Exhortation to those who upon trial are found sincere to wear the girdle of truth close around with directions for its daily exercise 2/6

(2.) Walk in the view of God’s providence, and care over thee.  When God bids Abraham be upright, he strengthens his faith on him, ‘I am God Almighty, walk before me and be thou perfect;’ as if he had said, ‘Act thou for me, and I will take care for thee.’  When once we begin to call his care into question towards us, then will our sincerity falter in our walking before him.  Hypocrisy lies hid in distrust and jealousy, as in its cause.  If the soul dare not rely on God, it cannot be long true to God.  Abraham was jealous of Abim­elech, therefore he dissembled with him.  Thus do we with God.  We doubt God’s care, and then live by our wit, and carve for ourselves.  ‘Up, make us gods,’ they say, ‘we know not what is become of Moses.’  The unbelieving Jews, flat against the command of God, keep manna while [i.e.until] the morrow, Ex. 16:19. And why? but because they had not faith to trust him for another meal.  This is the old weapon the devil hath ever used to beat the Christian out of his sincer­ity with.  ‘Curse God and die,’ said he to Job by his wife.  As if she had said, What! wilt [thou] yet hold the castle of thy sincerity for God?  Captains think they may yield when no relief comes to them, and subjects account [that] if the prince protect them not, they are not bound to serve him.  Thou hast lain thus long in an afflicted state, besieged close with sorrows on every hand, and no news to this day comes from heaven of any care that God takes for thee; therefore ‘curse God, and die.’  Yea, Christ had him using the same engine to draw him off his faithfulness to his Father, when he bade him turn stone into bread.  

We see, therefore, of what importance it is to strengthen our faith on the care and providence of God, for our provision and protection, which is the cause why God hath made such abundant provision to shut all doubt­ing and fear of this out of the hearts of his people. The promises are so fitly placed, that as safe har­bours, upon what coast soever we are sailing—con­dition we are in—if any storm arise at sea, or enemy chase us, we may put into some one or other of them, and be safe; though this one were enough to serve our turn, could we find no more: ‘For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them,’ or strongly to hold with them, ‘whose heart is perfect toward him,’ II Chr. 16:9.  God doth not set others to watch, but his own eyes keep sentinel.  Now to watch with the child, like the own mother, there is the immedi­acy of his providence.  We may say of sincere souls, what is said of Canaan, Deut. 11:12, ‘It is a land,’ so they are a people, ‘which the Lord thy God careth for; the eyes of the Lord thy God are always on them.’ Again, ‘his eyes run to and fro;’ there is the vigilancy of his providence.  No danger, no temptation, finds him napping; but, as a faithful watchman is ever walk­ing up and down, so the eyes of God ‘run to and fro.’  ‘He that keepeth Israel’—the sincere soul which is the ‘Israelite indeed’—shall neither slumber nor sleep,’ Ps. 121:4.  That is, not little or much—not slumber by day, or sleep by night.  Two words are there used; one that sig­nifies the short sleep used in the heat of the day; the other for the more sound sleep of the night.

(3.) Throughout the whole earth, there is the universality and extent of God’s care.  It is an encom­passing providence; it walks the rounds—not any one sincere soul left out the line of his care.  He has the number of them to a man, and all are alike cared for. We disfigure the beautiful face of God’s providence, when we fancy him to have a cast of his eye, and care, to one more than another.

(4.) To show himself strong in the behalf of them, there is the efficacy of his care and providence. His eyes do not ‘run to and fro’ to espy dangers, and only tell us what they are; as the sentinel wakes the city when any enemy comes, but cannot defend them from their fury.  A child may do this, yea, the geese did this for Rome’s capitol.  But God watcheth not to tell us our dangers, but to save us from them.  The saints must needs be a ‘happy people,’ because a ‘people saved by the Lord,’ Deut. 33:29.  God doth not only see with his eyes, but also fights with his eyes. He gave such a look to the Egyptians, as turned the sea on them to their destruction.

2. Direction.  If thou wouldst walk in the exer­cise of thy sincerity, labour to act from love, and not fear.  O, slavish fear and sincerity cannot agree.  If one be in the increase, the other is always in the wane.  See them opposed, II Tim. 1:7, ‘For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind,’ that is, sincere, where he implies that fear is weak, and impotent—easily scared from God, his truth, and service; and not so only, but unsound also—not trusting such a one with any great matter.  The slave though he works hard, because indeed he dares no other, yet is soon drawn into a conspiracy against his master, because he hates him while he fears him.  We see this not only among the Turks—against whom those Christians used as abso­lute slaves by them in their galleys do, when they have advantage in sight, often purchase their own liberty by cutting the throats of their tyrant masters—but also in kingdoms, where subjects rather fear than love their princes.  How ready they are to invite another into the throne, or welcome any that should court them! Thus fast and loose will he be with God, that is pricked on with the sword’s point of his wrath, and not drawn with the cords of his love.  Israel is an example beyond parallel for this, ‘When he slew them, then they sought him;...nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues; for their heart was not right with him,’ Ps. 78:34,36.  They feared God, and loved their lusts, and therefore they betrayed his glory at every turn into their hands; as Herod did the head of John, whom he feared, into her hands whom he loved.  And truly there is too much of this slavish fear to be found in the saints' bosoms, or else the whip should not be so often in God’s hand.  We find God checking his people for this, and make their servile spirit the rea­son of his severity towards them.  ‘Is Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave? why is he spoiled?’ Jer. 2:14.  As if God had said, What is the reason I must use thee, who art my dear child, as coarsely as if thou wert a servant, a slave, laying on blow after blow upon thy back with such heavy judgments? wouldst thou know, read ver. 17.  ‘Hast thou not procured this unto thy­self, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, when he led thee by the way?’  Thou mayest thank thyself for this my unusual dealing with thee.  If the child will forget his own ingenuity, and nothing but blows will work with him, then the father must deal with his child according to his servile spirit.

Exhortation to those who upon trial are found sincere to wear the girdle of truth close around with directions for its daily exercise 1/6

           Second Sort.  I come to the second sort, such, I mean, whose consciences, upon diligent inquiry, give a fair testimony for their sincerity, that their hearts are true and upright.  That which I have by way of counsel to leave with them is, to gird this belt which they have about them, close in the exercise and daily practice of it.  Gird this belt, I say, close to thee, that is, be very careful to walk in the daily practice and exercise of thy uprightness.  Think every morning thou art not dressed till this girdle be put on.  The proverb is true here, ‘Ungirt, unblessed.’  Thou art no company for God, that day in which thou art insin­cere.  If Abraham will walk with God, he must be upright; and canst thou live a day without his com­pany?  Rachel paid dear for her mandrakes to part with her husband for them.  A worse bargain that soul makes, that to purchase some worldly advantage, pawns its sincerity, which gone, God is sure to follow after.  And as thou canst not walk with God, so thou canst not expect any blessing from God.  The prom­ises, like a box of precious ointment, are kept to be broken over the head of the upright: ‘Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?’ Micah 2:7.  And sure it is ill walking in that way where there is found no word from God to bid us good speed. Some are so superstitious, that if a hare crosseth them, they will turn back, and go no farther that day. But a bold man is he that dares go on when the word of God lies cross his way.  Where the word doth not bless, it curseth; where it promiseth not, it threatens. A soul is in its uprightness, approving itself to God, is safe.  [It is] like a traveller going about his lawful business betwixt sun and sun; if any harm, or loss comes to such a soul, God will bear him out.  The promise is on his side, and by pleading it he may re­cover his loss at God’s hands, who stands bound to keep him harmless.  See to this purpose Ps. 84:11.  But they are directions, not motives, I am in this place to give.

1. Direction.  If thou wouldst walk in the exer­cise of thy sincerity, walk in the view of God.  That of Luther is most true, omnia præcepta sunt in primo tanquam capite—all the commands are wrapped up in the first.  For, saith he, all sin is a contempt of God; and so we cannot break any other commands, but we break the first.  ‘We think amiss of God before we do amiss against God.’  This God commended to Abraham instar omnium—of sovereign use to pre­serve his sincerity, ‘Walk before me, and be thou up­right,’ Gen. 17:1.  This kept the girdle of Moses strait and close to his loins—that he was neither bribed with the treasures of Egypt, nor brow-beaten out of his sincerity with the anger of so great a king—‘for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible,’ Heb. 11:27. He had a greater than Pha­raoh in his eye, and this kept him right.

           (1.) Walk, Christian, in the view of God’s om­niscience.  This is a girding consideration.  Say to thy soul, cave videt Deus—take heed, God seeth.  It is under the rose, as the common phrase is, that treason is spoken, when subjects think they are far enough from their king’s hearing; but did such know the prince to be under the window, or behind the hang­ings, their discourse would be more loyal.  This made David so upright in his walking, ‘I have kept thy pre­cepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee,’ Ps. 119:168.  If Alexander’s empty chair, which his captains, when they met in counsel, set before them, did awe them  so, as to keep them in good order; what would it, for to set God looking on us in our eye?  The Jews covered Christ's face, and then buffeted him.  So does the hypocrite.  He first saith in his heart, ‘God sees not,’ or at least he forgets that he sees; and then makes bold to sin against him, Mark 14:60.  He is like that foolish bird which runs her head among the reeds, and thinks herself safe from the fowler;—as if, because she did not see him, therefore he could not see her.

  Te mihi abscondam, non me tibi. Aug.—I may hide thee from my eye, but not myself from thine.  Thou mayest, poor creature, hide God by thy ignorance and atheism, so that thou shalt not see him, but thou canst not so hide thyself as that he shall not see thee.  ‘All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.  Heb. 4:13.  O remember thou hast to do with God in all thou doest, whether thou beest in shop or closet, church or market; and he will have to do with thee, for he sees thee round, and can tell from whence thou comest, when, like Gehazi before his master, thou enterest into his presence, and standest demurely before him in worship, as if thou hadst been nowhere. Then he can tell thee thy thoughts, and without any labour of pumping them out by thy con­fession, set them in order before thee; yea, thy thoughts that are gone from thee, like Nebuchadnez­zar’s dream from him, and thou hast forgot what they were at such a time, and in such a place, forty, fifty years ago, God hath them all in the light of his coun­tenance, as atoms are in the beams of the sun, and he can, yea will, give thee a sight of them that they shall walk in thy conscience to thy horror, as John Baptist’s ghost did Herod’s.

Directions to those who, upon trial, are found insincere and false-hearted 2/2

2. Direction.  When thy heart is deeply affected with the sin and misery of thy hypocritical heart, thou must be convinced of thy insufficiency to make a cure on thyself.  Hypocrisy is like a fistula sore.  It may seem a little matter by the small orifice it hath; but is therefore one of the hardest among wounds to be cured, because it is so hard to find the bottom of it. O take heed thy heart doth not put a cheat upon thyself.  It will be very forward to promise it will lie no more, be false and hypocritical no more; but, take counsel of a wise man, who bids thee not rely on what it saith: ‘He is a fool that trusts his own heart.’  O how many die, because loath to be at pains and cost to go to a skillful physician at first.  Take heed of self-resolutions and self-reformations.  Sin is like the king’s-evil; God, not ourselves can cure it.  He that will be tinkering with his own heart, and not seek out to heaven for help, will in the end find [that] where he mends one hole, he will make two worse; where he reforms one sin, he will fall into the hands of many more dangerous.
3. Direction.  Betake thyself to Christ, as the physician on whose skill and faithfulness thou wilt rely entirely for cure.  Si pereundum inter peritissi­mos—if thou perish, resolve to perish at his door. But for thy comfort, know that never any whom he undertook miscarried under his hand; nor ever refused he to undertake the cure of any that came to him on such an errand.  He blamed those hypocrites, John 5:40,43, because they were ready to throw away their lives, by trusting any empiric who should come in his own name  without any approbation or authority from God for the work, but ‘would not come to him that they might have life,’ thought he came in his Father's name, and had his seal and license to prac­tise his skill on poor souls for their recovery.  And he that blamed those for not coming, will not, cannot, be angry with thee who comest.  It is his calling; and men do use to thrust customers out, but invite them into their shops.  When Christ was on earth, he gave this reason why he conversed so much with publicans and sinners, and so little among the Pharisees, because there was more work for him, Matt 9:11, 12.  Men set up where they think trade will be quickest. Christ came to be a physician to sick souls.  Pharisees were so well in their own conceit, that Christ saw he should have little to do among them, and so he applied himself to those who were more sensible of their sickness.  If thou, poor soul, beest but come to thyself so far, as to groan under thy cursed hypocrisy, and directest these thy groans in a prayer to heaven for Christ’s help, thou shalt have thy physician soon with thee, never fear it.  He hath not, since he ascended, laid down his calling, but still follows his practice as close as ever.  We find him sending his advice from heaven in that excellent receipt to Laodicea—what she should do for her recovery out of this very disease of hypocrisy—‘I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white rai­ment, that thou mayest be clothed,’ &c., Rev. 3:18; as if he had said, 'Laodicea, thou tradest in false ware, deceiving thyself and others with appearances for realities, counterfeit graces for true; thy gold is dross, thy garments rotten rags, which do not hide but discover thy shame.  Come to me, and thou shalt have that which is for thy turn, and better, cheap also.’  For though here is mention of buying, no more is meant than to come with a buyer’s spirit, valuing Christ and his grace so high, that if they were to be bought, though with all the money in thy purse, yea blood in thy veins, thou wouldst have them; and not go home and say thou wert hardly used neither.  It is the thirsty soul that shall be satisfied, only look thy thirst be right and deep.

