to open their mouth like so many wolves against heaven, as if thej' would teai* God out of his throne by their blasphemies and horrid impieties. The hypo- ci-ite is not thus woaded with impudency, to sin at noon-day, and spread his tent with Absalom on the house-top. If he be naught, it is in a corner ; his maiden-blush modesty will not suffer him to declare his sin, and be seen in the company of it abroad : nay, he denies himself of many sins, which others maintain, and walks in exercise of many duties which the atheistical spirits of the world deride and scorn. Why then should the hypocrite, that lives like a saint to others, be more distasteful to him ?
^ns. Indeed the hypocrite at first blush may be taken for a kind of saint, by such as see only his outside, as he passeth by in his holiday dress, which he is beholden to for all the reputation he hath in the thoughts of others, and therefore is fitly by one called the stranger's saint, but a devil to those that know him bettei'. He is like some cunning cripple, that is fain to borrow help from art, to hide the defects of nature, such as false hair to cover his baldness, an artificial eye to blind his blindness from others' sight, and the like for other parts. Here is much ado made to commend him for some beautiful person to others ; but what a monster would this man appear should one but see him through the keyhole, as he is in his bedchamber, where all these are laid aside! Truly such a one, and far more scareful, would the hypocrite be found, when out of his acting robes, which he makes use of only when he comes forth upon the stage to play the part of a saint before others. It were enough to affright us only to see the hypocrite uncased ; what then will it be to himself, wlien he shall be laid open before men and angels ? So odious this genei'ation is to God, that it is not safe standing near them. Moses, that knew Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, better than the people, who, taken with their seeming zeal, flocked after them in throngs, commands them to depart from the tents of those wicked men, except they had a mind to be consumed with them ; such horrid hypo- crisy, he expected vengeance would soon overtake. But, that it may appear to be a sin exceeding sinful, I shall give a few aggravations of it, in which so many reasons will be wrapped why it is so odious to God.
First, Hypocrisy is a sin that offers A^olence to the very light of nature ; that light which convinceth us there is a God, tells us he is to be served, and that in truth also, or all is to no purpose. A lie is a sin that would fly in the face of a heathen, and hypocrisy is the loudest lie, becaiise it is given to God himself; so Peter told that dissembling wretch. Acts v. 3, 4 : ' Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? thou hast lied not unto man, but unto God.'
Secondly, Hypocrisy cannot so properly be said to be one single sin, as the sinfulness of other sins ; it is among sins, as sincerity among graces : now that is not one grace, but an ornament that beautifies and graces all other graces. The preciousness of faith is, that it is unfeigned; and of love, to be withoiit dissimulation. Thus tlie odiousness of sin is, when they are committed in hypocrisy. David aggravates the sin of those jeering companions who made him their table talk, and could not taste their cheer except seasoned with some salt jest quibbled out at him, with this, that they were ' hypocritical mockers,' Psa. xxxv. 16 ; they did it slily, and wrapped up their scoffs, it is like, in such language as might make some think, who did not well observe them, that they applauded him. There is a way of commending, which some have learned to use, when they mean to cast the greatest scorn upon those they hate bitterly, and these hypocritical mockers deserve the chair to be given them from all other scorners. Fevers are counted malignant, according to the degree of putrefaction that is in them. Hj^pocrisy is the very putrefaction and rottenness of the heart ; the more of this putrid stuff there is in any sin, the more malig- nant it is. David speaks of the iniquity of his sin, Psa. xxxii. 5 : ' I acknow- ledged my sin imto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.' This sin seems very probably to have been his adultery with Bathsheba, and murder of Ui-iah, by his long ' keeping silence,' ver, 3 ; by the pardon he had immediately given in upon confessing, ver. 5, which we know Nathan delivered to him ; and by his further pm-pose to continue confessing of it, which appeared by the moiu-nful Psalm li. that followed upon his discourse with Nathan. Now David, to make the pardoning mercy of God more illustrious, saith, he did not
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