gross hypocrite, is able to make liim speechless, What promise in all the Bible hast thou on thy side for salvation ? so it is enough to deliver the troubled soul from his fears of being a hypocrite, if he would but, as David, ask his soul a Scripture i-eason for his disquietment : ' Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me ?' The sincere soul hath firm groimd for his faith at bottom, however a little dirt is cast by Satan over it, to make him afraid of venturing to set his foot on it.
Secondly, We must distinguish between a conscience rightly informed, and a conscience misinformed. A conscience may be regidar, so as to choose the right rule, but not rightly informed how to use this rule in his particular case. Indeed, in the saint's trouble, conscience is full of Scripture sometimes, oir which it grounds its verdict, but very ill intei-preted. O, saith the poor soul, this place is against me ! Psa. xxxii. : ' Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spii-it there is no guile.' Here, saith he, is a description of a sincere soul, to be one in whose spirit there is no guile; but I find much guile in me, therefore I am not the sincere one. Now this is a very weak, yea, false inference. By a spirit without guile is not meant a person that hath not the least deceitfulness and hypocrisy remaining in his heart ; this is such a one as none since the fall, but Christ himself, was ever found walking in mortal flesh. To be without sin, and to be without guile, in this strict sense, are the same : a prerogative here on earth peculiar to the Lord Christ, 2 Pet. ii. 22, ' Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.' And therefore when we meet with the same phrase attributed to the saints, as to Levi, Mai. ii. 6: ' Iniquity was not foimd in his lips;' and to Nathaniel, John i. 47: ' Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile,' we must sense it in an inferior way, that may suit with their imperfect state here below, and not put that which was only Christ's crown on earth, and is the glorified saint's robe in heaven, to wear on the weak Christian while militant on earth, not only with a devil without, but a body of sin within him. Wipe thine eyes again, poor soul, and then if thou readest such places, wherein the Spirit of God speaks so highly and hyperbolically of his saints' grace, thou shalt find he doth not assert the perfection of their grace, free from all mixture of sin, but rather to comfort poor drooping souls, and cross their misgiving hearts, which, from the presence of hypocrisy, are ready to overlook their sincerity as none at all, he expresseth his high esteem of their little grace, by speaking of it as if it were perfect, and their hypocrisy none at all. O Christian! thy God would have thee know that thou dost not more overlook thy little grace for fear of the hypocrisy thou findest mingled with it, than he doth thy great corruptions, for the dear love he bears to the little, yet true grace he sees amidst them. Abraham loved and owned his kinsman Lot when a prisoner, carried away by those heathen kings ; so does thy God thy grace, near in blood to him, when sadly yoked by the enemy in thy own bosom : and for thy comfort know, when the books shall be opened, the word, and also that of thy own conscience, in the great day of Christ, Christ will be the interpreter of both : not the sense which thou hast in the distemper of thy troubled soul, when thou readest both with Satan's gloss put upon them, shall stand, but what Christ shall say ; and to be sure he hath already declared himself so great a friend to weak grace, when on earth, by his loving converse with his disciples, and free testimony he gave to his grace in them, when God knows they were but raw and weak Christians, both as to their knowledge and practice, that, poor soul, thou necdest not fear he will then and there condemn wliat here he commended, and so dearly embraced. Yea, he that took most care for his little lambs how they might be used gently, when he was to go from them to heaven, will not be imkind himself to them at his return.
CHAPTER XII.
FOUR CHARACTERS OF TRUTH OF HEART, OR SINCERITY;
Having broke the flattering glasses wherein hypocrites use to look, till they fall in love with their own painted faces, and conceit themselves sincere ; as also those which disfigure the sweet countenance and natural beauty of the sincere
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sonl, SO as to make it bring the gi*ace of God which shines on it into question ; I now proceed to draw a few lineaments, and Lay down some undoubted charac- ters of this truth of heart, and godly sincerity, whereby we may have the bettei- advantage of stating every one his own condition.