A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

Direct. IX. Take heed of hardening company, examples, and discourse. To hear men rail and scoff at holiness, and curse, and swear, and blaspheme the name and truth of God, will at first make you tremble; but if you wilfully cast yourself ordinarily into such company, by degrees your sense and tenderness will be gone, and you will find a very great hardening power, in the company, and frequent discourse, and practices, which yourselves condemn.

Direct. X. Take heed of wilful sinning against knowledge; much more of lying in such sin, unrepented of. It greatly hardeneth, to sin against knowledge; and much more to commit such sins over and over. This grieveth and driveth away the Spirit, and dangerously provoketh God to leave men to themselves.

Direct. XI. Take heed of being customary in the use of those means that must be the means of curing hardened hearts. If once the lively preaching, and holy living, and fervent praying, of the servants of God, be taken by thee but as matters of course, and thou go with them to church and to prayers, but as to eat or drink, or kneel with them but for custom, thou wilt be as the smith's dog, that can sleep by the anvil, while the hammers are beating, and the sparks are flying about his ears. It is dangerous to grow customary and dull, under powerful, lively helps.

Direct. XII. Be often with the sick, and in the house of mourning, and read thy lesson in the churchyard, and let the grave, and bones, and dust instruct thee. When thou seest the end of all the living, perhaps thou will somewhat lay it to heart. Sight will sometimes do more than the hearing of greater things. Fear may possibly touch the heart, that hath not yet so much ingenuity as to be melted by the force of love. And ordinarily, the humbling and softening of a hard, impenitent heart begins in fear, and ends in love. The work of preparation is in a manner the work of fear alone. The first work of true conversion is begun in a great measure of fear, and somewhat of love; but so little as is scarce perceived, because of the more sensible operations of fear. And as a christian groweth, his love increaseth, till perfect love in the state of perfection have cast out all tormenting fear, though not our reverence or filial fear of God. Look, therefore, into the grave, and remember, man, that thou must die!—thou must die!—it is past all controversy that thou must die! And dost thou know where thou must appear, when death hath once performed its office? Dost thou not believe that after death comes judgment? Dost thou not know that thou art now in a life of trial, in order to endless joy or misery? and that this life is to be lived but once? and if thou miscarry now, thou art undone for ever? and that all the hope of preventing thy damnation, is now, while this life of trial doth continue? "Now is the accepted time: this is the day of salvation." If hell be prevented, it must be now prevented! If ever thou wilt pray, if ever thou wilt be converted, if ever thou wilt be made an heir of heaven, it must be now! O man! how quickly will patience have done with thee, and time be gone! and then, O then, it will be too late! Knowest thou not, that all the care, and labour, and hope of the devil for thy damnation, is laid out this way, if it be possible, to find thee other work, or take thee up with other thoughts, or keep thee asleep with presumptuous hopes, and carnal mirth, and pleasures, and company, or quiet thee by delays, till time be gone, and it be too late? And wilt thou let him have his will, and pleasure him with thy own perdition? Dost thou think these are not things to be considered on? Do they not deserve thy speediest and most serious thoughts? At least use thy reason and self-love to the awakening, and moving, and softening thy hardened heart.

PART III.

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.

In all hypocrisy there is considerable, 1. The thing pretended; 2. The pretence, or means of seeming, or the cloak of their deceit. 1. The thing pretended by common hypocrites is to be true christians, and servants of God, and heirs of heaven, though not to be so zealous in it as some of a higher degree. The thing pretended by eminent hypocrites is to be zealous, eminent christians, or at least to be sincere in a special manner, while they discern the common hypocrite not to be sincere. 2. The cloak of seeming or pretence by which they would be thought to be what they are not, is any thing in general that hath an appearance of godliness, and is apt to make others think them godly. And thus there are divers sorts of hypocrites, according to the variety of their cloaks or ways of dissimulation; though hypocrisy itself be in all of them the same thing. As among the very Mahometans, and heathens, there oft arise some notable hypocrites, that by pretended revelations and austerity of life, profess themselves (as Mahomet did) to be holy persons, that had some extraordinary familiarity with God or angels. So among the papists there are, besides the common ones, as many sorts of hypocrites as they have self-devised orders. And every where the cloak of the common hypocrite is so thin and transparent, that it showeth his nakedness to the more intelligent sort: and this puts the eminent hypocrite upon some more laudable pretence, that is not so transparent. As for instance, the hypocrisy of common papists, whose cloak is made up of penances and ceremonies, of saying over Latin words, or numbering words and beads for prayers, with all the rest of their trumpery before named, (chap. iii. gr. direct. xv. direct. xi.) is so thin a cloak that it will not satisfy some among themselves, but they withdraw into distinct societies and orders, (the church and the profession of christianity being not enough for them,) that they may be religious, as if they saw that the rest are not religious. And then the common sort of ungodly protestants have so much wit, as to see through the cloak of all the popish hypocrisy; and therefore they take up a fitter for themselves; and that is, the name of a protestant reformed religion and church, joined to the common profession of christianity. The name and profession of a christian and a protestant, with going to church, and a heartless lip-service or saying their prayers, is the cloak of all ungodly protestants. Others, discerning the thinness of this cloak, do think to make themselves a better; and they take up the strictest opinions in religion, and own those which they account the strictest party, and own that which they esteem the purest and most spiritual worship: the cloak of these men is their opinions, party, and way of worship, while their carnal lives detect their hypocrisy. Some that see through all these pretences, do take up the most excellent cloak of all, and that is, an appearance of serious spirituality in religion, with a due observation of all the outward parts and means, and a reformation of life, in works of piety, justice, and charity; I say, an appearance of all these, which if they had indeed, they were sincere, and should be saved; in which the godly christian goeth beyond them all.

By this it is plain, that among us in England all men that are not saints are hypocrites, because that all (except here or there a Jew or infidel) profess themselves to be christians; and every true christian is a saint. They know that none but saints or godly persons shall be saved; and there is few of them that will renounce their hopes of heaven; and therefore they must pretend to be all godly. And is it not most cursed, horrid hypocrisy, for a man to pretend to religion as the only way to his salvation, and confidently call himself a christian, while he hateth and derideth the power and practice of that very religion which he doth profess? Of this see my Treatise of "The vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite."