Take Up the Cross

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
— Romans 7:24

Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD’S servant?
— Isaiah 42:19

Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
— Revelation 3:4-5

He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.
— John 9:11

Concerning Divers Helps for the Clearing of Sincerity and Discovery of Hypocrisy, by John Flavel. The following contains Chapter Twelve of his work, “Touchstone of Sincerity,” Or, “The Signs of Grace, and Symptoms of Hypocrisy.”

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
— Revelation 3:17-18

SECTION I.

You see of what importance the duty of self-examination is, and how many things put a necessity and a solemnity upon that work. Now, in the close of all, I would offer you some helps for the due management thereof, that is, as far as I can carry it: the Lord persuade your hearts to the diligent and faithful application and use of them! The general rules to clear sincerity are these that follow:

Rule 1. We may not presently conclude we are in the state of hypocrisy, because we find some workings of it and tendencies to it in our spirits: the best gold hath some dross and alloy in it. Hypocrisy is a weed naturally springing in all ground, the best heart is not perfectly clear or free of it. It may be we are stumbled when we feel some workings or grudgings of this disease in ourselves, and looking into such scriptures as these, John i. 47, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile;” and Psalm xxxii. 1, “Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile:” this, I say, may stumble some upright soul, not understanding in what an allayed and qualified sense those scriptures are to be understood; for by a spirit without guile, is not understood a person absolutely free from all deceitfulness and falseness of heart; this was the sole prerogative of the Lord Jesus, who was separated from sinners, in whose mouth was no guile found; in whom the prince of this world, in all his trials and attempts upon him, found nothing: but we must understand it of reigning and allowed hypocrisy; there is no such guile in any of the saints: distinguish the presence from the predominance of hypocrisy, and the doubt is resolved.

Rule 2. Every true ground of humiliation for sin is not a sufficient ground for doubting and questioning our estate and condition.

There are many more things to humble us upon the account of our infirmity, than there are to stumble us upon the account of our integrity: it is the sin and affliction of some good souls to call their condition in question upon every slip and failing in the course of their obedience. This is the way to debar ourselves from all the peace and comfort of the Christian life. We find that Joseph was once minded to put away Mary, his espoused wife, not knowing that the holy thing which was conceived in her was by the Holy Ghost. It is the sin of hypocrites to take brass for gold, and the folly of saints to call their gold brass. Be as severe to yourselves as you will, “There is provided always you be just. that maketh himself rich, and yet hath nothing; and there is that maketh himself poor, and yet hath great riches;” Prov. xiii. 7. Hiram called the cities Solomon gave him, Cabul, dirty, for they pleased him not; 1 Kings ix. 13. It is but an ill requital, an ungrateful return to God for the best of mercies, to undervalue them in our hearts, and be ready upon all occasions to put them away as worth nothing.

Rule 3. A stronger propension in our nature, and more frequent incidence in our practice to one sin than another, do not presently infer our hypocrisy, and the unsoundness of our hearts in religion. It is true, every hypocrite hath some way of wickedness; some peccatum in deliciis, iniquity that he delights in, and rolls as a sweet morsel under his tongue; some lust that he is not willing to part with, nor can endure that the knife of mortification should touch it; and this undoubtedly argues the insincerity and rottenness of his heart. And it is true also that the nature and constitution of the most sanctified man inclines him rather to one sin than to another, though he allow himself in none; yea, though he set himself more watchfully against that sin than another, yet he may still have more trouble and vexation, more temptation and defilement from it than any other.

As every man hath his proper gift, one after this manner, and another after that, as the apostle speaks, 1 Cor. vii. 7; so every man hath his proper sin also, one after this manner, and another after that. For it is with original sin as it is with the juice or sap of the earth, which though it be the common matter of all kinds of fruits, yet it is specificated according to the different sorts of plants and seeds which it nourishes; in one it becomes an apple, in another a cherry, &c. Just so it is in original corruption, which is turned into this or that temptation or sin, according to this or that constitution or employment it finds them in; in one it is passion, in another lust, in a third covetousness, in a fourth levity, and so on. Now I say the frequent assaults of this sin, provided we indulge it not, but, by setting double guards, labour to keep ourselves from our own iniquity, as David did, Psalm xviii. 23, will not infer the hypocrisy of our hearts.