           (1.) Look that thy thirst be right, a heart‑thirst and not simply a conscience‑thirst.  It is a very different heat that causeth the one and the other.  Hell-fire may inflame the conscience, so as to make the guilty sinner thirst for Christ’s blood to quench the torment which the wrath of God hath kindled in his bosom!  But it is heaven‑fire, and only that, which begets a kindly heat in the heart, that breaks out in longings of soul for Christ and his Spirit with sweet cooling dews of grace to slack and extinguish the fire of lust and sin.

           (2.) Look that thy thirst be deep.  Physicians tell us of a thirst which comes from the dryness of the throat, and not any great inward heat of the stomach; and this thirst may be quenched with a gargle in the mouth, which is spit out again, and goes not down. And truly there is something like this in many that sit under the preaching of the gospel.  Some light touches are now and then found upon the spirits of men and women, occasioned by some spark that falls on their affections in hearing the word, whereby they on a sudden express some desires after Christ and his grace in such a way that you would think they would in all haste for heaven; but, being flighty flashes and weak velleities, rather than strong volition and deep desires, their heat is soon over and their thirst quenched; with a little present sweetness they taste, while they are hearing a sermon of Christ—which they spit out again as soon as they are gone home almost—as well as may be, though they never enjoy more of him.  Labour therefore for such a deep sense of thy own wretchedness by reason of thy hypocrisy, and of Christ’s excellency by reason of that fullness of grace in him which makes him able to cure thee of thy distemper; that, as a man thoroughly athirst can be content with nothing but drink, and not a little of that neither, but a full satisfying draught, whatever it costs him, so thou mayest not be bribed with anything be­sides Christ and his sanctifying grace—not with gifts, professions, or pardon itself, if it could be severed from grace; no, not with a little sprinkling of grace; but mayest long for whole floods, wherewith thou mayest be fully purged and freed of thy cursed lust which now so sadly oppresseth thee.  This frame of spirit would put thee under the promise—heaven’s security—that thou shalt not lose thy longing.  If thou shouldst ask silver and gold, and seek any worldly enjoyment at this rate, thou mightst spend thy breath and pains in vain.  God might let thee roar, like Dives, in hell, in the midst of those flames which thy covetous lust hath kindled, without  affording a drop of that, to cool thy tongue, which thou so violently pantest after.  But if Christ and his grace be the things thou wouldst have, yea must have, truly then thou shalt have them.  ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled,’ Matt. 5:6.

Directions to those who, upon trial, are found insincere and false-hearted 1/2

           First Sort. I come first to those who upon the trial are cast—whose consciences, after examination, condemn as hypocrites.  Evidence comes in so clear and strong against them, that their conscience cannot hold, but tells them plainly, ‘if these be the marks of sincerity, then they are hypocrites.’  The improvement I would make of this trial for your sakes, is to give a word of counsel—what in this case you are to do that you may become sincere.

1. Direction.  Get thy heart deeply affected with thy present dismal state.  No hope of cure till thou beest chased into some sense and feeling of thy deplored condition.  Physic cannot be given so long as the patient is asleep; and it is the nature of this dis­ease to make the soul heavy-eyed, and dispose it to a kind of slumber of conscience, by reason of the flat­tering thoughts the hypocrite hath of himself, from some formalities he performs above others in religion, which fume up from his deceived heart, like so many pleasing vapours from the stomach to the head, and bind up his spiritual senses into a kind of stupidity, yea, cause many pleasing dreams to entertain him with vain hopes and false joys, which vanish as soon as he wakes and comes to himself.  The Pharisees, the most notorious hypocrites of their age, how fast asleep were they in pride and carnal confidence, despising all the world in comparison of themselves —not afraid to commend themselves to God, yea, prefer themselves before others: ‘God, I thank thee, that I am not like this publican’—as if they would tell God, they did look to find some more respect from him than others, so far beneath them, had at his hand!  Therefore Christ, in his dealing with this proud generation of men, useth an unusual strain of speech.  His voice, which to others was till and soft, is heard like thunder breaking out of the clouds, when he speaks to them.  How many dreadful claps have we almost together in the same chapter fall on their heads, out of the mouth of our meek and sweet Sav­iour.  ‘Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,’ Matt. 23. No less than eight woes doth Christ discharge upon them, as so many case-shot together, that by multiply­ing the woes, he might show not only the certainty of the hypocrite’s damnation, but precedency also; and yet how many of that rank do we read of to be awakened and converted by these rousing sermons? Some few there were indeed, that the disease might not appear incurable; but very few, that we may tremble the more of falling into it, or letting it grow upon us.

           Peter learned of his master how to handle the hypocrite.  Having to do with one far gone in this dis­ease, Simon Magus, he steeps his words, as it were, in vinegar and gall.  ‘Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God,’ Acts 8:21.  There he lays the weight of his charge, that he carried a hypocritical heart  in his bosom, which was a thousand times worse than his simoni­acal fact, though that was foul enough.  It was not barely that fact, but, proceeding from a heart inwardly rotten and false—which God gave Peter an extraordinary spirit to discern—that proved him to be ‘in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity;’ only in this better on it than the damned souls in hell, that they were in the fire, he in the bond of iniquity, like a faggot bound up, fit for it, but not cast in; they past hope, and he with so much left as might amount to a ‘perhaps if the thought of his heart might be forgiven.’

           To give but one instance more, and that of a whole church, hypocritical Laodicea.  The Spirit of God takes her up more sharply than all the rest, which, though he charged with some particular mis­carriages, yet he finds something among them he own and commends; but in her, because she was conceited already as this leaven of hypocrisy naturally puffs up, he mentions nothing that was good in her, lest it should feed that humour that did so abound already, and take away the smartness of the reproof, which was the only probable means left of recovering her.  All that inclines to sleep is deadly to a lethargic; and all that is soothing and cockering, dangerous to hypocrites.  Some say the surest way to cure a leth­argy, is to turn it into a fever.  To be sure, the safest way to deal with the hypocrite, is to bring him from his false peace to a deep sense of his true misery.  Let this then be thy first work.  Aggravate thy sin and put thy soul into mourning for it.  

When a person who was, but the priest—who was to judge in cases of leprosy—pronounced unclean, the leper thus convicted was to rend his clothes, go bare-headed, and put a covering upon his upper lip—all ceremonies used by mourners—and to cry ‘Unclean, unclean,’ Lev. 13:45.  Thus do thou, as a true mourner, sit down and lament this plague of thy heart.  Cry out bitterly, ‘Unclean, unclean I am,’ Eze. 15:17.  Thou art not fit, by reason of thy hypocritical heart, to come near God or his saints, but to be, like the leper, separate from both.  If thou hadst such a loathsome disease reigning on thee as did pollute the very seat thou sittest on, bed thou liest in, and as would drop such filthiness on everything thou comest near—even into the meat thou eatest, and cup thou drinkest from—that should make all abandon thy nasty company; how great would thy sorrow be, as thou didst sit desolate and musing alone of thy doleful condition!  Such a state thy hypocrisy puts thee into.  A plague it is, more offensive to God than such a disease could make thee to men.  It runs like a filthy sore through all the duties and goodly coverings that you can put over it, and defiles them and thee so, that God will take an offering out of the devil’s hand as soon as out of thine, while thou continuest a hypocrite.  Further, did the saints of God, with whom thou hast, may be, so much credit as to be admitted to join with them at present, know thee, they would make as much from thee, as from him on whom they should see the plague-tokens.  But shouldst not thy disease be known till thou art dead, and so keep thy reputation with them, yea, possibly by them be thought, when thou diest, a saint—will this give thee any content in hell, that they are speaking well of thee on earth?  ‘O poor Aristotle,’ said one, ‘thou art praised where thou art not, and burned where thou art!’  He meant it was poor comfort to that great heathen philosopher to be admired by men of learning, that have kept up his fame from generation to generation, if he all the while be miserable in the other world.  So here, O poor hypocrite, that art ranked among saints on earth, but punished among devils in hell.

