_Directions against Hypocrisy._
Hypocrisy is the acting the part of a religious person, as upon a stage, by one that is not religious indeed;[147] a seeming in religion to be what you are not, or to do what you do not; or a dissembling or counterfeiting that piety which you have not. To counterfeit a state of godliness is the sin only of the unregenerate, who at the present are in a state of misery: to counterfeit some particular act of godliness, or some higher degree, is an odious sin, but such as a regenerate person may be tempted into. This act of hypocrisy doth not denominate the person a hypocrite; but the state of hypocrisy doth. Every hypocrite therefore is an ungodly person, seeming godly; or one that indeed is no true christian, professing himself a christian. Of hypocrites there be two sorts: some desire to deceive others, but not themselves, but know themselves to be but dissemblers; and these are commonly called, gross hypocrites: and some deceive both themselves and others, and think they are no hypocrites, but are as confident of their honesty and sincerity, as if they were no dissemblers at all: but yet they are as verily hypocrites as the former, because they seem to be religious and sincere, when indeed they are not, though they think they are; and profess themselves to be true christians, when they are nothing less. These are called close hypocrites, because they know not themselves to be hypocrites; though they might know it if they would. This is the commonest sort of hypocrites.
There are also two degrees of hypocrites: some of them have only a general profession of christianity and godliness, which is the professed religion of the country where they live; and these are hypocrites because they profess to be what they are not: and others make a greater and extraordinary profession of special strictness in their religion, when they are not sincere; and these are eminently called hypocrites: such as the Pharisees were among the Jews, and many friars, and Jesuits, and nuns among the papists, who by their separating vows, and orders, and habits, profess extraordinarily an extraordinary measure of devotion, while they want the life of godliness.