DISCOURSE XLVII.

JOHN V. 44.

How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and feek not the honour that cometh from God only?

THE chief exercise of reafon confifts in disposing and regulating our actions, fo as to render them fubfervient to the end or happiness which we propofe to obtain. And though perhaps, with respect to the great numbers of men in the world, but few in comparison choose well for themselves, and fewer ftill pursue wifely and fteadily the good they choose; yet all men have fomething which is the object of their defires, and are endeavouring to attain their wish by fome means or other. When we choose ill for ourselves, the more wit and dexterity we have to compass our defigns, the nearer we are to ruin, the more inevitable is our deftruction. Our beft actions, when directed to ill purposes, become criminal, and leave nothing behind them but the foul ftain of hypocrify upon our confciences.

This general truth might eafily be illuftrated by many particular inftances from common life. There B b

VOL. II

is nothing more commendable than a spirit of beneficence, and an inclination to do good to our fellow-creatures: but when the air of beneficence is affumed merely to carry on private views, when an inclination to do good is profeffed only to promote our own defigns, and to make our way the easier to wealth or honour, what is it but fraud and deceit ?

If civil virtue thus lofes its name and nature by being mifapplied, religion does fo much more. The man who aims at reputation and intereft under the disguise of religion, affronts God, and abufes the world, and lays up for himself certain ruin, the just reward of those who have the form of godliness, denying the power thereof.

But there are degrees in this vice, as in moft other, and men oftentimes act under the influence of it, without being confcious to themselves of so much baseness, as deferves to be branded with the name of hypocrify. Pride, vanity, and felf-love naturally give a tincture of hypocrify to men's behaviour; they lead them to conceal whatever the world diflikes, and to make a fhew of whatever the world honours and admires. In the common affairs of life, where virtue and morality are not directly concerned, it may be very right perhaps to comply with the world: but when our vanity, and love of praise and reputation, come to influence us in matters of religion, they will ever give a wrong turn to our minds, and difable us from doing juftice to our own reafon in judging between truth

and falfehood.

This was the cafe of those to whom our Saviour

among them

in the text applies himfelf: he had done fuch works as never man did; to these he appeals as an evidence that he came from the Father: The

ye

works which the Father hath given me to finish, the Jame works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath fent me. He appeals likewise to the ancient Scriptures, thofe oracles of God, committed to the Jews: Search the Scriptures; for in them think ye have eternal life: and they are they which teftify of me. If ye fufpect that I have any views or defigns of my own, and that I fpeak in the name of God without his commiffion, look to the works which I do; the blind receive their fight, the dumb their fpeech, the fick and lame are made found, the dead are restored to life. His fervant I am, whose works these are; and do ye yourselves judge from what hand thefe mighty things do proceed. If you think that I come to pervert the law and the prophets, let the law and the prophets judge between us : I claim no more authority than they give me : fearch therefore the Scriptures and fee. A fairer iffue could not be proposed; fo fair it was, that it had its full effect upon many of the first rank among the Jews. St. : John tells us, that among the chief rulers many believed on him; but they made a fecret of their conviction, and kept it to themselves, for fear of being put out of the fynagogue; for they loved the praife of men more than the praife of God. Which laft words are parallel to thofe of the text, and exprefs the fame fenfe. A concern to be well with the people made fome incapable of conviction, and made others, notwithstanding the conviction they were under, diffemble their real fentiments, and

reject the authority to which in their own minds they could not but affent.

If we confider the nature of religion, it will appear to us why this is, and must be the cafe. Religion arifes from the relation we bear to God, and him only it does refpect; and therefore when it is made to regard other objects, it neceffarily becomes either idolatry or hypocrify. He who ferves any other than the God who made him, is an idolater: he who ferves God with a defign to please men rather than God, is an hypocrite. And, fince the end we propose to ourselves will always influence us in the choice of the means, whoever propofes to please the world by his religion will certainly choose such a religion as the world approves. Such an inquirer can have no regard for truth, for he takes his direction from the opinion of the world: he concerns not himself to know, whether Jefus Chrift be a prophet approved of God; he confiders only whether he is approved by the people. It is an old and a very common obfervatión, that the zeal and piety of Chriftians fell into decay, when the empire became Chriftian. I am willing to think that the observation is not quite just, and to hope that those who were before pious believers, continued fo after this great change, and that the Church has, in all ages fince, had many faithful members. But true it is, that, when the powers of the empire were converted to Chrift, true believers had a calmer paffage through the world, and left not behind them fuch Thining examples of their zeal, as the times of perfecution always afforded. But the great and vifible alteration was, that when the powers of the