comes it to pass that you stick in your natural state, as if you had no need of sanctification; and live as quietly without any acquaintance with true regeneration, and the Spirit to dwell and rule within you, as if you needed no such change? Or else, that you take up with a formal, an affected, or a forced kind of religion, instead of sanctification and spiritual devotion? And how comes it to pass that you distaste the highest degrees of holiness; and that you will not be brought to the mortification, self-denial, and unreserved obedience, which are the essence of sanctification? As for the more debauched, profane sort of hypocrites that can make a common mock of godliness, and scorn at the very name of holiness and sanctification, and deride at all that pretend to have the Spirit, I had rather tremble at the thought of their misery than now stand to reprove that notorious hypocrisy, which professeth to believe in the Holy Spirit which they deride, and covenanteth with the Sanctifier, while they hate and mock, or, at least, do obstinately refuse, sanctification, When God himself tells us, (Rom. viii. 9,) "That if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his :" and therefore to deride a man for professing that he hath the Spirit, is to deride him for professing to be a Christian.

4. Do you not all profess to "believe the holy Catholic Church;" that is, that Christ hath a people dispersed through the world, that are sanctified by his Spirit, and made a holy peculiar people, whom he loveth as his spouse and as his own body, of which number you must be if you will be saved? And yet, at the same time, the members of this church you contemn, the holiness of it you secretly hate, and the faithful pastors in it you despise and disobey. Is not this hypocrisy ?

5. You all profess to "believe the communion of saints;" that is, that the true members of the Catholic Church are all saints, that have one and the same Spirit, and walk by the same holy law or rule, and in holiness must converse together, and join together for the public worshipping of God, according to his own institution; and must purely and fervently love each other with such a charity as shall make one as ready to relieve another, when God calls for it, as if our riches did belong, in common, to the saints. This is the meaning of this article of your creed. And do I then need to ask you whether those that profess this are hypocrites, if they hate the saints and their inward spiritual communion; and if they love them but with that lifeless charity that James describeth? (James ii. 14, 15, &c,) or

if they despise or hate the discipline, ordinances, and holy communion of the church; and if they live in communion with drunkards, with harlots, with worldlings, or sensual, vain, or ambitious men, and fly from the "communion of saints?" What dost thou when thou sayest, "I believe the communion of saints," but say, 'I am a dissembling hypocrite,' if it be thus with thee?

6. You all profess to "believe the forgiveness of sins;" that is, that through the blood of Christ all true repenting and believing sinners shall be forgiven, and are not shut up under remediless despair; and also I think you all profess that you do repent yourselves, that forgiveness may be yours; and yet you love your sin; you love not to be told of it; you will not believe it to be sin, as long as you can strive against conviction ;' and when you must needs confess it, you will not forsake it; but while you seem to reform by parting with so much as you can spare, your dearer sins, which pleasure and honour and profit are much engaged in, you will not forsake; though repentance do consist in turning from sin to God, and Christ hath assured you that "except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." (Luke xiii. 3, 5.) Is not this, therefore, palpable hypocrisy, to profess repentance for remission of sin, and still keep the sin which you say you repent of, as if you thought to mock God with names and shows?

7. You all profess to "believe the resurrection of the body, and that Christ shall come again to judge the quick and the dead;" but do you live as men that believe it indeed, that they are passing unto such a judgment? If you seriously expected to be judged for your lives, for the words you speak, the deeds you do, the time you spend, the means of grace which you neglect or use, and for all that you receive and do, is it possible you could so waste your time, and neglect the means of your salvation, and sin so boldly and obstinately as you do?

8. You all profess that you "believe the life everlasting,' that the righteous shall go into their Master's joy, and the rest into everlasting punishment in hell. (Matt. xxv. 13.) But do you not play the hypocrites? Can you heartily believe that you stand so near to heaven or hell, to everlasting joy or torments, and make no greater a matter of it, nor make no better preparation for it, nor bestir yourselves no more in a case of such unspeakable weight? If you believe sincerely the glory of Heaven, you set your hearts on it more than upon Earth,

and take it for your portion, and most desirable felicity. But do I need to tell the worldly, fleshly hypocrite how far he is from this.

9. You profess, as the sum of the ten commandments, that you love God above all, and your neighbours as yourselves. But doth not your selfishness, and quarrelling with your neighbours, when they do but stand in the way of your honour or commodity, convince you of hypocrisy in this profession?

10. In the use of the Lord's Prayer, what word do you speak that is not in hypocrisy? Do you first and principally desire the hallowing of God's name, the coming of his kingdom, and the doing of his will? when you are far more tender of your own names than of God's, and more regardful of your own honour? And when you care more for your own prosperity than for the prosperity of the church and gospel, and do yourselves become the hinderers of his kingdom and government in the church and in the souls of men? And when you cannot abide to do his will, when it crosseth the interest of your flesh, but dislike it as too strict, and had rather the word and will of God were agreeable to yours, than you will conform your own to his?

