First, Sincerity is that property to which pardoning mercy is annexed. True, indeed, it is Christ that covers all our sins and failings ; but it is only the sincere soul over which he will cast his skirt. Psa. xxxii. 2 : ' Blessed is he whose sin is covered ; blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.' None will doubt this ; but which is the man ? The next words tell us his name ; ' and in whose spii'it there is no guile.' Christ's righteousness is the garment that covers the nakedness and shame of our unrighteousness ; faith, the grace that puts this garment on ; but what faith ? None but the faith imfeigned, as Paul calls it, 2 Tim. i. ' Here is water,' said the eunuch; ' what doth hinder me to be baptized?' Acts viii. 36. Now mark Philip's answer, ver. 37 : 'If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest ;' as if he had said, Nothing but an hypocritical heart can hinder thee. It is the false heart only that finds the door of mercy shut. He that promiseth to cover the sincere soul's failings, threatens to uncover the hypocrite's impiety, Prov. x. 9: ' He that perverteth his way shall be known,' that is, to his shame.
Secondly, Where sincerity is, God approves of that soul as a holy, righteous person, notwithstanding that mixture of sin which is found in him. As God doth not like the saint's sin for his sincerity, so he doth not imsaint him for that. God will set his hand to Lot's testimonial, that he is a righteous man, though many sins are recorded in the Scripture which he fell into, and foul ones too; and Job perfect, because the frame of his heart was sincere, the tenure of his life holy, and he was rather sm-prised by them as temptations, than they entertained by him upon choice. Though sincerity doth not blind God's eye, that he should not see the saint's sin, yet it makes him see it with a pitiful eye, and not a wrathful; as a husband, knowing his wife faithful to him in the main, pities her in other weaknesses, and for all them accounts her a good wife. ' In all this,' saith God, ' Job sinned not ;' and at the very close of his combat God brings him out of the field with this honourable testimony to his friends, that had taken so much pains to ))ving his godliness in question, that his servant 'Job liad spoke right of him.' Truly God said more of Job than he durst of himself. He freely confesseth his unadvised froward speeches, and cries out, ' I abhor myself, and repent in dvist and ashes.' God saw Job's sins attended with sincerity, and therefore judged him perfect and righteous : Job saw his sincerity dashed with many sad failings, and this made him in the close of all rather confess his sins with shame, than glory in his grace. God's mercy is larger to his children than their charity is many times to themselves and their brethren. First, to themselves : Do you think the prodigal, the emblem of a convert, durst have asked the robe, or desii'ed his father to be at such cost for his entei'tainment as his father freely bestowed on him ? No, sure, a room in the kitchen we see was as high as he durst ask, to be among the meanest servants in the house. Poor soul ! he could not conceive he should have such a meeting with his father at first sight. A robe ! he might rather look for a rope, at least a rod. A feast at his father's table ! O unlooked for welcome ! I doubt not but if any one had met him on his way, and told him that his father was resolved, as soon as he came home, not to let him see his face, but innnediately send liim to bi'idewell, there to be whipped, and fed with bread and water for many months, and then perhaps he would at last look on him, and take him home, but in his starving condition this would have been good news to him ; but as God hath strange punishments for the wicked, so he hath strange expressions of love and mercy for sincere souls. He loves to outdo their highest expectations, — kiss, robe, feast, all in one day, and that the first day of his return, when the memory of his outrageous wickednesses were fresh, and the offensive scent of his swill and swine, from which he was but newly come, hardly gone ! What a great favourite is sincerity with the God of heaven ! Again, God's mercy is larger to his children than their charity is towards one another. Those whom we are ready to imsaint for their failings that appear in their lives, God owns for his perfect ones, because of their sincerity. We find Asa's failings expressed, and his perfection vouched by God together, as I may say in a In-eatli, 2 Chron. xv. 17. It was well God cleared that good man ; for had but the naked story of his life, as it stands in the Scripture, been recorded, without any express testimony of Ciod's approving him, his godliness would have hazarded a coming under dispute in the opinion
GIRT ABOUT WITH TRUTH. gg5