not enough to clear thee from being a hypocrite, except thou canst show thou dost this from a holy ground.  Jehu, that asked Jehonadab whether his heart was right, carried at that same time a false one in his own breast.  It is very ordinary for a man to decry that in another, and smartly to declaim against it, which he all the while harbours himself.  How severe was Judah against Tamar?  He com­mands, in all haste, to burn her, Gen. 38:24.  Who would not have thought this man to be chaste?  Yet he was the very person that had defiled her.  There may be a great cheat in this piece of zeal.  Sometimes the very place a man is in, may carry him—as the primum mobile  i.e. the first cause of motion] does the stars—in a motion which his own genius and liking would never lead him to.  Thus many that are magistrates give the law to drunkards, and swearers, merely to keep the decorum of their place, and shun the clamour that would arise from their neglect, who can possibly do both, when they meet with place and company fit for their purpose.  Some [there are whose] zeal against another’s sin is kindled at the dis­grace which reflects upon them by it in the eye of the world; and this falls out when the sin is public, and the person that committed it stands related.  This is conceived to be Judah’s case, who was willing his daughter should be taken out of the way, that the blot which she had brought on his family might with her be out of sight.  Some again find it a thriving trade, and make this advantage of inveighing against others’ faults, to hide their own the better, that they may carry on their own designs with less suspicion.  Absa­lom asperseth his father’s government, as a stirrup to help himself into the saddle.  Jehu loved the crown more than he hated Jezebel's whoredoms, for all his loud cry against them.  In a word—for it is impossible to hit all—there may be much of revenge in it, and the person is rather shot at than his sin.  This was observed of Antony’s zeal against Augustus, odit tyrannum amavit tyranidem—he hated the tyrant, but loved well enough the tyranny.

2. False Ground.  The hypocrite saith, ‘I am bold and fearless in dangers; sure I am no hypocrite;’ but it is ‘the righteous’ that ‘is bold as a lion.’

           Answer. The better way, sure, were to try thy boldness by thy sincerity, than to conclude thy sin­cerity by thy boldness.  Truly confidence, and a spirit undaunted at death and danger, are glorious things, when the Spirit and Word of Christ stand by to vouch them—when the crea­ture can give some account of the hope that is in him, as Paul, who shows how he came by it.  This [is] Christian, not Roman courage, Romans 5:1-4.  Many rooms one passeth before coming to this, which indeed joins upon heaven itself.  Faith is the key which lets him into all.  First, it opens the door of justification, and lets it into a state of peace and reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ, ‘being justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Romans 5:1.  Through this he passeth on to another room—the presence-chamber of God’s favour—and is admitted nigh unto him, as a traitor once pardoned is; ‘by whom also we have access by him into this grace wherein we stand,’ ver. 2; that is, we have not only our sins pardoned, and our persons reconciled to God by faith in Christ, but now under Christ's wing, we are brought to court as it were, and stand in his grace as favourites before their prince.  This room opens into a third room—and ‘rejoice in the hope of glory.’  We do not only at pres­ent enjoy the grace and favour of God and commun­ion with him here, but have from this a hope firmly planted in our hearts for heaven’s glory hereafter. Now he is brought to the most inward room of all, which none can come at but he that goes through all the former, ver. 3.  ‘And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also.’  If thou hast not entered at these doors, thou art a thief and a robber; thou gettest thy confidence too quickly to have it brought to thy hand by God.  If God means thee well for eternity, he will make thee smart for this thy boldness, as he did Jacob for stealing his father's blessing; and therefore content not thyself with a bare boldness and confidence in dangers, but inquire whether it hath a Scripture bottom and basis to stand on, or whether the pillars supporting it, be not ignorance in thy mind, and stu­pidity in thy conscience.  If the latter, thou art in a sad condition.  Thy boldness will last no longer than thou seest it doth in one that is drunk; who, when he is wine-sprung, thinks, as they say, he can skip over the moon, and ventures to go without fear upon precipices and pitfalls, [but,] when sober, trembles to see what he did in his drunken fit.  Nabal that feared nothing when drunk—his heart dies within him and became as stone, at the story Abigail told him in the morning, when the wine was gone out of him, I Sam. 25:37.  Therefore, as he [who,] when his cause mis­carried through the sleepiness of the judge on the bench, ‘appealed from the judge asleep to the judge awake;’ so do I here with you, that through the pres­ent stupidity of conscience are bold and fearless of death, and from this plead your uprightness.  I appeal from your conscience asleep, to the sentence it will give when it shall be awake; which I wish may be in this world, that you may see your mistake where you may amend it.