Rule 4. A greater backwardness and indisposedness to one duty rather than another, doth not conclude the heart to be unsound and false with God, provided we do not inwardly dislike and disapprove any duty of religion, or except against it in our agreement with Christ, but that it riseth merely from the present weakness and distemper we labour under.

There are some duties in religion, as suffering for Christ, bearing sharp reproofs for sin, that even an upright heart, under a present distemper, may find a great deal of backwardness and lothness to; yet still he consents to the law, that it is good, is troubled that he cannot comply more cheerfully with his duty, and desires to stand complete in all the will of God. perfection is his aim, and imperfections are his sorrows.

Some Christians have much ado to bring their hearts to fixed, solemn meditation, their hearts fly off from it, but this is their burden, that it should be so with them. True, it is a very dangerous sign of hypocrisy, when a man’s zeal runs qut in one channel of obedience only, and he hath not respect to all God’s commandments; as physicians observe, the sweating of one part of the body, when all the rest is cold, is symptomatical, and argues an ill habit: but whilst the soul heartily approves all the will of God, and sincerely desires to come up to it, and mourns for its backwardness and deadness to this or that duty, and this is not fixed, but occasional, under some present indisposition, out of which the soul riseth by the same degrees as sanctification riseth in him, and the Lord comes in with renewed strength upon him; this, I say, may consist, and is very ordinarily found to be the case of upright-hearted ones.

Rule 5. The glances of the eye at self-ends in duties, whilst self is not the weight that moves the wheels, the principal end and design we drive at, and whilst those glances are corrected and mourned for, do not conclude the heart to be unsound and hypocritical in religion. For, even among the most deeply sanctified, few can keep their eye so steady and fixed with pure and unmixed respects to the glory of God, but that there will be (alas! too frequently) some bye-ends, insinuating and creeping into the heart.

These, like the fowls, seize upon the sacrifice, let the soul take what pains it can to drive them away. It is well that our Highpriest bears the iniquities of our holy things for us. Peter had too much regard to the pleasing of men, and did not walk with that uprightness toward the Gentile Christians and the believing Jews, in the matter of liberty, as became him, Gal. ii. 13, 14; for which, as Paul saith, he ought to be blamed, and he did blame him: but yet such a failing as that in the end of his duty did not condemn him. In public performances there may be too much vanity, in works of charity too much ostentation: these are all workings of hypocrisy in us, and matters of humiliation to us; but whilst they are disallowed, corrected, and mourned over, are consistent with integrity.

Rule 6. The doubts and fears that hang upon and perplex the spirits about the hypocrisy of our hearts, do not conclude that therefore we are what we fear ourselves to be. God will not condemn every one for a hypocrite that suspects, yea, or charges himself with hypocrisy. Holy David thought his heart was not right with God, after that great slip of his in the matter of Uriah; and therefore begs of God to renew a right spirit in him, Psalm li. 10-12: his integrity was indeed wounded, and he thought destroyed by that fall.

Holy Mr. Bradford’ so vehemently doubted the sincerity of his heart, that he subscribed some of his letters, as Mr. Fox tells us, John Bradford the hypocrite; a very painted sepulchre: and yet in so saying, he utterly misjudged the state and temper of his own soul.

SECTION II.

WELL, then, let not the upright be unjust to themselves in censuring their own hearts; they are bad enough, but let us not make them worse than they are, but thankfully own and acknowledge the least degrees of grace and integrity in them: and possibly our uprightness might be sooner discovered to us, if, in a due composure of spirit, we would sit down and attend the true answers of our own hearts to such questions as these are:

Quest. 1. Do I make the approbation of God, or the applause of men, the very end and main design of my religious performances, according to 1 Thess. ii. 4, Col. iii. 23? Will the acceptation of my duties with men satisfy me, whether God accept my duties and person or not?

Quest. 2. Is it the reproach and shame that attends sin at present, and the danger and misery that will follow it hereafter, that restrains me from the commission of it; or is it the fear of God in my soul, and the hatred I bear to sin as it is sin, according to Psalm xix. 12, and Psalm cxix. 113?

Quest. 3. Can I truly and heartily rejoice to see God’s work carried on in the world, and his glory promoted by other hands, though I have no share in the credit and honour of it, as Paul did? Phil. i. 18.

Quest. 4. Is there no duty in religion so full of difficulty and self-denial, but I desire to comply with it? And is all the holy and good will of God acceptable to my soul, though I cannot rise up with like readiness to the performance of all duties, according to that pattern, Psalm cxix. 6?