Do you only desire your daily bread, and that in subordination to the honour, and kingdom, and will of God. Or rather do you not play the hypocrites in saying so, when it is not daily bread that will content you; but plenty and prosperity is sweeter to you than holiness?

When you pray for "the forgiveness of your sins, as you forgive others," you intimate that you are weary of your sins, and hate them, and would forsake them; and that you forgive all that have wronged you, out of the sense of your own transgressions, and of the love of Christ. But is all this so, or is it mere dissembling, when you forsake not your sin, nor are willing to forsake it, and when your consciences know that there be some that you forgive not?

You pray against "being led into temptation," and yet you love it, and cast yourselves into it. Into tempting company, and tempting talk, and tempting employments. And for recreation, meat, drink, apparel, houses, attendants, estate, reputation, and almost all things else, you love and choose that which is most tempting.

your

You pray to be" delivered from evil," when the evil of pride, flesh-pleasing, and worldliness, you so love, that indeed

you would not be delivered from them. What can you say to excuse all this from palpable hypocrisy.

To conclude, you pretend to all that is necessary to salvation, but have you that in reality which you pretend to ?

1. You think yourselves wise enough to be saved. But is it not folly that goes under the name of wisdom? When you should be converted, and lead a holy life, you are wise enough to give reasons for the contrary, and wise enough to confute the preacher, and prove him a fool, instead of obeying the call of God. You are wise enough to prove the physician to be ignorant, and to cast away the medicine that should heal you, And what if nobody could deal with you in subtlety of argument, but you could say that against the necessary means of your own salvation, that none can answer? When you die by your wisdom, and have disputed yourselves out of the reach of mercy, will you not bewail it then as folly? Is he wiser, that, being hungry, eats his meat, or he that gives such reasons for his refusing it, and pleadeth so learnedly against eating and drinking, that none can answer him? Is the condemned man wiser that makes friends for a pardon, or he that with unanswerable subtlety reasoneth against it, till the ladder be turned? Such is your vain and seeming wisdom. You are not wise enough to be cured, but to give reasons why you should continue sick. In the issue, it will prove that you were not wise enough to be saved, but notably wise to resist salvation, and plead yourselves into hell.

2. You pretend that you have a saving faith, when your hearts refuse that salvation from sin, and that rule of Christ which is the object of faith, and when you will not believe the doctrines, precepts, or threatenings that cross your own conceits; and when your belief of heaven will not carry your hearts from earth, nor work you to a holy, heavenly life.

3. You pretend to repentance, as I said before, while you hold fast the sin, and give not up yourselves to God; when as if your neighbour, or master, or husband, should but beat one of you, and tell you when he hath done that he repenteth, and do this as often as you commit your wilful sins, and say you repent, I am confident would not take it for true repenYou repent, but will not confess when it is to your disgrace, as long as you can hide your sin. You repent, but will not make restitution or reparation of injuries to your power. You repent, but your heart riseth against him that

tance.

you

reproveth you. You repent, but you had rather keep your sins than leave them. What is this but to deceive your own hearts, and to mock yourselves with a seeming, vain, and mock repentance ?

4. You pretend to love God above all, (as was before said,) when you love not his image, ways, or communion, but love that which he hateth, and still prefer the world before him.

5. You pretend that you have true desires to be godly, and what God would have you be; but they are such desires as the sluggard hath to rise, and as the slothful hath to work that is, if it could be done with ease, and without labour; you lie still, and use not the means with diligence for all your desires, When you can sit and have your work done with wishes, and your families maintained, and your necessities all supplied with wishes, you may think to come to heaven with wishes. The good desires that the poor may be warmed, and clothed, that James speaks of, (Jam. ii. 15,) did neither relieve the poor, nor save the wisher. "The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour." (Prov. xxi. 25.) Up and be doing according to thy desires, or else confess that thy wishes are hypocritical, and that thou deceivest thy own heart by vain desires.

6. You also pretend to be sincere worshippers of God. You pray, and you read the Scripture, and good books, and you hear the word, and receive the Lord's supper. But I have before shown you your hypocrisy in these; you pray against the sin that you love and would not leave; you pray for holiness, when you hate it, or desire it not in any degree to cross your flesh; you serve God, with mere words (whether of your own conceiving or of others' prescribing) with some forced acknowledgment of that God that hath not your hearts or lives. Let Christ pass the sentence on you, and not me : (Matt. xv. 7—9.) “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. You like that teaching that sooths you in your own opinions, and galleth not your consciences in the guilty place. A minister you would have, that should stand like an adorned idol that hurts nobody, and toucheth not your sores; or that is but like a pair of organs, or a tinkling cymbal, to tickle your fancy, and make church worship to be as a kind of religious stage