abstain from gross sins ? so doth the formahst too. Do saints fast and pray ? so do Pharisees too. Doth Peter shed tears ? so doth Esau too. Doth Peter repent ? so doth Judas too. Doth CorneHus give ahns ? so do the Pharisees too. Doth Zaccheus believe ? so doth Simon Magus too. Doth David confess his sin ? so doth Saul too. Doth David delight in approaching to God ? so doth Isaiah's hypocrites too. Doth Hezekiah humble himself? so doth Ahab and the king of Nineveh too. Doth a gracious soul hear the word with joy ? so did Herod too. Doth a gracious soul receive the word with joy ? so did the stony ground too. Doth a gracious soul delight in his teacher ? so did Ezekiel's worldlings too. Is a gracious soul in closet duties ? so is the Pharisee too, &c.i When counterfeit coin is abroad, you will not take a piece but you will try it ; you will bring every piece to the touchstone. Ah that you would deal so by your holiness ! There is a great deal of counterfeit holiness abroad, and therefore you had need bring yours to the trial. As all is not gold that glisters, so all is not holiness that men take for holiness, that men count for holiness. The child is not more like the father, nor one brother like another. Wine in the bottle is not more like to wine in the butt, nor water in the cistern more like to water in the river, nor fire in the forge more like to fire in the chimney, nor milk in the saucer to milk in the breasts, than counterfeit grace and hohness is like to that which is real. Counterfeit faith doth so nearly resemble true faith, and counterfeit love true love, and counterfeit repentance true repentance, and counterfeit obedience true obedience, and counterfeit knowledge true knowledge, and counterfeit holiness true holiness, that it is not an easy matter to discover the one from the other. The Cyprian diamond, saith Pliny, looks so like the true Indian diamond, that if a man do not look warily to it he may easily be deceived and cheated. 0 sirs, true grace and counterfeit, true holiness and counter- feit, look so like one another, that, without a divine light to guide you, you may be easily cheated and deceived for ever. In these days of profession there is abundance of false ware put off. Satan is a subtle merchant ; and where profaneness will not pass for current coin, there he labours to furnish his customers with the shows and resemblances of grace and holiness, that so he may hold them the faster in golden fetters, and put them off from looking after that real holiness, without which no man can be blessed here, or happy hereafter. And there- fore it nearly concerns every man to search and try whether he hath real holiness or no.
6. Sixthly, Consider, if upon trial you slmll find in you iliis real holiness that paves the ivay to happiness, it luill turn exceedingly to your accounts. Thy happiness depends upon the real being of holi^ ness in thee, but thy comfort depends upon thy seeing of hohness. Keal holiness will yield thee a heaven hereafter ; but the seeing of holiness will yield thee a heaven here. He that hath holiness and
' Mat. XXV. 1-4; Ezra viii. ; Esther iv. ; Daniel ix. ; Mat. vi. 16; Luke xviii. 11; Mat. xxvii. ; Heb. xii. ; Mat. vi. ; Acts x. 1-4; Luke xix. 11 ; Acts xxi. 8 ; 1 Sam. xv. 24; Isa. Iviii. ; 2 Chron. xxxii. 26 ; 1 Kings xxii. 15; Jonah iii. ; Mark vi. ; Ezek. xxxiii. 30-33 ; Luke xviii. 11. The diflference between these true and counterfeit graces 18 largely discovered in my Treatise on ' Assurance.' [In Works, vol. ii., pp. 319, seq.— G.]
HeB. XII. 14.] AND BEAUTY OF HOLINESS. 101