Chapter 12
Section 1.
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 may not presently conclude we are in a 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 every ground; the best heart is not perfectly clear and free of it. It may be we are stumbled when we feel some workings or grudgings of this disease in ourselves, and looking into such scriptures as these (John 1:47): 'Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.' And Psalm 32:1-2: 'Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.'
This, I say, may stumble some upright soul, not understanding in what an alloyed and qualified sense those scriptures are to be understood. For by 'a spirit without guile' is not 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 no guile was found, in whom the prince of this world in all his trials and attempts found nothing. But we must understand it of reigning and allowed hypocrisy. There is no such guile 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 estate and condition.
There are many more things to humble us on the account of our infirmity than there are to stumble us on 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 Spirit. 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, always provided you be just. 'There is one that makes himself rich, and yet has nothing; and there is one that makes himself poor, and yet has great riches' (Proverbs 13:7). Hiram called the cities Solomon gave him 'Cabul' — dirty, for they pleased him not (1 Kings 9:13). 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 propensity in our nature, and more frequent incidence in our practice, to one sin rather than another does 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 he delights in, and rolls as a sweet morsel under his tongue; some lust he is not willing to part with, nor can endure that the knife of mortification should touch it. And this undoubtedly argues the insincerity and rottenness of his heart. 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 allows himself in none. Yes, though he sets himself more watchfully against that sin than another, 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 (1 Corinthians 7:7), 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 is specified according to the different sorts of plants and seeds it nourishes. In one it becomes an apple, in another a cherry, and so on. Just so it is with original corruption, which is turned into this or that temptation and 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 guards labor to keep ourselves from our own iniquity, as David did (Psalm 18:23) — will not infer the hypocrisy of our hearts.
Rule 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 rises merely from the present weakness and distemper we labor under.
There are some duties in religion — such as suffering for Christ, bearing sharp reproofs for sin, and the like — that even an upright heart, under a present distemper, may find a great deal of backwardness and loathness to. 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 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. Truth is, it is a very dangerous sign of hypocrisy when a man's zeal runs out in one channel of obedience only. As physicians observe, the sweating of one part of the body when all the rest are cold is symptomatic and argues an ill habit. But while 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 is not fixed but occasional, under some present indisposition out of which the soul rises by the same degrees as sanctification rises in him and the Lord comes in with renewed strength upon him — this, I say, may consist with 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 — while self is not the weight that moves the wheels, not the principal end and design we drive at, and while those glances are corrected and mourned for — do not conclude the heart to be unsound and hypocritical in religion. For 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 for the pleasing of men and did not walk with that upright foot toward the Gentile Christians and the believing Jews in the matter of liberty as became him (Galatians 2:13-14), for which, as Paul says, he ought to be blamed — and Paul did blame him. Yet such a failing as that 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 while 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 everyone for a hypocrite who suspects — yes, 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 begs God to renew a right spirit in him (Psalm 51:10-12). His integrity was indeed wounded, and he thought destroyed, by that fall.
Holy Master Bradford so vehemently doubted the sincerity of his heart that he subscribed some of his letters — as Master Fox tells us — 'John Bradford the hypocrite, a very painted sepulcher.' And yet in so saying he utterly misjudged the state and temper of his own soul.
Section 2.
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 the true answers of our own hearts to such questions as these.
Question 1.
Do I make the approbation of God or the applause of men the very end and main design of my religious performances (1 Thessalonians 2:4; Colossians 3:23)? Will the acceptance of my duties by men satisfy me, whether God accepts my duties and person or not?
Question 2.
Is it the reproach and shame that attend 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 sin as it is sin (Psalm 19:12; Psalm 119:113)?
Question 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 (Philippians 1:18)?
Question 4.
Is there no duty in religion so full of difficulty and self-denial but that 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 (Psalm 119:6)?
Question 5.
Am I sincerely resolved to follow Christ and holiness at all seasons, however the aspects of the times may be upon religion? Or do I bear 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 116:3; Psalm 44:18-19; Revelation 22:11)?
Question 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 (Matthew 6:5-6; Psalm 19:12)?
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 toward the Lord.
Section 3.
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!
Rule 1.
It is not enough to clear a man from hypocrisy that he does not know himself to be a hypocrite. All hypocrites 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 your name?' and so on (Matthew 7:22). Hell will be a mere surprise to multitudes of professors. A man may live and die in a blind, ungrounded confidence of his safe condition and not fear his ruin until 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 sepulcher. In the year 1549, the Reformation grew so much in reputation even among the nobles and gentry of Germany, that many of them caused the five letters V. D. M. I. AE. — being the initial letters of the words meaning 'the word of the Lord abides forever' — to be 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 engraved 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 that is covetous himself will be apt to censure another for being so — lusts may be contrary to one another as well as all of them contrary to grace — so may a hypocrite loathe in another what he allows in himself. Nay, it is the policy 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 35:16).
Rule 4.
