Chapter 17: Of the Hypocrisy of Formal Covenanters

This touches the differences of the old and stony heart in such as are externally only in Covenant with God, and are hypocrites: and the new and soft heart of such as are internal, real, and absolute Covenanters: hence these propositions.

1. A hypocrite is he who on the stage represents a King, when he is none, a beggar, an old man, a husband, when he is really no such thing (Luke 20:20). They sent out spies, feigning themselves to be just men: to the Hebrews they are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 faciales, facemen, men of the face and vizard and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 colorati, dyed men, red men, dipped, baptized, from the root 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to dye, dip, wash, baptize (Jeremiah 12:9). Mine heritage is to me as a speckled bird, or a pied bird, and has cast off my simple livery, and so is a bird of many sundry colors: the hypocrite is dyed and watered with a hue and color of godliness. Coneph notes hypocrisy (Isaiah 32:6), from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 simulavit, fraudulenter egit. The noun 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Chald. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a dissembler, a hypocrite, who is sometimes just, sometimes wicked, the root by a metaphor is to pollute, and defile (Psalm 106), the land was defiled with blood: hence the hypocrite is all things, and all men, and nothing, and no man but himself.

Hypocrisy is considered in itself, and so it is opposed to sincerity. Or in relation to those graces and duties which it feigns, and so it is opposed to all the true virtues which it lyingly and feignedly represents, as painting is opposed to reality in nature, being a counterfeiting of nature, and it is opposed to things that are painted, so a living man, and a growing rose, things obvious to the eyes of sense are most easily painted as colors, lineaments, as a man's body, but things that fall under the understanding only, as the soul, and under the sense of smelling and touching, are hardly pictured. You may paint the man, the roses, the color, figure, and the fire's red flaming, but he cannot paint the soul, the smell of the rose, or the heat of the fire: it is hard to counterfeit spiritual graces, as love of Christ, sincere believing, intending of the glory of God. It is hard to get a coat, or put paint on spiritual graces, and the more you counterfeit the Spirit, the more Devil-like is the forgery, for he changes himself into an angel of light. There is some use for painted men, for they serve for ornament, but there is no use for faith but resting upon Christ, nor for love, but to cleave to God, and please him and our neighbor: in all duties we counterfeit but the outward bulk of graces and actions, and would seem to do what we do not. If the color of graces and godliness is desirable, it itself is more desirable, but to imitate only the externals of the Covenant of Grace to keep a room in the Church, is to put a lie and mock upon the Lord, and to reproach him with dimness of sight. And such as hate Christ and the godly in their heart, and first clothe them with the coat of hypocrites, liars, Samaritans, seditious men, they much more hate godliness; he that would have the picture of the man stabbed or hanged, would much more have the living man in person stabbed or hanged.

Hypocrisy is a resembling of a moral good for vain glory: it is not hypocrisy to suppress tears in prayer, lest the man seem to seek himself, nor for a father to seem to be angry at his child or servant when he is not angry, nor to put on deafness at reproaches (Psalm 38:12). They speak mischievous things, but I as a deaf man heard not: it was prudence, not hypocrisy in Saul to hold his peace and ignore when the sons of Belial despised him, it being the beginning of his reign (1 Samuel 10:27). Nor is it hypocrisy in a magistrate or Joseph to put on another person to his brothers, though if the ground be unbelief, it is not lawful for David to feign himself mad: nor for Ammon to counterfeit sickness, or to put a lie upon providence. And yet it is not hypocrisy for Solomon to seem to divide in two the living child with a sword, or for the men of Israel to flee before the men of Ai. A lawful end and a right end and motive contributes goodness to actions that are not intrinsically evil.

There is a natural hypocrisy in all; every man in both sides of the sun is a liar; he that said he would wish that he might dwell in the land beyond the dawning of the morning, where they are all sincere, wished to dwell where there are no men; for wherever men are, there are hypocrites and hypocrisy. There is an acquired hypocrisy in all, less or more, and a habit thereof in not a few.

