[4.] Fourthly, There is never an hypocrite in the world that makes God, or Christ' or holiness, or his doing or receiving good in his station, relation, or generation, his grand end, his highest end, his ultimate end of living in the vjorld. Pleasures, profits, and honours, are the hypocrite's all he aims at in this world ; they are his trinity which he adores and serves, and sacrificeth himself unto, 1 John ii. 16. An h}^ocrite's ends are corrupt and selfish. God may possibly be at the hio-her end of his work, but self is at the further end ; for he that was never truly cast out of himself, can have no higher end than himself. An hypocrite is all for his own glory ; he acts for himself, and from himself. So I may have the profit, the credit, the glory, the applause, come of God's glory what will ! this is the language of an unsound heart.^ An hypocrite will seem to be very godly when he can make a gain of godliness ; he will seem, to be very holy when holiness is the way to outward greatness and happiness ; but his religious wickedness will double-damn the hypocrite at last. Self-ends are the operative ingredients in all an hypocrite does ; self is the chief engine, self is the great wheel, that sets all an hypocrite's wheels a-going. When hypo- crites take up religion, it is only to serve their own turns, to bring about their own carnal ends ; they serve not the Lord, but their own bellies, Kom. xvi. 18 ; Philip, iii. 19. They use religion only as a stream to turn about their own mill, and the more neatly to effect their own carnal projects. Simon Magus will needs be baptized, and he is very desirous to have power to gfve the Holy Ghost to others ; but his aim being only to get a name, and to get money, Peter tells him to his face, that his heart was not right in the sight of God, Acts viii. 21. No man can go higher than his principles, and therefore an hypocrite having no higher prmciples than himself, all he does must needs be terminated in himself. Look, as all the rivers that come from the sea do return back again to the sea, from whence they come, so all those duties w^hich arise from a man's self, must needs centre in a man's self. An hypocrite always makes himself the end of all his service ; but let such hypocrites know, that though their profession be never so glorious, and their duties never so abundant, yet their ends being selfish and carnal, all their pretensions and perform- ances are but beautiful abominations in the sight of God. An hypocrite has always a squint eye, and squint-eyed aims and squint-eyed ends- in all he does. Balaam spake very religiously, and he multiplied altars and sacrifices ; but the thing he had in his eye was the wages of un- righteousness. Num. xxii. xxiii., 2 Pet. ii. 15. Jehu destroyed bloody Ahab's house, he executed the vengeance of God upon that wicked family ; he readily, resolutelv, and effectually destroyed aU the wor- shippers of Baal, but his ends were to secure the kingdom to him and his, 2 Kino-s x. Ahab and the Ninevites fasted m sackcloth, but it was merely that they might not feel the heavy judgments that they feared would overtake them, 1 Kings xxi., Jonah ni. The Jews m Babylon fasted and mourned, and mourned and fasted seventy years, but it was more to get off their chains than their sins, it was more to be nd of their captivity than it was to be rid of their iniquity, Zech. vii. », 6. Look, as the eagle hath an eye upon her prey when she flies highest, so
' John Ti. 26 ; Mat. vi. 1, 5, 16 ; Gal. iv. 17 ; Isa. Iviii. 3 ; Mai. iii. 14 ; Zech. vii. 5-7 ; Gen. xxxiv. 21, 22,
44)2 A CABINET OF JEWELS. [ChAP. IV.
these Jews in all their fasting, praying, mourning, they had only an eye to their own ease, deliverance, freedom, &c. ; in all their religious duties they were acted from evil principles, and carried on by self-respects ; and therefore Daniel denies that in all that seventy years' captivity they had prayed to any purpose. ' All this has come upon iis, yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand th}'^ truth,' Dan. ix. ] 3. It is the end that dignities or debaseth the action, that rectifies it or adulterates it, that sets a crown of honour or a crown of shame upon the head of it. He that commonly, habitually, in all his duties and services, proposes to himself no higher ends than the praises of men, or rewards of men, or the stopping the mouth of natural conscience, or only to avoid a smart- ing rod, or merely to secure himself from wrath to come, he is an hypo- crite. The ends of a man's actions are always a great discovery either of sincerity or hypocrisy. Look, as great gifts, not sweetened with sin- cerity, are no ornaments to us ; so great infirmities, not soured Avith hypocrisy, are no great deformities to us. An hypocrite's ends are always below God ; they are always below glorifying of God, exalting of God, walking with God, and enjopng communion with God. An hypocrite, in all he does, still proposes to himself some poor, ignoble, self-end or other.