Various Helps for the Clearing of Sincerity, and Discovery of Hypocrisy
Sect. L — You see of what importance the duty of self-examination is, and how many things put a necessity and a solemnity upon that work. Now, in the close of all, I would offer you some helps for the due management thereof, that is, as far as I can carry it. The Lord persuade your hearts to the diligent and faithful application and use of them. The general rules to clear sincerity are these that follow: —
“Rule 1. We must not presently conclude that we are in the state of hypocrisy, because we find some workings of it, and tendencies to it, in our spirits. The best gold has some dross and alloy in it. Hypocrisy is a weed naturally springing in all ground: the best heart is not perfectly clear or free of it. It may be that we are stumbled, when wr* feel some workings of this disease in ourselves, and looking into such Scriptures as these: “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” — “Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” This, I say, may stumble some upright soul, not understanding in what a qualified sense these Scriptures are to be understood; for by a spirit without guile, is not to be understood a person absolutely free from all deceitfulness and falseness of heart. This was the sole prerogative of the Lord Jesus, who was separated from sinners, in whose mouth was no guile found, in whom the prince of this world, in all his trials and attempts upon him, found nothing: but we must understand it of reigning and allowed hypocrisy. There is no such guile as this in any of the saints. Distinguish the presence from the predominance of hypocrisy, and the doubt is resolved.
Rule 2. Every true ground of humiliation for sin IS not a sufficient ground for doubting and questioning our state and condition.
There are many more things to humble us upon the account of our infirmity, than there are to stumble us upon the account of our integrity. It is the sin and affliction of some good souls to call their condition in question upon every slip and failing in the course of their obedience. This is the way to debar ourselves from all the peace and comfort of the Christian life. We find that Joseph was once minded to put away Mary his espoused wife, not knowing that the holy thing which was conceived in her was by the Holy Ghost. It is the sin of hypocrites to take brass for gold, and the folly of saints to call their gold brass. Be as severe to yourselves as you will, provided always you be just. “There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing; there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.” Hiram called the cities ^olomon gave him, Cabul, that is. Dirty, for they pleased him not, 1 Kings ix. 13. It is but an ill requital, an ungrateful return to God for the best of mercies, to undervalue them in our hearts, and be ready upon all occasions to put them away as worth nothing.
Rule 3. A stronger propension in our nature, and Q 60 more frequent incidence in our practice, to one sin than another, do not presently infer our hypocrisy, and the unsoundness of our hearts in religion. It is true, every hypocrite has some way of wickedness; some iniquity that he delights in, and rolls as a sweet morsel under his tongue; some lust that he is not willing to part with, nor can endure that the knife af mortification should touch; and this undoubtedly argues the insincerity and rottenness of his heart. And it is true also that the nature and constitution of the miOst sanctified man inclines him rather to one sin than to another, though he allow himself in none; yea, though he set himself more watchfully against that sin than any other, yet he may still have more trouble and vexation, more temptation and defilement from it, than from any other. As “every man has his proper gift, one after this manner, and another after that,”. as the apostle speaks, so every man has his proper sin also, one after this manner, and another after that. For it is with original sin as it is with the juice or sap of the earth, which, though it is the common matter of all kinds of fruit, yet it is specificated according to the different sorts of plants and seeds which it nourishes; in one it becomes an apple, in another a cherry. Just so it is in original corruption, which is turned into this or that temptation or sin, according to this or that constitution or employment it finds us in. In one it is passion, in another lust, in a third covetousness, in a fourth levity, and so on. Now, I say, the frequent assaults of this sin — provided we indulge it not, but, by setting double guard, labour to keep ourselves from our own iniquity, as David did, Psalm xviii. 23 — will not infer the hypocrisy of our hearts.
Rule 4. A greater backwardness and indisposcdncss to one duty rather than another, does not conclude the heart to be unsound and false with God, provided we do not inwardly dislike and disapprove any duty of religion, or except against it in our agreement with Christ, but that it riseth merely from the present weakness and distemper we labour under.
There are some duties in religion, as suffering for Christ, bearing sharp reproofs for sin, to which even an upright man, under a present distemper, may find a great deal of backwardness and loathness; yet still he consents to the law that it is good, is troubled that he cannot comply more cheerfully with his duty, and desires to stand complete in the will of God. Perfection is his aim, and imperfections are his sorrows.