According to men's ways so are men white and painted hypocrites; Herod professes to worship Christ and minds to kill him (Matthew 2). And Absalom covers treason and rebellion against his father and prince, with the whiteness of a vow at Hebron. What better is the whore and what more devout to say (Proverbs 7:14), I have peace offerings with me, today have I paid my vows? Under the veil of zeal (they think it) service to God to kill the Apostles (John 16).

But the worst of hypocrites is he who makes himself a hypocrite, not before God only, and before men, but whitens and paints himself before himself, and deceives himself (1 John 1:8). It is strange a man has such a power over himself, as to persuade himself that he has no sin, not only in point of faith, as such as deny any original sin in themselves or others; as many seducers now do, Socinians, Arminians, diverse Anabaptists and such as say, the Law may be fulfilled by Grace, we are justified by Works: It is possible to be free of sin in this life and to be perfect, so as they cannot sin: But also practically a man's heart may deceive his heart, and may persuade himself that he is godly and religious (James 1:26), and that his ways are right (Proverbs 14:12), and may say within his heart, and so think not only, I am holier than you, and yet not be so much as ceremonially holy, but remain in the graves and eat swine's flesh ([reconstructed: Isaiah 65:4-5]), but I say I am rich (and which is above admiration) I have need of nothing (Revelation 3:17), that I have no need of forgiveness, of saving Grace, of the Redeemer Christ, of salvation. And this is so much the more dangerous, that the prejudice and blindness of self-love, does more strongly persuade self-godliness than any godliness of the world, and begets a more strongly rooted and fixed habit of believing self-godliness, than Ministers the godliest of them, and Professors, and Angels, and the Lord immediately speaking (so long as the revelation is literal) (Numbers 22:12, 24, 28) and Christ preaching in his Person (Matthew 8:9, 14; Matthew 21:43, 44, 45; Luke 16:13, 14; John 10:24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31) and the Apostles (Acts 24:25, 26; Acts 26:2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc., 24) can be able to root out, for they can fence and ward off, and can let out blows at all that you can say, and carry this habit of a false opinion of self-holiness to eternity with them, and stand to what conceited lamps they hear on earth, did glitter with; and plead against the Lord in his face, that the sentence of condemnation is unjust (Matthew 25:44), and that they deserve for their profession to be admitted into the Bridegroom's chamber (Matthew 7:22; Matthew 25:11; Luke 13:25), and all such painted Professors, are externally only in Covenant with God. And therefore these are sad marks, when first you hid your lusts and nourish them, and feed upon the East wind of some created last end, and have not God for your last end (Luke 12:19; Psalm 49:11; Psalm 4:6; Jeremiah 22:17). 2. When you know not that you are poor, miserable, blind, naked (Revelation 3:17; Matthew 9:11, 12, 13; Luke 15:2; Luke 19:7), and you were never in Christ's hospital, and are whole and need no medicine. 3. You loathe Christ but know it not (Luke 7:44, 45), you love Christ as a supposed Prophet, and loathe him as a Redeemer. One may deadly hate Christ, and not know it. 4. You cannot compare the two states together, the state of nature and the state of Grace, as (1 Timothy 1:13) you idolize your own choice, to bear down Ahab's idolatry, but choose not the will of God to oppose Jeroboam's idolatry. 5. You want Christ, and you were not born with Christ in the heart. 2. Indeed you are eternally lost without him, and know neither the one nor the other.

Question 4. Whether or not are believers the parties of the Covenant of Grace. Answer. These are parties to whom the Covenant-promise is made, not these who already have the benefit promised in the Covenant, but believers must have a new heart, and consequently faith already, therefore they cannot be parties with whom the Covenant is made. As because the Image of God is not promised to Adam in the Covenant of Works, but presupposed to be in him by order of nature, before God make with him the Covenant of Works, else he could not be able to keep that Covenant, which we cannot say, for God created him right and holy (Genesis 1:26, 27; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). Therefore Adam in his pure naturals, as not yet endowed with the Image of God, cannot be the party with whom the Covenant of Works is made, for then the Image of God must either be a reward, which Adam by his pure naturals and strength thereof must purchase by working, which the Scripture and nature of the Covenant cannot admit, or then the Image of God must be promised to Adam in the Covenant of Works, which is no less absurd. And if faith be promised in the Gospel, the Covenant of Grace must be made with some Israel and Judah as predestined to life eternal and yet wanting a new heart: For God cannot [reconstructed: covenantally] promise a new heart to such as have it, but to such as have a stony heart and believe not (Ezekiel 36:26; Deuteronomy 30:6; Ezekiel 11:19), nor can he promise faith to such as have faith this way.