Quest. 5. Am I sincerely resolved to follow Christ and holiness at all seasons, however the aspects of the times be upon religion? Or do I carry myself so warily and covertly,

as to shun all hazards for religion, having a secret reserve in my heart to launch out no farther than I may return with safety, contrary to the practice and resolution of upright souls? Psalm cxvi. 3, xliv. 18, 19; Rev. xxii. 11.

Quest. 6. Do I make no conscience of committing secret sins, or neglecting secret duties? Or am I conscientious both in the one and the other, according to the rules and patterns of integrity? Matt. vi. 5,6; Psalm xix. 12.

A few such questions solemnly propounded to our own hearts, in a calm and serious hour, would sound them, and discover much of their sincerity toward the Lord.

SECTION III.

And as upright hearts are too apt to apply to themselves the threats and miseries of hypocrites, so hypocrites, on the contrary, are as apt to catch hold of the promises and privileges pertaining to believers.

To detect, therefore, the soul-damning mistakes of such deceived souls, O that these following rules might be studied, and faithfully applied to their conviction and recovery!

Rule 1. It is not enough to clear a man from hypocrisy, that he knows not himself to be an hypocrite. All hypocrites are not designing hypocrites; they deceive themselves as well as others: “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name,” &c. Matt. vii. 22. Hell will be a mere surprisal to multitudes of professors: a man may live and die in a blind, ungrounded fear, in confidence of his safe condition, and not his ruin, till he begin to feel it.

Rule 2. Zeal and forwardness in the cause of God, and for the reformation of his worship, will not clear a man from the danger of hypocrisy. Jehu was a zealous reformer, and yet but a painted sepulchre. In the year 1549, reformation grew so much in reputation, even among the nobles and gentry, in Germany, that many of them caused these five letters, V. D. M.I. Æ., being the initial letters of these words, Verbum Domini manet in æternum; that is, The word of the Lord abideth for ever, -to be wrought, or embroidered, or set in plates, some upon their cloaks, and others upon the sleeves to their garments: to show to all the world, saith my author, (John Wolfe, Lect. Memor. tom. ii. ad Annum, 1549,) that, forsaking all Popish traditions, they would now cleave to the pure doctrine and discipline of the Eternal Word.

And no doubt they would have been as good as their word, if what was embroidered on their cloaks had been engraven on their hearts; but, “Come, see my zeal,” mars all.

Rule 3. It is no sufficient evidence of a man’s own integrity, that he hates hypocrisy in another; for, as one proud man may hate another, and he that is covetous himself, will be apt to censure another for being so; lusts may be contrary to one another, as well as all of them contrary to grace; so may a hypocrite loath that in another, which yet he alloweth in himself. Nay, it is the policy of some to declaim against the hypocrisy of others, thereby to hide their own. Hypocrites are none of the most modest censurers of others; Psalm xxxv. 16. A salt jest seasoned their meat.

Rule 4. The mere performance of private duties will not clear a man from hypocrisy. The influence of education, or support of reputation, or the impulse of a convinced conscience, may induce a man to it; and yet all this while his heart may not be carried thither with hungry and thirsty desires after God. It is not the matter of any duty that distinguishes the sound and unsound professors, but the motives, designs, and ends of the soul in them.

Rule 5. The vogue and opinions you have got among Christians of your sincerity, will not be sufficient to clear you from the danger of hypocrisy. Christ tells the angel of Sardis, Rev. iii. 1, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” The fall of Hymeneus and Philetus could never have shaken the faith of the saints as it did, had they not had great credit in the church, and been men of renown for piety among them. Rule 6. Your respects and love to them that are the sincere and upright servants of God, will not clear you from the danger of being hypocrites yourselves: for the bare loving of a Christian is not characteristical and evidential of a man’s own Christianity, except he love him, qua talis, as he is a Christian, or as he belongs to Christ: and so his sincerity becomes the attraction of thy affection. There are a thousand bye-considerations and respects that may kindle a man’s love to the saints besides their integrity.

SECTION IV.

WELL, then, if thou wouldst indeed see the unsoundness of thy own heart, propound such heart-sounding questions as these to thyself:

Quest. 1. Do I engage my heart to approach unto God in the course of my duties; or do I go in the round of duties, taking no heed to my heart in them? If so, compare this symptom of thy hypocrisy with that in 2 Kings x. 3, and that in Ezek. xxx. 31, 32.

