LONDON:
PRINTED BY R. WESTON, QUEEN’S GARDENS, CROSBY ROW,
SOUTHWARK.
1826.
IS THIS YOUR LIKENESS?
“AS WE HAVE BORNE THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHLY SO SHALL WE ALSO BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY.”
The great and excellent Mr. Toplady remarks on painting—
1. When a portrait painter takes a likeness, there most be an original from whom to take it. Here the original are God and Christ. ‘When I awake up after thy likeness,’ &c.; and, we are “predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son.”
2. The painter changes the materials on which he will delineate his piece. There are paintings on wood, on glass, on metals, on ivory, on canvass. So God chooses and selects the persons, on whom his uncreated spirit shall, with the pencil of effectual grace, re-delineate that holy likeness which Adam lost. Among these are some, whose natural capacities, and acquired improvements, are not of the first-rate: there the image of God is painted on wood. Others of God’s people have not those quick sensibilities, and poignant feelings, by which many are distinguished: there the Holy Spirit’s painting is on marble. Others are permitted to fall from the ardour of their first love, and to deviate from their stedfastness: there the Holy Spirit paints on glass, which, perhaps, the first stone of temptation may injure. But the celestial Artist will, in time, repair those breaches, and restore the frail brittle Christian, to his original enjoyments, and to more than his original purity; and, what may seem truly wonderful, divine grace restores the picture, by breaking it over again. It is the broken-hearted sinner to whom God will impart the comforts of salvation.
3. The ancients painted only in water-colours; but the moderns (from about A.D. 1320) have added beauty and durability to their pictures, by painting them in oil. Applicable to hypocrites and true believers. An hypocrite may outwardly bear something that resembles the image of God; but it is only in fresco, or water colours, which do not last; and are, at best, laid on by the hand of dissimulation. But (if I may accommodate so familiar an idea to so high a subject) the Holy Spirit paints in oil; he accompanies his work with unction and with power, and hence it shall be crowned with honour, and praise, and glory, at Christ’s appearing.
4. All pictures are not of one size. There are various dimensions, from the miniature to the full length. So in grace below.
5. All pictures are not framed alike; some are gilt, some are plain, and some have no frames at all. Remember, that as the value of a picture does not depend on the frame, but on the execution of the piece itself, so your happiness and holiness does not depend on your outward station or condition, but on the work of grace wrought in your soul by the Holy Spirit.
6. Some pictures are highly varnished; some not. Some believers are learned, elegant and polite. Others, who yet are believers still, want those unessential embellishments. See this contrasted in Mr. Hervey and Mr. Bunyan, yet both shine alike in the kingdom of God.
7. All pictures do not bear an equally strong resemblance of their original. Nor are all Christians equally conformed, at present, to Christ. In some, the canvass is but preparing; they are only under the first drawings of the Spirit. In others there are rude outlines, or a mere sketch, not yet filled up: but the colours are preparing, and, in due time, they will be laid on. Others are so far advanced, that a few touches more will fit them for the skies. And others, which are completely finished, are in heaven, to be part of the living furniture of God’s palace to all eternity. And, what these are the rest shall be.
8. A fine painting is seldom finished at once. Successive sittings are usually required, and repeated touches of the artist. Grace rarely does its work all at once. The thief indeed, on the cross, received the divine image at a single sitting; and in others, whom God may call at the eleventh or even the twelfth hour, the work may be cut short in righteousness. But, generally speaking, our consummation in grace resembles the progress of a building, which is gradually raised, and carried up from the foundation, part by part. Rome was not built in a day.
9. The ground-work of a picture undergoes a preparation before the colours are superinduced. It is washed, or cleared, or boiled in oil, according to the nature of the material. ’Ere we are susceptible of the image of the heavenly, the soul must experience a preparatory work of conviction. Prejudices must be cleared away; enmity slain, &c.
10. To discern and admire the beauty of a picture, a person must have three things—eyes, light, and taste, (or a susceptibility of receiving pleasure from a beautiful object.) The world, spiritually speaking, want all the three. Hence their hatred of God’s children.
11. Some Christians are like paintings in Mosaic. They have somewhat almost of every thing, except uniformity and consistency of conduct. But, when their hearts come to be established with grace, they will be more of a-piece; and, when in heaven, they will be all of a-piece.