Some Christians have much ado to bring their hearts to fixed, solemn meditation; their hearts fly off from it; but this is their burden, that it should be so with them. True, it is a very dangerous sign of hypocrisy, when a man’s zeal runs out in one channel of obedience only, and he has not respect to all God’s commandments; as physicians observe, that the heat of one part of the body, when all the rest is cold, is symptomatical, and argues an ill habit: but whilst the soul heartily approves all the will of God, and sincerely desires to come up to it, and mourns for its backwardness and deadness to this or that duty, and this deadness is not fixed, but occasional, under some present indisposition out of which the soul rises in the same degrees as sanctification rises in him, and the Lord comes in with renewed strength upon him; this, I say, may consist, and is very ordinarily found to be the case of upright-hearted ones.
Rule 5. The glances of the eye at self-ends in duties, whilst self is not the weight that moves the wheels or the principal end and design we aim at, and whilst those glances are corrected and mourned for, do not conclude the heart to be unsound and hypocritical in religion.
Even among the most deeply sanctified, few can keep their eyes so steady and fixed with pure and unmixed respects to the glory of God, but that there will be, alas! too frequently, some by-ends insinuating and creeping into the heart. These, like the fowls, seize upon the sacrifice, let the soul take what pains it can to drive them away. It is well that our High Priest bears the iniquities of our holy things for us. Peter had too much regard to the pleasing of men, and did not walk with that uprightness towards the Gentile Christians and the believing Jews, in the matter of liberty, as became him; for which, as Paul said, he ought to be blamed, and he did blame him; but yet such a failing as that in the end of his duty did not condemn him. In public performances there may be too much vanity, in works of charity too much ostentation: these are all workings of hypocrisy in us, and matters of humiliation to us; but whilst they are disallowed, corrected, and mourned over, they are consistent with integrity.
Rule 6. The doubts and fears that hang upon and perplex our spirits about the hypocrisy of our hearts, do not conclude that therefore we are what we fear ourselves to be.
God will not condemn every one for a hypocrite that suspects, yea, or charges himself with hypocrisy. Holy David thought his heart was not right with
God, after that great slip of his in the matter of Uriah; and therefore he begs of God to renew a right spirit within him: his integrity was indeed wounded, and, as he thought, destroyed by that fall. Holy Mr. Bradford so vehemently doubted the sincerity of his heart, that he subscribed some of his letters, “John Bradford the hypocrite; a very painted sepulchre:” and yet, in so saying, he utterly misjudged the state and temper of his own soul.
Sect. II. — Well then, let not the upright be unjust to themselves in censuring their own hearts. They are bad enough, but let us not make them worse than they are, but thankfully own and acknowledge the least degrees of grace and integrity in them; and possibly our uprightness might be sooner discovered to us, if, in a due composure of spirit, we would sit down and attend to the true answers of our own hearts to such questions as these are: —
Quest. 1. Do I make the approbation of God, or the applause of men, the very end and main design of my religious performances? according to 1 Thess. ii. 4. Col. iii. 23. Will the acceptance of my duties with men satisfy me, whether God accept my duties and person or not?
Quest. 2. Is it the reproach and shame that attends sin at present, and the danger and misery that will follow it hereafter, that restrains me from the commission of it? or is it the fear of God in my soul, and the hatred I bear to it as it is sin? according to Psalm xix. 12. and Psalm cxix. 113.
Quest. 3. Can I truly and heartily rejoice to see God’s work carried on in the world, and his glory promoted, by other hands, though I have no share in the credit and honour of it, as Paul did? Phil. i. 18.
Quest. 4. Is there liO duty in religion so full of difficulty and self-denial, but I desire to comply with it? And is all the holy and good will of God acceptable to my soul, though I cannot rise up with like readiness to the performance of all duties? according to that pattern in Psalm cxix. 6.