Question 5. Who are these that have the new heart, and so are personally and really within the Covenant of grace. Answer. Because the new spirit is given, when the new heart is given (Ezekiel 36:27; Ezekiel 18:31) Make you a new heart and a new spirit, and many in our times boast of the spirit, it shall be fit to speak of the new spirit, and who are spiritual.

Hence these Questions of the new spirit.

Question 1. What is the seed of the new spirit?

Answer. The word of the Gospel, therefore before Adam could have the Gospel-spirit, the Lord must reveal the doctrine of the Gospel, the seed of the woman must tread down the head of the serpent (Genesis 3). So the word and the spirit are promised together (Isaiah 59:21; Isaiah 30:21). Your teachers shall not be removed, and your ears shall hear (this is the inward teaching) a voice behind you, saying, this is the way, walk in it (Isaiah 51:16, 17; Matthew 28:20). Go teach, that is the word: Behold I am with you to the end of the world, that is the Spirit to make it effectual, by my Spirit (John 14:16, 17).

Objection. But Adam when he heard first the doctrine of the blessed seed, could not try the doctrine or speaker, by any new doctrine.

The first doctrine can be tried by no other rule, because it was the first rule itself, nor can these principals written in the heart naturally (That God is) (God is just, holy) etc. be tried by any other truths, because they are first truths. As the sense of seeing cannot try whether the Sun be the Sun by the light of some other Sun, that is before this Sun, which is more lightsome. For there is not another Sun before this, the Gospel itself has God shining in it, to those who are enlightened, as Adam was, a ruby does speak that is a ruby.

How then should Adam know what God spoke to him and not to another, are we not to try all spirits that speak?

There is a word immediately spoken by the Prophets, and Apostles, that is to be tried, partly by the first preaching the Lord made in Paradise, partly by the effects, that it converts the soul (Psalm 19:7), and smells of that same majesty, and the divine power of another life, which is in the first sermon (Genesis 3:15) — this is Verbum Dei immediatum. But when God himself speaks in his own person to Adam, to Abraham (Genesis 22), to Moses, Isaiah, the Apostles, that is Verbum Dei immediatissimum, the fountain-word; neither word nor speaker is to be tried. The patriarchs and prophets are never bidden try the visions of God, for when God speaks them himself, he makes it evident that it is he, and only he who speaks, and we read not of any in this deceived, angels or men cannot counterfeit God.

There have, after the canon of the Scripture is closed, been some men, who have prophesied facts to come, that fell out as they foretold, just as Isaiah, Elijah, and other prophets, then something is to be believed, that is not written, and such may have the Spirit, and yet no word of Scripture goes along with it.

Such men may have (I confess) a prophetical spirit, but first, they were eminently holy and sound in the faith, and taught that the Catholic Church should believe nothing, nor practice nothing, but what is warranted by the Word. Such as boast of Spirit or prophecy, and reject the word, are therefore not to be believed.

What these men of God foretold, is a particular fact concerning a man, what death he should die, or a nation, or a particular, such a man shall be eternally saved, but no dogma fidei, nor any truth that lays bonds on the Catholic Church to believe that to the end of the world, as all scriptural truths do, and a doubt it is, if we are to believe these, in the individual circumstances of fact, sub periculo peccati, upon hazard of sinning against God, we may, I judge, without sin suspend belief, and yield charity to the speaker.

If any object, the Prophets did foretell particular facts concerning the death of Ahab, the birth of Josiah, which concerned particular persons: yes, but they were the matters of fact (as the crucifying of Christ was a matter of fact) as also they did by the intent of the Holy Ghost contain historical, moral and dogmatically divine instructions, so that the whole Catholic Church must believe them, with certainty of divine faith, they being written and spoken for our instruction, and they sin who believe not.