12. A number of heterogeneous, and seemingly contradictory, ingredients are used by painters in mixing their colours; but they are all useful, expedient, and necessary. So are the various providences of God toward his people.
The providence of God having called me to a more intimate acquaintance with the Lord’s tried ones than falls to the lot of ministers in general, I have long heard the voices of their complaints and their fears; and amongst the rest has been this—lest they should be nothing but hypocrites after all their profession and experience; while with great grief I have seen many who have no fears upon the subject, but appear to be bold, hardened and presumptuous hypocrites. I determined, by the Lord’s assistance, in as clear and scriptural a manner as I possibly could, to point out the sincere believer, with all his feelings, frames, corruptions, infirmities, and temptations, his falls, recoveries and conflicts, in direct opposition to an hypocrite, in his attainment, confidence, hardness, deceit and pride, that my reader may be able in looking on these pictures to decide to which of these he belongs—that the poor in spirit may be comforted, and the hypocrite may, by divine light, discover himself and be made sincere, is my humble aim.
In the many points in which these two differ would fill a volume. I can only in this small treatise shew some few guided by the word of truth, in which it is impossible to err; and it is to be lamented, that in the present state we cannot always find in the course of our observation who are and who are not either the one or the other. This can never be fully known till that important period arrives spoken of by the prophet; “Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.” Yet for our own personal comfort and for the honour of that grace that has made us sincere it is our business to search for scriptural evidences of that sincerity, that we may rejoice in that super-abounding which has made us to differ from those who are awfully denominated hypocrites in Zion. The best way to decide a character is by the word of God. Many good men have written upon the subject, but some of them have carried the subject too far and distressed the Lord’s tempted people. But, “what saith the scripture,” should be our enquiry. This should decide all subjects relative to character, whether sincere or hypocritical. Let us notice what is said of such and take no man’s opinion besides. The terms hypocrite, hypocrisy, hypocritical, hypocrites, occur thirty-five times in the Bible, and not one text can possibly belong to the humble broken-hearted sincere seeker of the friendship and favour of God. I will quote all that is necessary, with one short remark on them. Isaiah 32, vi.—“His heart will work iniquity to practice hypocrisy:” these are those who set forth false doctrine, worship and discipline, in opposition to the truth as it is in Christ, to make men believe, they are very holy, devout and religious; for it is added, “to utter error against the Lord:” this is hypocrisy. Such are also described in Isaiah 9, xvii.—Fearfulness, dread and surprise shall seize such characters. Isaiah 33, xix.—The apostle Paul alludes to them. 1 Tim. iv. 2.—“Speaking lies in hypocrisy;” which plainly by the connection refers to Anti-Christ, the man of sin, the lying system of popery. But the wisdom which is from above is pure and without hypocrisy. James 3, xvii. And the apostle Peter well knowing the hypocrisy that is in the hearts of real believers, exhorts to lay aside all dissembling among each other, as unbecoming their genuine character.—1 Peter ii. 1. One of the awful threatenings pronounced against Israel of old is this—“I will send him against an hypocritical nation,” a people who professed the service of God, but whose hearts were far from him, who in heart hated both God, his ways, and his truths.—Isaiah x. 6. Such was the degenerate state of that nation. “For every one is an hypocrite and an evil-doer.”—Isaiah ix. 17. In heart, haters of Christ. David met with such in his time, and prophecied of their spite and hypocrisy to Christ. Psalm xxxv. 16.—“With hypocritical mockers in feasts they gnashed upon me with their teeth.” Which was fulfilled in the same abominable characters; for the psalm belongs to Christ, and contains a complaint of the conduct of the enemies of his person, mission, miracles, work and truth. In Job’s days there were many; yea, congregations of them—the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate. These persons are also called the tabernacles of bribery, who hope to bribe divine justice with a few dead works of their own—too proud to submit to the righteousness of the mediator—staying themselves on their own supposed goodness, they hope to be saved in whole or in part by it; “but the hope of the hypocrite shall perish.”—Job viii. 19. And as he reject the mediator between God and man, “an hypocrite shall not come before him.”—Job xiii. 16. He may indeed rejoice in his good name and false confidence, but that lamp will be out in death and leave him in possession of all his guilt unpardoned. “For what is the hope of the hypocrite when God taketh him away, although he has gained the applause of the world?”