Four characters of truth of heart or sincerity 5/5

Again, the sincere Christian is uniform as to place and company.  Wherever he goes he carries his rule with him, which squares him.  Within doors, amidst his nearest relations, David’s resolve is his, ‘He will walk within his house with a perfect heart,’ Ps. 101:2.  Follow him abroad; he carries his conscience with him, and doth not bid it—as Abraham his servants, when ascending the mount—to stay behind till he comes back.  The Romans had a law that every one should, wherever he went, wear a badge of his trade in his hat or outward vestment, that he might be known.  The sincere Christian never willingly lays aside the badge of his holy profession.  No place nor company turns him out of the way that is called holy.  Indeed his conscience doth not make him foredo his prudence.  He knows how to distinguish between place and place, company and company; and therefore when cast among boisterous sinners, and scornful ones, he doth not betray religion to scorn, by throwing its pearls before such as would trample on them, and rend him.  Yet he is very careful lest his prudence should put his uprightness to any hazard.  ‘I will behave myself wisely,’ saith David, Ps. 101:2, ‘in a perfect way;’ that is, I will show myself as wise as I can, so I may also be upright.  Truly, that place and company is like the torrid zone, uninhabitable to the gracious soul, where profaneness is so hot, that sincerity cannot look out, and show itself by seasonable counsel, and reproof, with safety to the saint; and therefore, they that have neither so much zeal as to protest against the sins of such, nor so much care of themselves as to withdraw from thence, where they can only receive evil and do no good, have just cause to call their sincerity into question.

4. Character.  The sincere Christian is progressive—never at his journey’s end till he gets to heaven. This keeps him always in motion, advancing in his desires and endeavours forward; he is thankful for little grace, but not content with great measures of grace.  ‘When I awake,’ saith David, ‘I shall be satisfied with thy likeness,’ Ps. 17:15.  He had many a sweet entertainment at the house of God in his ordinances. The Spirit of God was the messenger that brought him many a covered dish from God’s table—inward consolations, which the world knew not of.  Yet David has not enough.  It is heaven alone that can give him his full draught.  They say the Gauls, when they first tasted of the wines of Italy, were so taken with their lusciousness and sweetness, that they could not be content to trade thither for this wine, but resolved to conquer the land where they grew.  Thus the sincere soul thinks it not enough to receive a little, now and then, of grace and comfort, from heaven, by trading and holding commerce at a distance with God in his ordinances here below; but projects and meditates a conquest of that holy land, and blessed place, that he may drink the wine of that kingdom in that kingdom. This raiseth the soul to high and noble enterprises —how it may attain to further degrees of graces, every day more than another, and so climb nearer and nearer heaven.  He that aims at the sky, shoots higher than he that means only to hit a tree.  ‘I press,’ saith Paul, ‘toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,’ Php. 3:14.  Others admired Paul’s attainments—O that they had Paul’s grace, and then they should be happy!—but he would count himself very unhappy if he might have no more.  He professeth he hath not apprehended what he runs for. The prize stands not in the mid‑way, but at the end of the race; and therefore he puts on with full speed, yea, makes it the trial of uprightness in all.  ‘Let us therefore, as many as be perfect’—that is sincere—‘be thus minded,’ ver. 15.  It is the hypocrite that stints himself in the things of God.  A little knowledge he would have, that may help him to discourse of religion among the religious; and for more, he leaves it, as more fitting for the preacher than himself.  Some outward formalities he likes, and makes use of in profession—as attendance on public ordinances—and sins which would make him stink among his neighbors he forbears; but as for pressing into more inward and nearer communion with God in ordinances, labouring to get his heart more spiritual, the whole body of sin more and more mortified, this was never his design: like some slightly tradesman, that never durst look so high as to think of being rich, but thinks it well enough if he can but hold his shop-doors open, and keep himself out of jail, though with a thousand shifting tricks.

Having laid down characters of the sincere heart, it will be necessary to make some improvement of them, as the report shall be that conscience makes in your bosoms, upon putting yourselves to the trial of your spiritual states by the same.  Now the report that conscience makes, after examination of yourselves by those notes [or doctrines] prefixed, will amount to one of these three inferences.  Either, First. Conscience will after examination condemn you as hypocrites: or, Second. It will, upon diligent inquiry, give fair testimony as to your sincerity; or, Third. It will, upon inquiry, bring you in as ignorant, and leave you doubting souls, who are indeed sincere, but dare not be persuaded to think yourselves so.  That I may therefore find thee, reader, at one door, if I miss thee at another, I shall speak severally to all three.

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3. Character.  The sincere, true-hearted Chris­tian is uniform.  As truth in the doctrine differs, from its opposite, that it is one, error diverse—there is no harmony among errors, as among truths—so truth of heart, or sincerity, is known from hypocrisy by the same character.  Indeed, truth in the heart is but the copy and transcript of the other.  They agree, as the face in the glass doth with the face in the man that looks in it, or as the image in the wax with the sculpture in the seal from which it is derived.  Therefore, if truth in the word be uniform and harmonious, then truth in the heart, which is nothing but the impression of that there, must also be so.  A sincere Chris­tian in the tenure of his course is like himself, vir unius coloris—a man of one colour; not like your changeable stuffs, so dyed that you may, by waving of them divers ways, see divers colours.  There is a threefold uniformity in the sincere Christian’s obedi­ence.  He is uniform, quoad objectum, subjectum, et circumstantias obedientiœ—as to the object, subject, and several circumstances that accompany his obedience.

(1.) The sincere Christian is uniform quoad objectum—as to the object.  The hypocrite indeed is in with one duty and out with another.  Like a globous body, he toucheth the law of God in one point—some particular command he seems zealous for—but meets not in the rest; whereas the sincere heart lies close to the whole law of God in his desire and endeavour.  The upright man's foot is said to ‘stand in an even place,’ Ps. 26:12, he walks not hal­tingly and uncomelily, as those who go in unequal ways, which are hobbling and up and down; or [as] those whose feet and legs ‘are not even’—as Solomon saith, the legs of the lame are not even,’ and so cannot stand ‘in an even place,’ because one is long and the other short.  The sincere man's feet are even, and [his] legs of a length, as I may say;—his care alike conscientious to the whole will of God.  The hypo­crite, like the badger, hath one foot shorter than another; or, like a foundered horse, he doth not stand, as we say, right of all four—one foot, at least, you shall perceive he favours, loath to put it down. The Pharisees pretended much zeal to the first table. They prayed and fasted in an extraordinary manner, but they prayed for their prey, and, when they had fasted all day, they sup at the cost of a poor widow whose ‘house’ they mean to ‘devour.’  A sad fast, that ends in oppression, and only serves to get them a ravenous appetite, to swallow others' estates under a pretence of devotion!  

The moralist is very punctual in his dealings with men, but very thievish in his car­riage to God.  Though he will not wrong his neigh­bour of a farthing, [he] sticks not to rob God of greater matters.  His love, fear, faith are due debt to God, but he makes no conscience of paying them.  It is ordinary in Scripture to describe a saint—a godly person—by a particular duty, a single grace.  Some­times his character is ‘he that feareth an oath,’ Ecc. 9:2; sometimes, ‘one that loves the brethren,’ I John 3:14; and so of the rest.  And why? but because, wherever one duty is conscientiously performed, the heart stands ready for any other.  As God hath en­acted all his commands with the same authority —wherefore, it is said, Ex. 20:1, ‘God spake all these words,’ one as well as the other—so God infuseth all grace together, and writes not one particular law in the heart of his children, but the whole law, which is a universal principle, inclining the soul impartially to all, so that if thou likest not all, thou art sincere in none.

(2.) The sincere Christian is uniform quoad sub­jectum—as to the subject.  The whole man, so far as renewed, moves one way.  All the powers and facul­ties of the soul join forces, and have a sweet accord together.  When the understanding makes discovery of a truth, then conscience improves her utmost authority on the will, commanding it, in the name of God, whose officer it is, to entertain it; the will, so soon as conscience knocks, opens herself, and lets it in; the affections, like dutiful handmaids, seeing it a welcome guest to the will—their mistress—express their readiness to wait on it, as becomes them in their places.  But in the hypocrite it is not so.  There one faculty fights against another.  Never are they all found to conspire and meet in a friendly vote.  When there is light in the understanding, the man knows this truth and that duty; then, oft, conscience is bribed for executing its office—it doth not so much as check him for the neglect of it.  Truth stands as it were before the soul, and conscience will not so much as befriend it as to knock, and rouse up the soul to let it in.  If conscience be overcome to plead its cause, and shows some activity in pressing for entertain­ment, it is sure, either to have a churlish denial, with a frown, for its pains—in being so busy to bring such an unwelcome guest with it—as the froward wife doth by her husband, when he brings home with him one she doth not like; or else only a feigned entertain­ment, the more subtlely to hide the secret enmity it hath against it.

(3.) The sincere soul is uniform quoad circum­stantias obedientiœ—as to the circumstances of his obedience and holy walking such as are time, place, and company and manner.  He is uniform as to time. His religion is not like a holiday suit—put on only at set times; but come to him when you will, you shall find him clad alike, holy on the Lord’s day, and holy on the week-day too.  ‘Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times,’ Ps. 106:3.  It is a sign it is not a man’s com­plexion, when the colour he hath while he sits by a fire dies away soon after.  There are some, if you would see their goodness and be acquainted with their godliness, you must hit the right time, or else you will find none.  [They are] like some flowers that are seen but some months in the year; or like some physicians that they call forenoon men—they that would speak with them to any purpose, must come in the morning, because, commonly, they are drunk in the afternoon. Thus, may be, in the morning, you may take the hypocrite on his knees in a saint's posture, but, when that fit is over, you shall see little of God in all his course till night brings him again, of course, to the like duty.  The watch is naught that goes only at first winding up, and stands all the day after; and so is the heart, sure, that desires not always to keep in spiritual motion.  I confess there may be a great difference in the standing of two watches.  In one the difference may arise from the very watch itself, because it hath not the right make—and it will ever be so, till the work is altered; another, possibly, is true work, only some dust clogs the wheels, or [a] fall hath a little battered it, which removed, it will go well again.  And there is as great difference between the sincere soul and the hypocrite in this case.  The sincere soul may be interrupted in its spiritual motion and Christian course, but it is from some temptation that at present clogs him.  But he hath a new nature, which inclines to a constant motion in holiness, and doth, upon the removing the present impediment, return to its nat­ural exercise of godliness.  The hypocrite, however, fails in the very constitution and frame of his spirit; he hath not a principle of grace in him to keep him moving.

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(b) The true heart shows its plain-dealing with itself, as in searching, so in judging itself, when once testimony comes in clear against it, and conscience tells it, ‘Soul, in this duty thou betrayedst pride, in that affection, frowardness and impatience.’  Such a one is not long before it proceeds to judgment, and this it doth with so much vehemency and severity, that it plainly appears zeal for God—whom he hath dishonoured—makes him forget all self-pity.  He lays about him in humbling and abasing himself, as the sons of Levi in executing justice on their brethren who knew ‘neither brother nor sister’ in that act. Truly such an heroic act is this of the sincere soul judging itself.  He is so transported and clothed with a holy fury against his sin, that he is deaf to the cry of flesh and blood, which would move him to think of a more favourable sentence.  ‘I have sinned,’ saith David, ‘against the Lord,’ II Sam. 12:13; in another place, ‘I have sinned greatly, and done very foolishly,’ II Sam. 24; in a third, he, as unworthy of a man’s name, takes beast to himself—‘so foolish was I, and ignor­ant: I was as a beast before thee,’ Ps. 73:22.  But with a false heart—if conscience checks him for this or that, and he perceives by this inward murmur in his bosom which way the cause will go, if he proceeds fairly on to put himself upon the trial—the court is sure to be broken up, and all put off to another hearing, which is like to be at leisure; so that, as witnesses, with delays and many put-offs, grow at last weary of the work, and will rather stay at home than make their appearance to little purpose, so conscience ceaseth to give evidence where it cannot be heard, can have no judgment against the offender.

(2.) Particular.  A true heart is plain as with itself so with God also.  Several ways this might appear. Take one for all; and that is in his petitions and requests at the throne of grace.  The hypocrite in prayer juggles, he asks what he would not thank God to give him.  There is a mystery of iniquity in his praying against iniquity.  Now this will appear in two particu­lars, whether we be plain-hearted or not.

