the world. Well, how base soever the stock and ignoble the birth be, when grace unfeigned comes, it brings arms with it, it clarifies the blood, and makes the house illustrious. * Since thou wast precious in my eye, thou hast been honourable,' Isa. iv. 4. Sincerity sets a mark of honour ; if you see this star shining, though over a mean cotttige,. it tells thee a great prince dwells there, an heii- of heaven. Sincerity brings the creature into alliance with a high family, no less tlian of the high God ; by which new alliance, his own inglorious name is blotted out, and a new name given him : he bears the name of God, to whom he is joined by a faith unfeigned ; and who dares say that the God of heaven's child, or Christ's bride, are of an ignoble birth.
3. Again, A low purse, as well as a low parentage, exposeth to contempt, yea, more: some by their purse redeem themselves in time, as they think, from the scoi'n of their mean stock. The little spring from whence the water came, by tliat time it hath run some miles, and swelled into a broad river, is out of sight, and not inquired much after : but poverty, that itself sounds reproach in the ears of this proud world. Well, though a man were poor, even to a proverb, yet if a vein of true godliness, sincere grace, be but to be found running in his heart, here is a rich mine, that will lift him up above all the world's contempt ; such a one may possibly say he hath no money in his house, but he cannot say that he hath no treasure, that he is not rich, and speak true ; he sure is rich that hath a key to God's treasvuy. The sincere soul is rich in God; what God hath is his : ' all is yours, you are Christ's.'
4. Again, In a word, to name no more parts and endowments of the mind, these are ap])lauded above all the former by some ; and indeed they carry in them an excellency, that stands more level to his noblest faculty, reason, than the other, which are so far beneath its spiritual nature, that as Gideon's soldiers, some of them, could not drink the water till they bowed down on their knees, so neither could man take any relish in these, did he not first debase himself far beneath the lofty stature of his reasonable soul ; but knowledge, parts, and abilities of the mind, these seem to lift up man's head, and make him that he loseth none of his height ; and therefore none so contemptible by the wise world, as those that are of weak parts, and mean intellectual abilities. Well, now let us see what cover sincerity hath for this nakedness of the mind, which seems the most shameful of all the rest. Where art thou. Christian, that I may tell thee, who sits lamenting and bemoaning thy weak parts and shallow under- standing, what a happy man thou art, with thy honest, sincere heart, beyond all compare with these, whose sparkling parts do so dazzle thy eyes, that thou canst not see thy own privilege above them ? Their pearl is but in the head, and they may be toads for all that ; but thine is in the heart, and it is the pearl of grace, that is, the pearl of greatest price. Thy sincere heart sets thee higher in God's heart, than thy weak parts do lay thee low in their deceived opinion ; and thou, without the abilities of mind that they have, shalt find the way to heaven ; but they, for all their strong parts, shall be tumbled down to hell, because they have not thy sincerity. Thy mean gifts do not render thee inca- pable of heaven's glory; but their unsanctified gifts and endowments are sure to make them capable of more of hell's shame and misery. In a word, though here thy head be weak, and parts low, yet for thy comfort know, thou shalt have a better head given thee to thy sincere heart, when thou comest to heaven ; but their knowing heads shall not meet with better hearts in hell, but be yoked eternally to their own wicked ones in torment; but enough of this. I come to the second kind of uncomeliness which sincerity covers, and that is, sinful.
Secondly, Now this sinful uncomeliness must needs be the worst, because it lights on the most beautiful part, the sovil ; if dirt thrown on the face be more uncomely than on another member, because it is the fairest, then no imcome- iiness like that which crocks and blacks the soul and spirit, because this is intended by God to be the prime seat of man's beauty. Now that which most stains and deforms the soul, must be that which most opposeth its chief per- fection, v;hich in its primitive creation Avas, and can still be, no other than the beauty of holiness drawn on it by the Holy Spirit's curious pencil ; and what can that be but the foul monster which is called sin ? This hath marred man's sweet countenance, that he is no more like the beauty of God created, than dead Sarah's face was like that bfiauty which wa.s a bait for the greatest princes,
GIRT ABOUT \VITH TRUTH. 233