Ann 290 CHRISTIAN MORALITY. own deceivings : Let those who renounce all hope in the promi- ses of God, imitate the devil, who is the father of lies : But let us who trust in -theGod of truth, who believe in Jesus the Savi- our, and makehis truth our hope, let us imitate our heavenly Father and our blessed`Lord. Let us speak the truth andprac- tine it. It was bya lie of the devil that our first parents were deceived and ruined : All our sin and misery sprung from that falsehood, Ye shall not surelydie. And it is by our faith in the truth and promise of God that we hope for salvation. Whilew'e therefore remember either the spring of our ruin, or the means of our recovery, weshould love the truth, and hate lying: Butthere are motives of terror, as well as arguments of grace and love, that should ever influence us to sincerity and truth. We should remember that Christ our Lord has eyes like 'a flame offire, that he searches the hearts and the reins, and will render to every one according to their works; Rev. ii. 23. We should remember the dreadful threatenings that Christ the faith- ful and true Witness, Christ the Lord and Judge of all men, hath denounced against hypocrites. You scarce find him preachinga sermon of any length, but he has one or more woes -i1ì it ready for those thatpractise hypocrisy. There is no sort of sinners that he treats with such infamous names, and such killing reproaches as he does the hypocrite. They resemble the old serpent, the devil, in subtlety and false- hood, and therefore the language of Christ to them runs in this manner ; Ye Jews, who are false to the inwardconviction of your own consciences, ye areof yourfather, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: He wasa murdererfrom the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. -. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar and the father of it; Johnviii. 44. It is as if our Lordhad said, " The first lie that ever was made, was made by the devil ; and by his telling a lie, and our mother Eve's believing it, he mur= dered mankind in Adam their head. And yet you false Jews would imitate him, and make him your father." And again, Fro Lento you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, sons of the old serpent, how canye escape the damnation of hell; Mat. xxiii. 29, 33. Your eternal punish- ment is most just and unavoidable. In another of his discourses he makes the punishment of hypocrites to be, as it were, the pattern of the punishment of the worst of wickedness. The servant who is intrusted with the household of his Lord, that shall beat his fellows, and shall eat and drinkwith the drunken, his Lord shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrite; there shall be weeping andgnashing of teeth; Mat. xxiv.,51. And when you read the
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