Question 2. What are we to judge of these truths revealed to Professors, when they are in much nearness to God, and the Lord is pleased to shine upon them in some fullness of manifestation of himself to their souls, especially in particular facts? Answer. There is a wide difference between revelations, which speak what is lawful or unlawful, agreeable to or repugnant to the Word; and what is good in jure, and what in facto, shall come to pass or not come to pass — whatever is given to revelations of the former sort, is taken from the Scripture, whose peculiar perfection it is to show what is good and just, what not. Therefore to say that revelations now do guide us in disobeying higher Powers or killing men, etc., is a wronging of the Word, especially of the first, second and sixth Commands. As to the other, God may and does lead his own, especially when they are near glory, under fewest prejudices touching time and eternity, to speak what shall be, but it is not our rule. It is an argument of nothing — such a thing was mightily born in upon my spirit as lawful and as certainly to come to pass, when I was most near to God in a full manifestation of himself: therefore such a way is right, or such a way shall come to pass. For, not to say: 1. that this is a wronging of the perfection of Scripture, and 2. that there is a bastard logic in the affections where God and nature has seated discursive power; and we often prophesy, because we love, not because we see the visions of God. 3. Peter might, the same way, reason: I saw the glory of heaven at the transfiguration, and the Peers of the higher house, Moses and Elias, and this was then mightily born in upon my spirit, it is good for us to be here, let us build three Tabernacles: therefore this is true, it is good for us to be here. But the conclusion is a dream — who should preach the Gospel as witnesses and suffer for it, and write Canonical Scripture, if these Disciples should be forever there? And if they should be separated from the whole glorified body, and make up a Church eternally glorified in that Mount, of only six persons — and the word says, Peter being drunk with glory (Mark 9:6) [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩] knew not what he said, and the Disciples were sleeping, not prophesying (Luke 9:32), which says they were in heaven, but clothed with bodies of sin, and not led by Scripture-light (as that good prophecy of Peter was contrary to the Gospel of suffering and dying, that Christ prophesied was abiding himself, and all his (Matthew 16:21-22)) — we should reel and sin. For there may be no connection between the present nearness to God and the thing suggested in the spirit; and they cohere by accident. So one in prayer is near God in respect of sweetness of access, and yet the individual favor which you pray for conditionally, never granted — you may be saved, and God more glorified in the sufficiency of his grace, without granting it to you, as is clear (2 Corinthians 12:9). Sorrow and desire can suggest such an answer to the fasting of Israel, as they may say and think, they shall be victorious now over the children of Benjamin, and yet they are deceived. The heart would be silent and let God speak here. The sight may be dazzled in nearness to God, and we take our marks by the Moon; and the liberty of praying is terminated upon the fiducial acts, and we think it is fastened upon the particular thing we seek: and here the antecedent is true, as heaven, and the consequence folly and darkness. So John, in Revelation 19 and Revelation 22, sees Heaven opened, and behold a white horse and him who sat on him, and he heard the voice of many, saying, Hallelujah, and saw the pure river of water of life, the tree of life, the Throne, and Him that sat thereupon, etc. But he did not rightly infer that he might therefore fall down and worship a created Angel. All which says they vainly boast of the Spirit who reject the light of Scripture, which is a surer day-star than the light of glory, for our direction. The light of glory is for our perfection of happiness, in seeing and enjoying the last end, but not for our instruction in leading to the end, and the means. The candlelight and sunlight in the City does not come without the City to direct us in the way; the lights and torches in Jerusalem and the new City serve not to guide the way to these Cities.

2. The spiritual man judges all things, but by the word. In one particular, Samuel, in another, Tertullian, dotes upon Montanus, some of the prime fathers, otherwise godly, are blacked with Plato's purgatory, and some of them with invocation of Saints, yet speaking to them doubtingly [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩], says: the spirit may be, where some particular errors are, but if the judgment be rotten and unsound in the matters of God, rottenness in the one side of the apple creeps through the whole, and so does corruption from the mind sink down to the heart. A godly heretic I cannot know.