Qjiest, 5. Am I sincerely resolved to follow Christ and holiness at all seasons, however the aspects of the times may be towards religion? or do I carry myself so warily and covertly as to shun all hazards for religion, having a secret reserve in my heart to launch out no further than I may return with safety, contrary to the practice and resolution of upright souls? Psalm cxvi. 3, 4. Psalm xliv. 18, 19. Rev. xxii. 14.
Quest. 6. Do I make no conscience of committing secret sins, or neglecting secret duties? or am I conscientious both in the one and the other? according to the rules and patterns of integrity in Matt. vi. 5, 6. Psalm xix. 12 — 14.
A few such questions solemnly propounded to our own hearts in a calm and serious hour, would sound them, and discover much of their sincerity towards the Lord.
Sect. III. — And as upright hearts are too apt to apply to themselves the threats and miseries of hypocrites, so hypocrites, on the contrary, are as apt to catch hold of the promises and privileges pertaining to believers. To detect therefore the soul- damning mistakes of such deceived souls, O that these following rules might be studied, and faithfully applied to their conviction and recovery!
Ride 1. It is not enough to clear a man from hypocrisy, that he knows not himself to be a hypocrite. All hyy)ocrites are not designing hypocrites; they deceive themselves as well as others: “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?” Hell will be a surprisal to multitudes of professors. A man may live and die in a blind, ungrounded confidence of his safe condition, and not fear his ruin till he begins to feel it.
Rule 2. Zeal and forwardness in the cause of God, and for the reformation of his worship, will not clear a man from the danger of hypocrisy. Jehu was a zealous reformer, and yet but a painted sepulchre. In the year 1549, reformation grew so much in reputation, even among the nobles and gentry in Germany, that many of them caused these five letters, F, D, M. L JE. being the initial letters of these words, “Verhum Domini manet in ceternum” that is, “The word of the Lord abideth for ever,” to be wrought, or embroidered, or set in plates, some upon their cloaks, and others upon the sleeves of their garments; to show to all the world, that, forsaking all popish traditions, they would now cleave to the pure doctrine and discipline of the eternal Word. And no doubt they would have been as good as their word, if what was embroidered on their cloaks had been engraven on their hearts; but, “Come, see my zeal,” mars all.
Rule 3. It is no sufficient evidence of a man*s own integrity, that he hates hypocrisy in another; for, as one proud man may hate another, and he who is covetous himself will be apt to censure another for being so; as lusts may be contrary to one another, as well as all of them contrary to grace; so may a hypocrite loathe that in another, which yet he allows in himself: nay, it is the poHcy of some to declaim against the hypocrisy of others, thereby to hide their own. Hypocrites are none of the most modest censurers of others, Psalm xxxv. 16. A salt jest seasoneth their meat.
Rule 4. The mere performance of private duties will not clear a man from hypocrisy. The influence of education, or support of reputation, or the impulse of a convinced conscience, may induce a man to it; and yet all this while his heart may not be carried thither with hungry and thirsty desires after God. It is not the matter of any duty that distinguishes the sound and unsound professor; but the motives, designs, and ends of the soul in them.
Rule 5. The character you have among Christians for sincerity, will not be sufficient to clear you from the danger of hypocrisy. Christ tells the angel of Sardis, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” The fall of Hymeneus and Philetus could never have shaken the faith of the saints as it did, had they not had great credit in the church, and been men of renown for piety among them.
Rule 6. Your respects and love to them that arf; the sincere and upright servants of God, will not clear you from the danger of being hypocrites yourselves; for the bare loving of a Christian is not evidential of a man’s own Christianity, except he love him, as he is a Christian, or as he belongs to Christ; and so his sincerity becomes the attractive of your affection. There are a thousand by-considerations and respects that may kindle a man’s love to the saints, besides their integrity.
Sect. IV. — Well then, if thou wouldst indeed see the unsoundness of thy own heart, propound such heart-sounding questions as these to thyself: —
Quest, 1. .Do I engage ray heart to approach unto God in the course of my duties? or do I go the round of duties, taking no heed to my heart in them? If so, compare this symptom of thy hypocrisy with that in 2 Kings x. 31. and that in Ezek. xx. 31, 32.
Quest. 2. Am I not swayed and moved by self-interest and carnal respects in the ways of religion, the accommodation of some worldly interest, or the getting a name and reputation of godliness? If so, how apparently do the same symptoms of hypocrisy appear upon my soul, which did upon Judas, John xii, 6.; and on Jehu, 2 Kings x. 15, 16.
