LIFE OF FAITH. 431 than heaven? ' Do they believe the communion of saints, while they fly from it, and perhaps detest and persecute it? Is light anddarkness more contrary than their words and deeds ? And is not hypocrisy as visible in their practice as Christianity in their profession? It is the complexion of .their religion. Hypocrite is legibly written in the forehead of it. Theyproclaim their shame to all that they converse with. When they have said, they .believe the life to come, they tell men by their ungodly, worldly lives, that' they are dissemblers. When their tongue hath loudly said that they are Christians,. their tongue and hand more loudly say that they are hypocrites. And when they 'profess their faith but now 'and then, in a lifeless, outside piece of worship, they profess their hypocrisy all the day long; in their impious neglect of God and their salvation, in their carnal speeches, in their worldly lives, and in their enmity to the practice of the same religion which they profess. Their hypocrisy is a web so thin, and so transparent, that it leaves their nakedness open to their shame. They have not profession enough to make a considerable cover for their unbe- lief: they hide but their tongues; the rest, even heart and all, is. bare. O the stupendous power of self-love ! The wonderful blind- nets and stupidity of the ungodly ! The dreadfulness of the judg- ment of God in thus deserting the willful resisters, of his grace! That ever men (in other things of seeming wisdom,) should be such strangers to themselves, and so deceived by themselves, as to think they love the thihg they hate ! And" to think that,. their hearts are set upon heaven, when they neither love it, nor the way that leadeth to it; but are principally bent another way; that when they are strangers or enemies to a holy - life, they can make themselvesbelieve that they are' holy ; and that they seek that first, which they never seek ; andmake that the drift and business of their lives, which whs clever the serious business of an hour ! O hypocrites ! ask any impartial man of reason, that seesyour lives, and hears your prayers, whether you pray and live like men that believe that heaven or hell must be their reward. Ask your families whether they perceive, by your constant prayer, and diligent en- deavors, and holy conversations, that your hearts are set on a life to corne. It was a cutting answer of a late apostate, to one that told him of the unreasonableness of infidels that denied the life to come : saith he, ' There are none in the world so unreason- able as you Christians, that believe that there is an endless life of joy or misery to.come, and do no more to obtain the one, and es- cape the other. Did I believe such a life as this, I would think all too little that I could do or suffer to make it sure.' Who sees the c rtainty, greatness, and eternity of the crown of life, in the,
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