love and favour to me, notwithstanding the sins tliat are found mingled with my course of obedience. This kept up the holy man's spirit, and makes him end the psalm joyfully, ver. 13: ' Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to evei-lasting.' We live, Christians, in reproaching times; he that is so over dainty of his name, that he cannot bear to see some dirt, and that good store too, cast upon his back by reviling tongues, must seek a path to travel in by himself to heaven ; but for thy comfort, Christian, sincerity, though it cannot privilege thee from traveller's fare, and keep thee from being dashed with ca- lumnies, yet it will do thee this kind office, that the dirt which lights on thy coat shall not soak into thy soid to damp thy joy, and chill thj' inward comfort. Repi'oaches without may be comfortably endured, yea, triumphantly worn as a crown, if they meet not with a reproaching conscience within. Yea, sincerity will do more than this comes to, it will not only comfort thee under the perse- cution of the tongue, but hand also; not only quench the fire, which from thence is spit on thy face, by tongues set on lire by hell ; but it will comfort thee in the very mouth of lire itself, if God shall suffer thee by persecutors to be cast into it. Sincerity makes thee indeed fearful to sin. O, thou darest not touch one of these coals ; but it will make thee bold to burn, and even hail joy- fully the flames of martyrdom when called to them ! So little afi-aid was that sincere servant of Christ, an Italian martyr, Mr. Fox records, among many other imdaunted champions of the truth, that when the magistrate of the place where he was to be burned, and the officers of the bishop that condemned him, were in a hot contest, wrangling which of them should pay for the wood that should make the fire for his burning, he presently sent to desire them, ' They would not fall out upon that occasion, for he would take off the burden from them both, and be at the cost himself.' Blessed soul! he made not so much ado of spending his blood and sacrificing his life, as they about a few pence wickedly to procure the same.
Section II. — Secondly, Sincerity girds the soul with comforting strength, when conflicting with affliction from the hand of God. Many are the sorts of affliction with which God exerciseth his sincere servants : to name a few.
First, When the Lord toucheth his outward man by sickness, or his inward man by spiritual conflicts, sincerity is a comfortable companion in both. The hypocrite, above all, fears falling into God's hands, and well he may, for he is able to do him most hurt ; therefore no sooner God takes hold of his collar, either of these ways, but his joy gives up the ghost : he, like some murderer, whose doom is writ plain in the law, gives himself for a dead luan, when once' he is clapped up in a prison. This made Job such a wonder to his wife, because he held up his holy course, when battered so sadly by the afflicting hand of God with renewed afflictions : ' Dost thou yet hold thy integrity V What ! nothing but blows from God's hand, and yet continue to bless him ! This was strange to her, but not to him, who could call her foolish woman for her pains, but not charge God foolishly for all he smarted so under his hand. Sincerity enables the Christian to do two things in this case which the hypocrite cannot — to speak good of God, and to expect good from God ; and the soul cannot be uncomfortable, though head and heart ache together, which is able to do these.
First, Sincerity enables the Christian to think and speak well of God. A false-hearted hypocrite, his countenance falls, and his heart rises, yea, swells, with venom against God ; though he dare not always let it drive out of his mouth, yet he has bloody thoughts against him in his heart. ' Hast thou found me, O my enemy?' saith the wretch. He loves not God, and therefore a good thought of God cannot dwell in his soul. All that God has done for him, though never so bountifully, it is forgotten, and embittered with the overflowing of his gall at the present dealings of God to him ; he frets and fumes ; you shall hear him sooner curse God than charge himself. But the sincere soul nourisheth most sweet and amiable apprehensions of God, which bind him to the peace, that he dare not think or speak unbeseeming the glory or goodness of God, as we see in David, Psa. xxxix. 9 : ' I was dumb, and opened not my mouth, because thou, Lord, didst it.' This holy man had a breach made both at his body and spirit at this time ; he was sick and sad ; yet he remembers from whose hand the blow came : 'Thou, Lord, didst it:' thou, whom I love dearly, and so can take it kindly ; thou, whom I have offended, and so take it patiently ; yea, thou,
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