Quest. 2. Am I not swayed and moved by self-interest and carnal respects in the ways of religion, the accommodation of some worldly interest, or getting a name and reputation of godliness? If so, how apparently do the same symptoms of hypocrisy appear upon my soul, which did upon Judas, John xii. 6, and on Jehu, 2 Kings ix. 13, 14!

Quest. 3. Have I not some secret reserves in my heart, notwithstanding that face and appearance of zeal which I put on? Certainly, if there be any sin that I cannot part with, any suffering for Christ which I resolve against in my heart, I am none of his disciples; my heart is not right with God, the searcher of hearts himself being judge; Luke xiv. 26, 27.

Quest. 4. What conscience do I make of secret sins? Do I mourn for a vain heart, wandering thoughts, spiritual deadness? And do I conscientiously abstain from the practice of secret sins, when there is no danger of discovery, no fear of forfeiting my reputation by it? Is it God’s eye, or man’s, that awes me from the commission of sin? Certainly, if I allow myself in secret sins, I am not of the number of God’s upright people, whose spirits are of a contrary temper to mine; Psalm cxix. 118, and Psalm xii. 12.

SECTION V.

I will shut up all with five or six concluding counsels, (which the Lord impress upon the heart of him that writes, and those that shall read them!) to preserve and antidote the soul against the dangerous insinuation and leaven of hypocrisy.

Counsel 1. Intreat the Lord night and day for a renewed and right spirit. All the helps and directions in the world will not antidote and preserve you from hypocrisy; nothing will be found able to keep you right, till sanctification hath first set you right; Ezek. xxxvi. 27, “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.”

A bowl may keep by a strait line, so long as the impressed force of the hand that delivered it remains strong upon it; but as that wears off, so its motions fail, and its own bias sways and turns it. A fright of conscience, a pang of warm affection, or the effect of some great example, or a good education, may influence an unrenewed soul, and push it on in the way of religion for a season; but the heart so influenced, must and will return to its own natural course again. And I think there wants nothing but time, or a suitable temptation, to discover the true temper of many a professor’s spirit. Pray, therefore, as that holy man did, Psalm cxix. 80, “Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I be not ashamed.”

Counsel 2. Always suspect and examine your ends in what you do. Sincerity and hypocrisy lie much in your ends and designs; as they are, so are you. The intentions of the heart lie deep: a man may do the same action to an holy end, and his person and service be accepted with God; which another doing for a corrupt end, it may be reckoned his sin, and both his person and service be abhorred by the Lord. We find two men riding in one chariot, and both of them concerned in the same expedition, Jehu, the son of Nimshi, and Jonadab, the son of Rechab; 2 Kings x. 15, 23. But though the work they engaged in was one and the same, yet the different ends they aimed at made the same action an excellent duty in Jonadab, and an act of vile hypocrisy in Jehu. It was the saying of a good soul, commended for a good action, The work indeed is good, but I fear the ends of it. Self-ends are creeping and insinuating things into the best actions.

Counsel 3. Scare yourselves with the daily fears of the sin that is in, and the misery that will follow, hypocrisy. Look upon it as the most odious sin in the eyes of God and man. To want holiness is bad enough, but to dissimulate and pretend it, when we have it not, is double impiety: to make religion, the most glorious thing in the world, a mere stirrup to preferment, and a covert to wickedness, O, how vile a thing is it! God made Christ a sacrifice for sin, and the hypocrite will make him a cloak for sin.

And as to the punishments that follow it, they are suitable to the nature of the sin; for as hypocrisy is out of measure sinful, so the reward and punishment of it will be out of measure dreadful. Matt. xxiv. 51, “Не shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Counsel 4. Be daily at work in the mortification of those lusts that breed hypocrisy. It is plain, without much sifting, that pride,

vain-glory, self-love, and a worldly heart, are the seeds out of which this cursed plant springs up in the souls of men. Dig but to the root, you shall certainly find these things there; and till the Lord help help you to and mortify these, hypocrisy will spring up in all your duties to God, and in all your converses with men.

Counsel 5. Attend the native voice of your own consciences in the day of sickness, fear, or trouble, and take special notice of its checks or upbraidings, which, like a stitch in your side, will gird at such times: commonly in that lies your greatest danger. Beware of that evil which conscience brands and marks at such times, whether it be your living in the practice of some secret sin, or in the neglect of some known duty; these frights of conscience mark out the corruption, wherein your danger mostly lies.