Quest. 3. Have I not some secret reserves in my heart, notwithstanding that face and appearance of zeal which I put on? Certainly, if there be any sin that I cannot part with, any suffering for Christ which I resolve against in my heart, I am not his disciple; my heart is not right with God, the Searcher of hearts himself being a Judge.
Quest, 4f, What conscience do I make of secret sins? Do I mourn for a vain heart, wandering thoughts, spiritual deadness? And do I conscientiously abstain from the practice of secret sins, when there is no danger of discovery, no fear of forfeiting my reputation by them? Is it God’s eye, or man’s, that awes me from the commission of sin? Certainly, if I allow myself in secret sins, I am not of the number of God’s upright people, whose spirits are of a contrary temper to mine. Psalm cxix. 113,; Psalm cxii. 1, 2.
Sect. V. — I will shut up all with five or six coneluding counsels (which the Lord impress upon the heart of him that writes, and those that shall read them!) to preserve and antidote the soul against the dangerous insinuation and leaven of hypocrisy.
Counsel 1. Entreat the Lord, night and day, for a renewed and right spirit. All the helps and directions in the world will not antidote and preserve you from hypocrisy: nothing will be found able to keep you right, till sanctification has first set you right: “I will put my Spirit within you; and cause you to walk in my statutes.” A bowl may keep by a strait line, so long as the impressed force of the hand that delivered it remains strong upon it; but as that wears off, so its motion fails, and its own bias sways and turns it. A fright of conscience, a pang of warm affection, or the influence of some great example, or a good education, may affect an unrenewed soul, and push it on in the way of salvation for a season; but the heart, so influenced, must and will return to its own natural course again. And I think there wants nothing but time or a suitable temptation, to discover the true temper of many a professor’s spirit. Pray, therefore, as that holy man did in Psalm cxix. 80. “Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I be not ashamed.”
Counsel 2. Always suspect and examine your ends in what you do. Sincerity and hypocrisy lie much in your ends and designs; as they are, so are you. The intentions of the heart lie deep. A man may do the same action to a holy end, and his person and service be accepted with God; which another doing for a corrupt end, it may be reckoned his sin, and both his person and service be abhorred by the
Lord. We find two men riding in one chariot, and both of them concerned in the same expedition, Jehu the son of Nimshi, and Jonadab the son of Kcchab, 2 Kings X. 15, 23.; but though the work they engaged in was one and the same, yet the different ends they aimed at made the same action an excellent duty in Jonadab, and an act of vile hypocrisy in Jehu. It was the saying of a good man, when commended for a good action, “The work indeed is good, but I suspect the motive of it. Self-ends are creeping and insinuating things into the best actions.”
Counsel 3. Stir up yourselves with the daily fears of the sin that is in hypocrisy, and the misery that will follow it. Look upon it as the most odious sin in the eyes of God and men. To want holiness is bad enough, but to dissimulate and pretend it when ve have it not, is double impiety. To make religion, the most glorious thing in the world, a mere stirrup to preferment, and a covert to wickedness, O how vile a thing is this! God made Christ a sacrifice for sin, and the hypocrite will make him a cloak for sin.
And as to the punishments that follow it, they are suitable to the nature of the sin; for as hypocrisy is out of measure sinful, so the reward and punishment of it will be out of measure dreadful.. “He shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” Matt. xxiv. 5L
Counsel 4. Be daily at work in the mortification of those lusts that breed hypocrisy. It is plain, without much sifting, that pride, vain-glory, self-love, and a worldly heart, are the seeds out of which this cursed plant springs up in the souls of men. Dig but to the root, you will certainly find these things there; and till the Lord helps you to kill and mortify these, hypocrisy will spring up in all your duties to God, and in all your converses with men.
Counsel 5. Attend the native voice of your own consciences in the day of sickness, fear or trouble, and take special notice of its checks or upbraidings, which, like a stitch in your side, will gird at such times. Beware of that evil which conscience brands and marks at such times, whether it be your living in the practice of some secret sin, or in the neglect of some known duty. These frights of conscience mark out the corruption, wherein your danger mostly lies.
