of eternity, and its turn is not yet come to go before that awful tribunal? O that these considerations may have force upon our hearts!

CHAPTER XII.

Helps for the Clearing of Sincerity and Discovery of Hypocrisy.

SECTION I.

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

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 we feel some workings of this disease in ourselves, and looking into such scriptures as these; "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile," John i. 47. "Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile," Psal. xxxii. 1. This, I say, may stumble some upright soul, not understanding in what a qualified sense those 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.

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 your selves as you will, provided always you be just. "There is that maketh himself rich, and yet hath nothing; and there is that maketh himself poor, and yet hath great riches," Prov. xiii. 7. Hiram called the cities Solomon gave him, Cabul, that is, Dirty, for they pleased him not, I 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.

3. A stronger propension in our nature, and 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 of 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 most 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, 1 Cor. vii. 7; 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 fruits, 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, labor to keep ourselves from our own iniquity, as David did, Psalm xviii. 23, will not infer the hypocrisy of our hearts.

4. A greater backwardness and indisposedness 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 labor 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 lothness; yet still he consents to the law that it is good, is troubled that he cannot com→ ply more cheerfully with his duty, and desires to stand complete in all 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.

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 eye 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 hunfiliation to us; but whilst they are disallowed, corrected, and mourned over, they are consistent with integrity.

6. The doubts and fears that hang upon and perplex our spirits about the hypocrisy of our hearts, do not conIclude 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 in him, Psal. li. 10, 11, 12: 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.

SECTION 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

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?

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 Psal. xix. 12; and Psal. exix. 113.

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 honor of it, as Paul did? Phil. i. 18.

4. Is there no 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 Psal. cxix. 6? 5. Am I sincerely resolved to follow Christ and holiness atfall seasons, however the aspects of the times may be Div. No. XIX.

X