The mere performance of private duties will not clear a man from hypocrisy. The influence of education, or the 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 reputation and opinion you have gotten among Christians of your sincerity will not be sufficient to clear you from the danger of hypocrisy. Christ tells the angel of Sardis (Revelation 3:1): 'You have a name that you live, and are dead.' The fall of Hymenaeus 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 respect and love for those that are 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 characteristic and evidential of a man's own Christianity, except he love him as such — 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.
Section 4.
Well then, if you would indeed see the unsoundness of your own heart, propound such heart-searching questions as these to yourself.
Question 1.
Do I engage my heart to approach to God in the course of my duties? Or do I go in the round of duties, taking no heed to my heart in them? If so, compare this symptom of your hypocrisy with that in 2 Kings 10:31 and Ezekiel 33:31-32.
Question 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 of a name and reputation for godliness? If so, how apparently do the same symptoms of hypocrisy appear upon my soul which did upon Judas (John 12:6) and Jehu (2 Kings 9:13-14)?
Question 3.
Have I not some secret reserves in my heart, notwithstanding that face and appearance of zeal which I put on? Certainly, if there is any sin that I cannot part with, any suffering for Christ which I resolve against in my heart, I am none of his disciples. My heart is not right with God — the searcher of hearts himself being judge (Luke 14:26-27).
Question 4.
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 it? 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 119:113; Psalm 19:12).
Section 5.
I will shut up all with five or six concluding 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 until sanctification has first set you right (Ezekiel 36:27): 'I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.'
A bowl may keep in a straight line as 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, the influence of some great example, or a good education may influence an unrenewed soul and push it on in the way of religion 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 (Psalm 119:80): 'Let my heart be sound in your 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 may have reckoned as his sin, and both his person and service be abhorred by the Lord. We find two men riding in one chariot, both of them concerned in the same expedition — Jehu the son of Nimshi and Jonadab the son of Rechab (2 Kings 10:15, 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. The same thing that two men do is not the same thing. It was the saying of a good soul, commended for a good action: 'The work indeed is good, but I fear the ends of it.' Self-ends are creeping and insinuating things into the best actions.
Counsel 3.
Scare yourselves with the daily fears of the sin that is in, and the misery that will follow, hypocrisy. Look upon it as the most odious sin in the eyes of God and men. To want holiness is bad enough, but to simulate and pretend it when we have it not is double impiety. To make religion — the most glorious thing in the world — a mere stepping stone to preferment, and a cover to wickedness: O how vile a thing is it! God made Christ a sacrifice for sin, and the hypocrite will make him a cloak for sin.
And as to the punishments that follow hypocrisy, 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 (Matthew 24:51): 'He shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
Counsel 4.
Be daily at work in the mortification of those lusts that breed hypocrisy. It is plain without much sifting that pride, vainglory, 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, and you shall certainly find these things there. And until the Lord helps you to kill and mortify these, hypocrisy will spring up in all your duties to God and in all your conversations 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 you at such times. Commonly in that lies your greatest danger. 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 us all that profess religion be uniform and steady in the profession and practice of it, without political reserves and by-ends.
O take heed of this Laodicean neutrality and indifference which Christ hates. Be sure your ground is 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 have at least two holes to his den, so that if one is stopped he may escape at the other. The hypocrite poises himself so evenly in a mediocrity that, as it was 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 always has more of the moon than of the sun — little light, many spots, and frequent changes. It is easier for 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 reigns 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. '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 Diocletian were pagan, under Constantine 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 there was 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 you will manifest and maintain your integrity, be a man of but one design, and be sure that it is an honest and good design — to secure heaven whatever becomes of earth, to hold fast integrity whatever you are forced to let go for its sake.
Take heed of pious frauds. Certainly it was the devil that first married those two words together, for they never did nor can agree between 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 is but a mock religion, your reward shall be but a mock heaven — that is, a real hell.
O the vanity and futility 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. 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 with him that placed himself in the middle of the table, where he could reach neither the dish above him nor that below him. And — which is the very best of it — if earthly interests are accommodated by sinful neutrality and Laodicean indifference in religion, yet no good man should once feel a temptation to embrace it, except he thinks that what is wanting in the sweetness of his sleep may be fully recompensed by the stateliness of his bed and the richer furniture of his chamber. I mean, that a fuller and higher condition in the world can make 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 our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world' (2 Corinthians 1:12).
Let that be your daily prayer and cry to heaven which was David's (Psalm 25:21): 'Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait on you.'
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. However covertly hypocrisy may be carried for a time, all must and will come out at last (Luke 12:3). Secrecy is the main inducement to hypocrisy, but it will fall out with the hypocrite as it did with Ottocar the king of Bohemia, who refused to do homage to Rudolph the emperor until 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 entirely away. And so Ottocar was exposed on his knees doing homage in the view of three armies.
Reader, awe your heart with God's eye. Know that he will bring every secret thing into judgment. Thus did Job, and it preserved him (Job 31:1, 4). Thus did David, and it preserved him (Psalm 18:21-23). Thus do you also, and it will preserve you blameless and without guile to the day of Christ.
The End.
