baits still of sinful pleasure, and wages of unrighteousness, by which so many millions of souls before them have been hooked into hell and damnation.
Secondly, Those who are as unholy as others, naked to God's eye, and Satan's malice ; but to save their credit in the world, wear something like a breastplate, a counterfeit holiness, which does them this service for the pre- sent, the}' are thought to be what they are not : * verily they have their reward,' and a poor one it is. Consider what you do, and tremble at it; you do the devil, God's great enemy, double service, and God double disservice : as he that comes into the field, and brings deceitful arms with him, draws his prince's ex- pectation towards him as one who would do some exploit for him, but means nothing of the kind, yea, hinders some others that would be faithful to his prince in that place where he a traitor now stands : such a one may do his prince more mischief than many who cowardly stay at home or rebelliously nm over to the enemy's side, and tell him plainly what they intend to do. O friends, be se- rious ; if you will trade for holiness, let it be for true holiness, as it is called : Eph. iv. 34, ' Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;' wherein two phrases are observable ; it is called the 'new man after God,' that is, according to the likeness of God; such a sculpture on the soul, or image, is drawn after God, as the picture after the face of the man. Again, 'true holiness,' or holiness of truth, either i-especting the word, which is the rule of holiness, and then it means a Scripture holiness, not Pharisaical and traditional ; or else it respects the heart, which is the seat of truth or falsehood. True holiness in this sense is holiness and righteousness in the heart ; there must be truth of holiness in the inner parts : many a man's beauty of holiness is but like the beauty of his body, skin deep, all on the outside. Open the most beautiful body, and that which was so fair without will be foimd within, when open, to have little beside blood, filth, and stench ; so this counterfeit holiness, wlien imbowelled, and inside exposed to view, will appear to have hid within it nothing but an abundance of spiritual impurities and abominations. ' God,' said Paul to the high priest, ' shall smite thee, thou whited wall,' Acts xxiii. 3. Thus say I to thee, O hypocrite, God shall so smite thee, thou whited wall, or rather painted sepulchre, that thy paint without in thy profession doth not now more dazzle the eyes of others into admiration of thy sanctity, than thy rottenness within, which then shall appear without, will make thee abhorred and loathed of all that see thee.
Thirdly, Those who are so far from being holy themselves, that they mock and jeer others for being so. This ' breastplate of righteousness' is of so base an account with them, that they who wear it in their daily conversation do make themselves no less ridiculous to them than if they came forth in a fool's coat, or were clad in a dress contiived on purpose to move laughter. When some wretch woidd set a saint most at naught, and represent him as an object of great scorn, what is the language he wraps him up in but, ' There goes a holy brother, one of the pure ones ?" His very holiness is that which he thinks to disgrace him with. This shews a heart extremely wicked : there is a further degree of wicked- ness appears in mocking holiness in another, than harbouring unholiness in a man's own bosom. That man hath a great antipathy indeed against a dish of meat, who not only himself refuseth to eat of it, but cannot bear the sight of it on another's trencher without vomiting. O how desperately wicked is that man with whom the very scent and sight of holiness at such a distance works so strange an effect as to make him cast up the gall and bitterness of his spirit against it ! The S})irit of God bestows the chair upon this sort of sinners, and sets them above all their brethren in iniquity, as most deserving the place. ' Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,' Psa. i. 1 . The scorner here is set as chairman at the counsel-table of sinners ; some read the word for scornful, rhetorical mockers. There is indeed a devilish wit that some shew in their mock at holiness ; they take a kind of pride in polishing those darts which they shoot against saints. The Septuagint reads it, ' the chair of ])cstilent ones.' Indeed, as the plague is the most mortal among diseases, so is the spirit of scorning among sinners: as few recover out of this sin as any whatever besides. The Scripture speaks of this sort of sinners as almost free among the dead ; as little hope of doing them good for their souls as of those for their bodies who cannot
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