(a) Observe whether thou beest deeply afflicted in spirit when thy request is not answered, or regard­est not what success it hath.  Suppose it be a sin thou prayest against, or some grace thou prayest for; what is thy temper all the while thy messenger stays, especially if it be long?  Thou prayest, and corruption abates not, grace grows not.  Now thy hypocrisy or sincerity will appear.  If thou art sincere, every moment will be an hour, every hour a day, a day a year, till thou hearest some news from heaven.  ‘Hope deferred’ will make ‘the heart sick.’  Doth not the sick man that sends for the physician think long for his coming?  O he is afraid his messenger should miss of him, or that he will not come with him, or that he shall die before he bring his physic.  A thousand fears disturb him, and make him passionately wish he were there.  Thus the sincere soul passeth those hours with a sad heart that it lives without a return of its request. ‘I am a woman,’ said Hannah to Eli, ‘of a sorrowful spirit,’ I Sam. 1:15.  And why so?  Alas, she had from year to year prayed to God, and no answer was yet come.  Thus saith the soul, ‘I am one of a bitter spirit, I have prayed for a soft heart, a believing heart, many a day and month; but it is not come.  I am afraid I was not sincere in the business.  Could my request so long have hung in the clouds else?’  Such a soul is full of fear and troubles—like a merchant that hath a rich ship at sea, who cannot sleep on land till he sees her, or hears of her.  But if, when thou hast sent up thy prayer, thou canst cast off the care and thoughts of the business, as if praying were only like children’s scribbling over pieces of paper—which when they have done, they lay aside and think no more of them—if thou canst take denials at God’s hands for such things as these, and blank no more than a cold suitor doth when he hears not from her whom he never really loved—it breaks not thy rest, embitters not thy joy—if so, a false heart set thee on work.  And take heed that, instead of answering thy prayer, God doth not answer the secret desire of thy heart, which should he do, thou art undone for ever.

(b) Observe whether thou usest the means to obtain that which thou prayest God to give.  A false heart sits still itself, while it sets God on work; like him that, when his cart was set in a slough, cried, Jupiter, help! but would not put his own shoulder to the wheel.  If corruptions may be mortified and killed for him, as Goliath was for the Israelites—he like them looking on, and not put to strike stroke—so it is; but for any encounter with them, or putting himself to the trouble of using any means to obtain the victory, he is so eaten up with sloth and coward­ice, that it is as grievous he thinks, as to sit still in slavery and bondage to them.  But a sincere soul is conscientiously laborious.  ‘Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens,’ Lam. 3:41. That is, saith Bernard, oremus et laboremus—let us pray and use the endeavour.  The hypocrite’s tongue wags, but the sincere soul’s feet walk, and his hands work.

(3.) Particular. The sincere soul discovers its plainness and simplicity to men.  ‘We have had our conversation’ among you, saith Paul to the Corinth­ians, ‘in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom.’  The Christian is one that cannot subject his heart to his head—his conscience to his policy. He commits himself to God in well-doing, and fears not others, if he be not conscious to himself; and therefore he dares not make a hole in his conscience to keep his skin whole, but freely and openly vouch­eth God without dissembling his profession; while the hypocrite shifts his sails, and puts forth such colours as his policy and worldly interest adviseth.  If the coast be clear, and no danger at hand, he will appear religious as any; but no sooner he makes discovery of any hazard it may put him to, but he tacks about, and shapes another course, making no bones of juggling with God and man.  He counts that his right road which leads to his temporal safety. But quite contrary is the upright, ‘The highway of the upright is to depart from evil,’ Prov. 16:17.  This is the road that this true traveler jogs on in, and if he be at any time seen out of it, it is upon no other account, than a man that hath unwillingly lost his way—never quiet till he hath strike into it again.

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2. Character.  A sincere heart is a plain heart, a simple heart, sine plicis—a heart without folds.  The hypocrite is of the serpent’s brood.  He can, as the serpent, shrink up, or let himself out for his advantage—unwilling to expose himself much to the knowledge of others.  And he has reason to do so. For he knows he hath most credit where he is least known.  The hypocrite is one that ‘seeks deep to hide his counsel,’ Isa. 29:15; ‘their heart is deep,’ Ps. 64:6; their meaning and intent of heart lies nobody knows how far distant from their words.  A sincere heart is like a clear stream in a brook; you may see to the bottom of his plots in his words, and take the measure of his heart by his tongue.  I have heard say that diseases of the heart are seen in spots of the tongue, but the hypocrite can show a clear tongue and yet have a foul heart.  He that made that proverb, loquere ut te videam—speak that I may see you, did not think of the hypocrite, who will speak that you shall not see him.  The thickest clouds that he hath to wrap up his villany in, are his religious tongue and sandy profession.  Wouldst thou know whether thou hast a true heart in thy bosom? look if thou hast a plain-dealing heart.  See them joined, II Cor. 1:12, for Paul and the rest of the faithful messengers of Christ, had their conversation among the Corinthians ‘in simplicity and godly sincerity.’  They had no close box in the cabinet of their hearts, in which they cunningly kept anything concealed from them of their designs, as the false apostles did.  Now this plain dealing of the sincere heart appears in these three particulars.

(1.) Particular. A sincere heart deals plainly with itself, and that in two things chiefly.

(a) In searching and ransacking its own self.  This it doth to its utmost skill and power.  It will not be put off with pretenses, or such a mannerly excuse as Rachel gave Laban, when at the same time she sat brooding on his idols.  No, an account it will have of the soul, and that such a one as may enable it to give a good account to God, upon whose warrant it does its office.  O the fear which such a one shows lest any lust should escape its eye, and lie hid, as Saul in the stuff; or that any, the least grace of God, should be trodden on regardlessly by belying ir denying it! When David found his thoughts of God, which used to recreate him, and be his most pleasing company, occasion some trouble in his spirit—‘I remembered God, and was troubled,’ Ps. 77:3—this holy man, wondering what the matter should be, do but see what a privy search he makes.  He hunts backwards and forwards, what God's former dealings had been, and ‘communes with his heart, and makes diligent search’ there, ver. 6; never gives over till he brings it to an issue; and finding the disturber of his peace to be in himself, he is not so tender of his reputation as to think of smothering the business or smoothing it over, but attacks the thief, indicts his sin, and confesseth the fact, to the justifying of God, whom before he had hard thoughts of.  ‘And I said, This is my infirmity,’ ver. 10; as if he had said, ‘Lord, now I see the Jonas that caused the storm in my bosom, and made me uncomfortable in my affliction all this while; it is this unbelief of mine that bowed me down to attend so to the sorrow and sense of my present affliction, that it would not suffer me to look up to former experiences, and so, while I forgat them, I thought unworthily of thee.’  Here was an honest plain-dealing soul indeed.  What akin art thou, O man, to holy David? is this thy way in of searching thy soul? dost thou do it in earnest, as if thou wert searching for a murderer hid in thy house; as willing to find out thy sin, as ever Papist in Queen Mary’s days was to find Protestants—to discover whom they would run their swords and forks into beds and hay­mows, lest they should be there?  Or, when thou goest about this work, art thou loath to look too far, lest thou shouldst see what thou wouldst willingly overlook? or afraid to stay too long, lest conscience should make an unpleasing report to thee?  