Counsel 6. Let us all that profess religion be uniform and steady in the profession and practice of it, without politic reserve and bye-ends.

O, take heed of this Laodicean neutrality and indifferency which Christ hates; be sure your ground be good, and then be sure you stand your ground. The religion of timeservers is but hypocrisy; they have sluices in their consciences, which they can open or shut, as occasion requires. Every fox will have at least two holes to his den, that if one be stopped, he may escape at the other. The hypocrite poiseth himself so evenly in a mediocrity, that, as it is said of Baldwin, “Let Anthony win, let Augustus win, all is one;” so let Christ win, or let Antichrist win, he hopes to make every wind that can blow, serviceable to waft him to the port of his own interest.

The hypocrite hath always more of the moon than of the sun; little light, many spots, and frequent changes. It is easier to him to bow to the cross, than to bear the cross; to sin, than to suffer.

Our own story tells us of a poor, simple woman, that lived both in the reign of queen Mary and queen Elizabeth, and would constantly say her prayers both in Latin and English, that she might be sure to please one side or the other: and let God, said she, take which likes him best. What is noted as an act of ridiculous simplicity in her, the time-serving hypocrite accounts a point of deep policy to himself.

The times under Dioclesian were pagan; under Constantine, Christian; under Constantius, Arian; under Julian, apostate; and under Jovian, Christian again; and all this within the space of seventy years, the age of one man. O, what shifting and scuffling was there among the men of that generation! The changes of weather show the unsoundness of men’s bodies, and the changes of times the unsoundness of their souls.

Christian, if ever thou wilt manifest and maintain thine integrity, be a man but of one design, and be sure that be an honest and good design; to secure heaven, whatever becomes of earth; to hold integrity, whatever thou art forced to let go for its sake.

Take heed of pious frauds: certainly it was the devil that first married these two words together, for they never did nor can agree between themselves, nor was ever such a marriage made in heaven.

Never study to model religion, and the exercises thereof, in a consistency with, or subserviency to, your fleshly interests; if your religion be but a mock religion, your reward shall be but a mock heaven, that is, a real hell.

O, the vanity and inutility of these projects and designs! Men strive to cast themselves into such modes, and stint themselves to such measures of religion, as they think will best promote or secure their earthly interests; but it often falls out, contrary to their expectation, that their deep policies are ridiculous follies; they become the grief and shame of their friends, and the scorn and song of their enemies. And often it fares with them, as with him that placed himself in the middle of the table, where he could neither reach the dish above him, nor that below him: and which is the very best of it, if earthly interest be accommodated by sinful neutrality, and a Laodicean indifferency in religion; yet no good man should once feel a temptation to embrace it, except he think what is wanting in the sweetness of his sleep, may be fully recompensed to him by the stateliness of his bed, and richer furniture of his chamber; I mean, that a fuller and higher condition in the world, can make him amends for the loss of his inward peace, and the quiet repose of a good conscience. These bye-ends and self-interests are the little passages through which hypocrisy creeps in upon the professors of religion.

O, let this be your rejoicing, which was Paul’s, “The testimony of your conscience, that in all sincerity and godly simplicity, not in fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, you have had your conversation in this world;” 2 Cor. i. 12.

Let that be your daily prayer and cry to heaven, which was David’s, Psalm xxv. 21, “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait on thee.

Counsel 7. Keep your hearts day and night under the awe of God’s all-seeing eye: remember, he beholds all your ways, and ponders all your thoughts; how covertly soever hypocrisy may be carried for a time, all must and will out at last; Luke xii. 3. Secrecy is the main inducement to hypocrisy; but it will fall out with the hypocrite, as it did with Ottocar, the king of Bohemia, who refused to do homage to Rodolphos the emperor, till at last, chastised with war, he was content to do him homage privately in a tent. But the tent was so contrived by the emperor’s servants, that by drawing one cord, it was taken all away; and so Ottocar was presented on his knees doing homage in view of three armies.

Reader, awe thy heart with God’s eye; know that he will bring every secret thing into judgment. Thus did Job, and it preserved him; Job xxxi. 1-4. Thus did David, and it preserved him; Psalm xviii. 21-23. Thus do thou also, and it will preserve thee blameless and without guile to the day of Christ.

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