3. Any bone or hurt member in walking actually pains and breeds aching; if there be a piercing and a deep conviction, in a Christian motion, that untowardness and opposition from the flesh pains the spirit and new man, and hinders the stirrings of the Spirit, it says the Spirit is there, as water cast upon fire speaks there is fire (Romans 7:15-16, 23-24). It were good to try the untowardness to spiritual duties, and several kinds of delight, whether it be borrowed delight from the literal facility of the gift, from gain and glory adhering to the office and calling, or from the innate sweetness in honoring God — bending and pain in walking is a token of life-walking.

4. It is a spiritual disposition in the Church (Song of Solomon 2) in a particular soul, to know and be able to give an exact account of all the motions, goings and comings of Christ, where he lies as a bundle of myrrh all the night, even between the breasts (Song of Solomon 1:13), when the King brings you into his house of new wine (Song of Solomon 1:4; Song of Solomon 2:4), when he speaks (Song of Solomon 2:8, 10) — My beloved spoke and said to me, arise, my love, my fair one, and come away, when he knocks, know his knock, to tell over again his words, open to me my sister, etc., where he is. Song of Solomon 2:8: Behold he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, where he is in his dispensation to his ancient Church? Song of Solomon 2:9: Behold he stands behind our wall, he looks forth at the windows. Verse 16: He feeds among the lilies — when, and how he embraces (Song of Solomon 2:6): His left hand is under my head, his right hand embraces me — when he withdraws (Song of Solomon 5:6) and is not to be found: I sought him, but I found him not, I called him, but he answered me not (Song of Solomon 5:6; Song of Solomon 3:1, 2), how hard he is to be found, and how easy he is to be found (Song of Solomon 3:1, 2, 3, 4), what spiritual stirrings he makes in the heart (Song of Solomon 5:4): My beloved put in his hand by the key-hole. For (1.) this speaks much soul-love to be where he is (Song of Solomon 1:7). (2.) To be able to write a spiritual chronicle and history of all Christ's stirrings towards your soul, says you have letters daily, and good intelligence of the affairs of the Spirit, and of the King's Court, and that he writes to you, as Song of Solomon 5:1: I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice, I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk. Then will Christ write a letter to spiritual ones, and (as it were, with reverence to his Holiness) give a sort of account where he is, what he does, what thoughts he has to us: O! how few know this?

5. Godly missing of Christ must be a gracious disposition (Song of Solomon 5:6): I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself (Song of Solomon 3:1). I sought him but I found him not (verse 2). I sought him but I found him not. Such as are pleased with a bare literal missing and are not also in a holy manner anxious and are not

6. Restless in rising and going through the City, in the streets and the broad ways, seeking and asking, saw you him whom my soul loves? (Song of Solomon 3:1, 2, 3) — are not so spiritual, as is required. Song of Solomon 5:6: My beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone, my soul failed when he spoke, remembering his speeches, when he knocked (verse 2). There may be some too lengthy security under sad falls, when he is not soon missed (2 Samuel 11:1-3; Psalm 26:15). Indeed a spiritual soul having regard to all the commandments misses the Spirit's acting in all the ways — in eating (Proverbs 3:6; Acts 27:35; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Job 1:5).