Counsel 6. Let all that profess religion be uniform and steady in the profession and practice of it, without politic reserves and by-ends. O take heed of this Laodicean neutrality and indifFerency which Christ hates! Be sure your ground be good, and then be sure you stand your ground. The religion of time-servers is but hypocrisy. They have sluices in their consciences which they can open or shut as occasion requires. Every fox will at least have two holes to his den, that if one be stopped, he may escape at the other. The hypocrite poises himself so evenly in a mediocrity, that, as it is said of Baldwin, “Let Antony win, let Augustus win, all is one;” so let Christ win, or let Antichrist win, he hopes to make every wind that can blow serviceable to waft him to the port of his own interest.
The hypocrite has always more of the moon than of the sun, little light, many spots, and frequent changes. It is easier to him to bow to the cross, than to bear the cross; to sin, than to suffer.
Our own history tells us of a poor simple woman who lived both in the reign of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, and would constantly say her prayers both in Latin and English, that she might be sure to please one side or the other; and “Let God,” said she, “take which likes him best.” What is noted as an act of ridiculous simplicity in her, the time-serving hypocrite accounts a point of deep policy in himself.
The times under Dioclesian were Pagan; under Constantino, Christian; under Constantius, Arian; under Julian, apostate; and under Jovian, Christian again; and all this within the space of seventy years, the age of one man. O what shifting and shuffling was there among the men of that generation! The changes of weather show the unsoundness of men’s bodies, and the changes of times the unsoundness of their souls.
Christian, if ever thou wilt manifest and maintain thine integrity, be a man but of one design, and be sure that be an honest and good design, to secure heaven, whatever becomes of earth; to hold fast integrity, whatever thou art forced to let go for its sake. Take heed of pious frauds. Certainly it was the devil that first married these two words tog-ether: for they never did nor can agree betwixt themselves, nor was ever such a marriage made in heaven.
Never study to model religion, and the exercises thereof, in a consistency with or subserviency to your fleshly interests. If your religion be but a mock religion, your reward shall be but a mock heaven, that is, a real hell.
O the vanity and inutility of these projects and designs! Men strive to cast themselves into such modes, and stint themselves to such measures of religion, as they think will best promote or secure their earthly interests: but it often falls out, contrary to their expectation, that their deep policies are ridiculous follies; they become the grief and shame of their friends, and the scorn and song of their enemies. And often it fares with them, as it did with him who placed himself in the middle of the table, where he could neither reach the dish above him, nor that below him; and, which is the very best of it, if earthly interest be accommodated by sinful neutrality, and a Laodicean indifferency in religion, yet no good man should once feel a temptation to embrace it, except he think what is wanting in the sweetness of his sleep may be fully recompensed to him by the stateliness of his bed, and richer furniture of his chamber; I mean, that a fuller and higher condition in the world, can make him amends for the loss of his inward peace, and the quiet repose of a good conscience. These by-ends and self-interests are the little passages through which hypocrisy creeps in upon the professors of religion.
O let this be your rejoicing, which was Paul’s, “the testimony of your conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, you have had your conversation m the world.” Let that be your daily prayer and cry to heaven, which was David’s, “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait on thee.”
Counsel 7. Keep your hearts day and night under the awe of God’s all-seeing eye. Remember that he beholds all your ways, and ponders all your thoughts. How covertly soever hypocrisy may be carried for a time, all must, and will out at last, Luke xii. 3. Sccresy is the main inducement to hypocrisy: but it will fall out with the hypocrite, as it did with Ottocar the king of Bohemia; he refused to do homage to Rodolphus the emperor, till at last, chastised with war, he was content to do him homage privately in a tent; but the tent was so contrived by the emperor’s servants, that by drawing one cord, it was taken all away; and so Ottocar was presented on his knees doing homage, in view of three armies.
Reader, awe thy heart with God’s eye; know that he will bring every secret thing into judgment. Thus did Job, and it preserved him. Job xxxi. 1 — 4. Thus did David, and it preserved him. Psalm xviii. 21 — 23. Thus do thou also, and it will preserve thee blameless and without guile to the day of Christ.