—Job xxvii. 8. “The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment.” Job xx. 5. And every spiritual man who is divinely acquainted with the truth shall oppose such characters and their false foundations. Job xvii. 8—“The innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.” For as he is an hypocrite in profession, in heart and in life, so also in the church and in the world; for if a man is not sound in heart, towards God and truth, he cannot be very sincere towards his neighbour; and whence arise so much slander, backbiting and evil speaking in the churches but from such characters. These troubled the churches in the apostles’ days. Paul, Peter, James, John and Jude bore their testimony against them; for “an hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour.”—Prov. xi. 9. And although many such may be in great power, and have obtained that dignity either in a nation or in the church, by their pretended humanity, care and tenderness towards a people, as Absalom did, when he rose up in rebellion against his father, and by a pretended affection for the people, and speedily vindicating their cause—yet he reigned not long. Job xxxix. 3—That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared. Such in a profession got into the churches of Corinth and Galatea, and was no small affliction to the mind of Paul; for by artful insinuations they raised a prejudice in the minds of the churches against the very apostle who had been the means of their conversion. Thus, like their father, the devil, they did his work first by insinuation, (for a whisperer separateth chief friends) and then more openly; but I would they were cut off that trouble you. Let not the hypocrite reign lest the people be ensnared, which was the case in both churches, and is the very case at the present day. Nearly twenty times in the New Testament our Saviour accused the Pharisees of hypocrisy, because they were really hypocrites, and nothing else. The word, according to the learned, comes from the Greek, hypocrisis, it is counterfeiting religion and virtue—an affectation of the name and hatred to the thing—the having the form of godliness but denying the power. Thus, he is an hypocrite who pretends to be what he is not—who puts on a false person like the actor in tragedy or comedy—as a beggar may act a king, or a coward an hero. But the chief enemies our dear Lord had were the Pharisees, whose characters are drawn by an unerring hand; they imposed many severe injunctions, rites and ceremonies above what the law required; but they never did the least part of them themselves. What they did was only for ostentation to be seen of men; they hid their crying sins, under the appearance of virtue, that they might sin with less suspicion. Whited sepulchres, within nothing but sordid dust. They were exact in trifling matters—zealous in all outward forms of religious worship, but totally neglected all acts of justice, mercy and truth; they studied an external purity of hands, pots and dishes, but strangers to heart-felt purity; they pretended a deal of respect to the ancient prophets, who were faithful to God and truth, yet hated, persecuted and murdered the God of the prophets. On them in one chapter the Saviour pronounced eight awful woes—told them of their dreadful end—the destruction of their temple and city—and then left that place for ever. Hypocrites are said to pray only to God in the time of sickness: and will God hear their cry? No—the foolish virgins, after their long profession, cried “Lord, Lord, open, to us:” but the Lord would not hear.
Having stated what the scripture says of hypocrites and hypocrisy, I only appeal to any humbly enlightened believer—what has such a definition of character to do with one is in any degree taught of God, is blessed with the fear of God, has fled for refuge to the atonement and righteousness of Christ, and who is most sincerely seeking, longing, looking, and waiting for the manifestation of his love, favour and goodwill. I must say to such dejected ones, as Elihu to Job—“Although though sayest I shall not see him, yet judgment is before him, therefore trust thou in him.” That there have been hypocrites in the church in all ages is very evident. Cain got into the first—Ham in Noah’s family—Ishmael and Esau into the next—Corah, Dathan, Abiram, Nadab, and Abihu in the camp of Israel—Saul and Ahithophel in David’s time. Solomon detected, and in his writings exposed many Judas amongst the apostles. Alexander Hymenus, Philetus, Hermogenes and Demas, with many false apostles and deceitful workers in Paul’s days. But this argues nothing against the religion of the Son of God; and although ignorant and carnal persons pretend to object to religion, because so many hypocrites profess it—this very objection proves such persons to be hypocrites themselves. What, would any man throw away a handful of good silver because he had found one bad shilling amongst them? The carnal mind is enmity, but too proud to own it; and all the outcry raised by the carnal world is merely designed to conceal the wretched enmity of their hearts to the truth as it is in Christ.