Tertul­lian said of the heathen persecutors, noluerunt audire, quod auditum damnare non possint—they would not let the Christians be heard, because they could not then easily have had the face to condemn them, their cause would have appeared so just.  The contrary here is true.  The hypocrite dares not put his state upon a fair trial, because then he could not handsomely escape condemning himself.  But the sincere soul is so zealous to know its true state, that when he hath done his utmost himself to find it out, and his conscience upon this privy search clears him, yet he contents not himself here; but jealous lest self-love might blind his eyes, and occasion too favourable a report from his conscience, he calls in help from heaven, and puts himself upon God's review.  ‘Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? Ps. 139:21. His own conscience answers to it: ‘I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies,’ ver. 22. Yet David, not wholly satisfied with his own single testimony, calls out to God, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart;...see if there be any wicked way in me,’ ver. 23,24.  And wise physicians will not trust their own judgments about the state of their own health; nor sincere Christians themselves about their souls’ welfare.  It is God that they attend to.  His judgment alone concludes and determines them.  When they have prayed and opened their case to him, with David, they listen what he will say.  Therefore you shall find them putting themselves under the most searching ministry, from which they never come more pleased than when their consciences are stripped naked, and their hearts exposed to their view; as the woman of Samaria, who commended the sermon, and Christ that preached it, for this unto her neighbours, that he had told her all that ever she had done, John 4:29.  Whereas a false heart like not to hear of that ear.  He thinks the preacher commits a trespass when he comes upon his ground, and comes up close to his conscience; as if he could, he would have an action against him for it.  This stuck in Herod's stomach, that John should lay his finger on his sore place. Though he feared him, being conscious, yet he never loved him, and therefore was soon persuaded to cut off his head, which had so bold a tongue in it, that durst reprove his incestuous bed.

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GUYS I AM SO SORRY....

My son was on his third brain surgery because his brain cancer came back  third time.  So, life as we know it has been a blurr for me. With the cancer coming back the third time, I can see changes in his behavior toward our Lord. So, please pray that God would open his eyes and soften his heart. Pray for repentance, pray for understanding and pray for salvation. Thanks so much for understanding.

Third.  I will lay down such positive discoveries of sincerity as no hypocrite ever did or can reach to. Having broken the flattering glasses wherein hypo­crites use to look, till they fall in love with their own painted faces, and conceit themselves sincere; as also those which disfigure the sweet countenance and natural beauty of the sincere soul, so as to make it bring the grace of God which shines on it into question; I now proceed to draw a few lineaments, and lay down some undoubted characters of this truth of heart, and godly sincerity, whereby we may have the better advantage of stating to everyone his own condition.

1. Character.  A sincere heart is a new heart.  Hypo­crisy is called ‘the old leaven;’ ‘purge out there­fore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump,’ I Cor. 5:7.  Dough once soured with leaven, will never lose the taste of it.  Neither will corrupt nature cease to be hypocritical, till it cease to be corrupt nature.  Either the heart must be made new, or it will have its old quality.  There may be some art used to conceal it, and take away its unsavouriness from others, for a while, as flowers and perfumes cast about a rotten carcass may do its scent; yet both the rotten carcass and the corrupt heart remain the same.  They say of the peacock, that roast him as much as you will, yet his flesh, when cold, will be raw again.  Truly, thus let a carnal heart do what it please—force upon itself never such a high strain of seeming piety, so that it appears fire-hot with zeal, yet stay a little, and it will come to its old complexion, and discover itself to be but what it was, naught and false.  ‘One heart,’ and a ‘new heart,’ both are covenant mercies, yea, so promised, that the ‘new’ is promised in order to the making of the heart ‘one:’ ‘And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart,’ &c. Eze. 11:19.  God prom­iseth he will give them one spirit, that is a sincere spirit to God and man; contrary to a divided heart, a heart and a heart, the mark of hypocrisy.  But how will he give it?  He tell them, ‘I will give you a new spirit,’ and how will he do that?  ‘I will take away the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh;’ upon which words one very well thus glosseth, ‘I will give you one heart; which that I may so do, I will cast it anew; and that I may do this also, I will melt and soften it; as one that having many pieces of old silver, or plate lying by him, which he intends to put into one bowl, first resolves to cast it anew, and to that end throws it into the fire to melt, and so at last shuts up all in one piece.’  Indeed, by nature man’s heart is a very divided and broken thing, scattered and parcel­led out, a piece to this creature, and a piece to that lust.  One while, this vanity hires him, as Leah did Jacob of Rachel; anon, when he hath done some drudgery for that, he lets himself out to another. Thus divided is man and his affections.  Now, the elect —whom God hath decreed to be vessels of honour, consecrated for his holy use and service—he throws into the fire of his word, that, being there softened and melted, he may by his transforming Spirit cast them anew, as it were, into a holy oneness; so that he who was before divided from God, and lost among the creatures and his lusts, that shared him among them, hath now his heart gathered in from them all to God. It looks with a single eye on God and acts for him in all it doth.  If therefore thou wouldst know whether thy heart be sincere, inquire whether it be thus made new.

           Hath God thrown thee into his furnace? did ever his word, like fire, take hold upon thee, so as to soften thy hard heart and melt thy drossy spirit, [so] that thou now seest that desperate hypocrisy. pride, unbelief, and the like, which before lay hid like dross in the metal, before the fire finds it out? and not only seest it [hypocrisy, &c.], but seest it sever and separ­ate from thy soul, [in such a way] that thou who be­fore didst bless thyself as in a good condition, now bewailest thy folly for it, heartily confessing what an unsavoury creature thou wert to God in all thou didst. The things which appeared so gaudy and fair in thy eye—thy civil righteousness, keeping thy church, slub­bering over a few duties in thy family—that for them thou thoughtest heaven was, as it were, in mortgage to thee; dost now lament to think how thou didst mock God with these hypocritical pageants abroad, while thy lusts were entertained within doors in thy bosom, there sucking the heart-blood of thy dearest affections?  In a word, canst thou say that thou art not only melted into sorrow for these, but that thou findest thy heart, which was so divided and distracted betwixt lusts and creatures now united to fear the name of God?  Hast thou but one design—that, above all, thou pursuest, and that, viz. to approve thyself to God, though with the displeasing of all be­side? one love—how thou mayest love Christ, and be beloved of him.  If the streams of thy affections be thus, by the mighty power of God renewing thee, gathered into this one channel, and with a sweet violence running this way, then blessed art thou of the Lord.  

Thou art the sincere soul in his account, though much corruption be found in thee still, that is royling thy stream, and endeavouring to stop the free course of thy soul God-wards.  This may put thee to some trouble.  As the mountains and rocks do the river water running to the sea, causing some windings and turnings in its course, which else would go the nearest way, even in a direct line to it; so thy re­maining corruptions may now and then put thee out of thy way of obedience.  But sincerity will, like the water, go on its journey for all this, and never leave till it bring thee, though with some compass, to thy God, whom thou hast so imprinted in thy heart, as that he can never be forgot by thee.  But if thou never hadst the hypocrisy of thy heart thus discovered and made hateful to thee, nor a new principle put into thy bosom, to turn the tide of thy soul contrary to the natural fall of thy affections; only thou, from the good opinion which thou hast of thyself—because of some petty flourishes thou makest in profession—takest it for granted thou art sincere, and thy heart true; I dare pronounce thee an unclean hypocrite.  The world may saint thee, possibly, but thou wilt never, as thou art, be so in God's account.  When thou has tricked and spruced up thyself never so finely, into the fashion of a Christian, still thou wilt have but a saint’s face, and a hypocrite’s heart.  It is no matter what is the sign, though an angel, that hangs without, if the devil and sin dwell within.  New trimmings on an old garment will not make it new, they only give it a new look.  And truly it is no good husbandry to bestow a great deal of cost in fining up an old suit that will drop in a while to tatters and rags, when a little more might purchase a new one that is lasting.  And is it not better to labour to get a new heart, that all thou doest may be accepted and thou saved, than to loose all the pains thou takest in religion, and thyself also, for want of it?

SECOND APPLICATION: The grounds on which a weak Christian argues against his own uprightness, and their falsity 3/3

To apply the first—

           (1.) We must distinguish between conscience proceeding by a right rule in its judgment, and con­science proceeding by a false rule.  Then conscience proceeds by a right rule, when it grounds its charge upon the word of God; for, being but an under officer, it is bound up to a law by which it must proceed.  And that can be no other than what God appoints it, who gives it commission, and puts it in office.  And that is the word of God, and that only. So that we are to give credit to our conscience’s com­manding or forbidding, condemning or acquitting us, when it can show its warrant from the word of God for these; otherwise, as subjects that are wronged in an inferior court and cannot have justice there, may appeal higher, so may and ought we, from conscience, to the word of God.  And you must know conscience is a faculty that is corrupted as much as any other by nature, and is very oft made use of by Satan to deceive both good and bad, godly and ungodly.  Many that now {know?} their consciences, they say, speak peace to them, will be found merely cheated and gulled when the books shall be opened.  No such dis­charge will then be found entered in the book of the word, as conscience hath put into their hand.  And many gracious souls, who passed their days in a continual fear of their spiritual state, and were kept chained in the dark dungeon of a troublesome con­science, shall then be acquitted, and have their action against Satan for false imprisonment, and abusing their consciences to the disturbing their peace.  And now let me ask thee, poor soul, who sayest thy con­science checks thee for a hypocrite, art thou a con­victed hypocrite by the word?  Doth conscience show thee a word rom Christ’s law that proves thee so? or rather, doth not Satan abuse thy own fearfulness, and play upon the tenderness of thy spirit, which is so deeply possessed with the sense of thy sins, that thou art ready to believe any motion in thee that tells any evil of thee?  I am sure it is oft so.  The fears and checks which some poor souls have in their bosoms, are like those reports that are now and then raised of some great news, by such as have a mind to abuse the country.  A talk and murmur you shall have in every one’s mouth of it, but go about to follow it to the spring-head, and you can find no ground of it, or author of credit that will vouch it.  Thus here: —a bruit there is in the tempted Christian’s bosom, and a noise heard as it were continually whispering in his ears, ‘I am a hypocrite, my heart is naught; all I do is dissembling;’ but when the poor creature, in earnest, sets upon the search to find out the business—calls his soul to the bar, and falls to examine it upon those interrogatories which the word propounds for trial of our sincerity—he can fasten this charge from none of them all upon himself, and at last comes to find it but a false alarm of hell, given out to put him to some trouble and affrightment for the present, though not [to] hurt him in the end.  [It is] like the politician’s lie, which, though it be found false at last, yet doth them some service the time it is believed for true.  As one serious question, such as this, seriously put to a gross hypocrite. is able to make him speechless, viz. —What promise in all the Bible hast thou on thy side for thy salvation?—so it is enough to deliver the troubled soul from his fears of being a hypocrite, if he would but, as David, ask his soul a Scripture reason for his disquietments—‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?’ The sincere soul hath firm ground for his faith at bottom, however a little dirt is cast by Satan over it, to make him afraid of venturing to set his foot on it. But we must also distinguish,

           (2.) We must distinguish between a conscience rightly informed, and a conscience misinformed.  A conscience may be regular, so as to choose the right rule, but not rightly informed how to use this rule in his particular case.  Indeed, in the saint's trouble of spirit, conscience is full of Scripture, sometimes, on which it grounds its verdict, but very ill interpreted; ‘O,’ saith the poor soul, ‘this place is against me:’—‘Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord im­puteth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile,’ Ps. 32:2.  ‘Here,’ saith he, ‘is a description of a sincere soul, to be one in whose spirit there is no guile.  But I find much guile in me.  Therefore I am not the sincere one.’  Now this is a very weak, yea, false inference.  By a spirit without guile, is not meant a person that hath not the least deceitfulness and hypocrisy remaining in his heart.  This is such a one, as none, since the fall, but Christ himself, was ever found, walking in mortal flesh.  To be without sin, and to be without guile, in this strict sense, are the same;—a prerogative here on earth peculiar to the Lord Christ; ‘who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,’ I Peter 2:22.  And therefore, when we meet with the same phrase attributed to the saints —as to Levi, ‘Iniquity was not found in his lips,’ Mal. 2:6, and to Nathanael, ‘Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile,’ John 1:47—we must sense it in an inferior way, that may suit with their imperfect state here below, and not put that which only was Christ’s crown on earth, and is the glorified saint's robe in heaven, to wear on the weak Christian while militant on earth—not only with a devil without, but a body of sin within him.  Wipe thine eyes again, poor soul, and then, if thou readest such places wherein the Spirit of God speaks so highly and hyperbolically of his saints’ grace, thou shalt find he doth not assert the per­fection of their grace as free from all mixture of sin; but rather, to comfort poor drooping souls and cross their misgiving hearts—which from the presence of hypocrisy are ready to overlook their sincerity as none at all—he expresseth his high esteem of their little grace by speaking of it as if it were perfect, and their hypocrisy as none at all.  O Christian, thy God would have thee know that thou dost not more overlook thy little grace for fear of the hypocrisy thou findest mingled with it, than he doth thy great corruptions, for the dear love he bears to the little, yet true grace he sees amidst them.  Abraham loved and owned his kinsman Lot when a prisoner carried away by those heathen kings.  So does thy God [love and own] thy grace, [as] near in blood to him, when it is sadly yoked by the enemy in thy own bosom; and, for thy comfort know, when the book shall be opened, the word too, and also the judgment of thy own con­science in the great day of Christ.  Christ will be the interpreter of both.  Not the sense which thou hast in the distemper of thy troubled soul, when thou readest both with Satan’s gloss put upon them, shall stand; but what Christ shall say.  And to be sure he hath al­ready declared himself so great a friend to weak grace, when on earth, by his loving converse with his dis­ciples, and [the] free testimony he gave to his grace in them—when God knows they were but raw and weak Chris­tians, both as to their knowledge and practice —that, poor soul, thou needst not fear he will then and there condemn, what here he commended and so dearly embraced.  Yea, he that took most care for his little lambs how they might be used gently, when he was to go from them to heaven, will not be unkind himself to them, at his return, I warrant thee.