7. Frequent convictions (which are the connatural actings of the Spirit) (John 16:9), and of the most spiritual sins, as of unbelief, and Gospel-ignorance (John 16:9), prove a spiritual state: as flames prove fire to be fire. Unbelief is more contrary to the Spirit, than carnal sins, being most contrary to the flower and bloomings of the Spirit in his sweetest operations, and most against the Mediator-love of Christ. For as by the fall, Christ has a new office to redeem us (Matthew 1:21; 1 Timothy 1:15; Luke 19:10; Isaiah 61:1, 2; Isaiah 44:6, 9), so the Spirit has a new office, which he should not have had, if man had not sinned, to apply the blood of sprinkling as a sort of mediatory intercession, to dip us in the fountain of his blood. John 16:14: He shall receive of mine, and show it to you. John 14:16: to be the Comforter (John 14:16), the Leader (John 16:13), the Witness (John 15:26; Romans 8:15, 16). The Spirit in his office cannot step one foot with the unbeliever. Hence much tenderness and smiting of heart where the Spirit is (1 Samuel 24:5). Indeed conscience to weep as one over his mother's grave, for his enemies (Psalm 35:13, 14), and strict doubling of faith in greatest deeps — in which Christ proves himself to be more than a believing man (Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42, 44), for no man that is only man can both drink hell and believe heaven at once. 8. In duties there are these: 1. The end. 2. The delight in them. 3. The success. As to the first, the less of the creature and self, and the more of God in the end, so much the more denied and spiritual is the doer, when purely for God [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] we do (1 Corinthians 10:13; Colossians 3:23), we are sick for God, and in health for God, and wake to him (Psalm 119:62, 147, 148), and sleep to him (Psalm 16:7; Psalm 139:18), live to him (1 Peter 2:23), live and die to him and to Christ (Romans 14:7-8), and pray to him, even when we speak to God (Ecclesiastes 5:1, 2), and preach to prepare a Bride to him (2 Corinthians 1:14; 2 Corinthians 4:25), we may be not speaking to God, or for God and his honor (1 Corinthians 11:2; 1 Thessalonians 2:19, 20). How miserable and carnal to do all for the creature, the flesh (Romans 13:14; Jeremiah 22:15; Isaiah 5:8), for self (Daniel 4:30; Hebrews 2:5, 6), and this speaks much of the Spirit when the man is sick and hungry, for the exalting of God, and the will is so capaciously wide in this, that he would his eternal glory were a footstool for the heightening of his glory (Exodus 32:31; Romans 9:3). The will is a most spiritual and capacious faculty, and O! what acceptable service when the man's will looks right toward an infinite Majesty, as thirsting for and panting after this: O! if all beings, millions of Worlds, Angels and men, and all created beings, Heaven, Earth, Sun, Moon, Stars, Clouds, Air, Seas, Floods, Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and all the drops of Rain and Hail, Snow, Dew, so many Worlds of Angels would sing his praises? What wonder then, he accept the will for the deed? And what is to be thought of the will averse from God, and which hates him, and wishes that God were not? How contrary to a spiritual disposition is this?

2. For delight, it is a spiritual disposition, to go about the duty as duty, ut bonum honestum, and not upon this formal account, because it delights us; except the delight be in the Law of the Lord, night and day, as it glorifies him. 2. It's spiritual quality, when abstractedly from private consolation we go about the duty for God, and can rest upon suffering and burning quick as it is duty, though the sufferer should be deserted all the while; we often feed ourselves with the bonum secundum, the pleasantness in the duty, which is our sin, except the sweetness of the holiness of the duty be our delight, and the beauty of pleasing God allure us, but feeling being away, we find how hard it is, to delight ourselves in the Lord. 3. We do duties too often, for the success, not for the duty: we pray, the Lord hears not, we weary; we rebuke men, they care not, and we weary. Success and not duty, self-delight and not the honoring of God, which should be all our delight, take us up. I pray and weep for my enemies (Ah! if it could be done) says David, they are worse (Psalm 35:13) — but my prayer returned to my bosom, that is, the sweet peace of God, which is the fruit of the duty of praying came to my soul, and cheered me. We consider not that the promise of peace, and consolation is made to the duty itself (Psalm 119:165; Psalm 19:11; Proverbs 3:21-25), not to the success of the duty, and we consider not that we are to be quieted in the duty, and to be armed with patience, against the temptation of the duty. Often it enrages Pharisees against Christ and the Apostles, yet the Spirit bids them preach. Therefore whether success in praying, and the sugar of delight in duties hire us, or not; we are to know that though Abraham's offering of Isaac to God had neither in it the one nor the other, nor our Savior's offering himself to God, for the sins of the world; if reason weigh the one and the other, yet because both were performed upon the motive of the love of God commanding, both was most spiritual obedience, especially, because the duty is both work and wage, and the more of the Word of God is in the obedience; I mean not the letter only, but the word including the love. 2. The authority of the Commander. 3. The beauty apprehended to be, and the peace in obedience; the more spiritual is the obedience: the letter only may show you duty, your obligation, and the penalty of disobeying, and all these three in a literal way, and yet upon that account, the obedience is not spiritual, but gospel-love added to the law's letter makes spiritual obedience.