5. A hypocrite may be known by the fact that his speech and his actions are contrary to one another. As Jesus says, “they say and they do not do.” The hypocrite can speak like an angel, he can quote texts with the greatest rapidity; he can speak concerning all matters of religion, whether they are theological doctrines, metaphysical questions, or experiential difficulties. In his own esteem he knows much, and when he rises to speak, you will often feel abashed at your own ignorance in the presence of his superior knowledge. But see him when he comes to actions. What do you see there? The most complete contradiction of everything that he has said. He tells to others that they must obey the law: does he obey it? Ah! no. He declares that others must experience this, that, and the other, and he sets up a fine scale of experience, far above even that of the Christian himself; but does he touch it? No, not with so much as one of his fingers. He will tell others what they should do; but will he remember his own teaching? Not he! Follow him to his house; trace him to the market, see him in the shop, and if you want to refute his preaching you may easily do it from his own life. My hearer! is this your case? You are a member of a church, a deacon, a minister. Is this your case? Is your life a contradiction of your words? Do your hands witness against your lips? How does it stand with you? With a blush, each one of us must confess that, to some extent, our life is contradictory to our profession. We blush and we mourn over this. But I hope there are some here who can say, “Notwithstanding many infirmities, with my whole heart I have tried to run in the ways of your commandments, oh my God, and I have not intentionally spoken that with my lip which I did not intend to carry out in my life.” Ah! believe me, my hearers, talk is easy, but walk is hard: speech any man may attain to, but act is difficult. We must have grace within to make our life holy; but lip piety needs no grace. The first mark of a hypocrite, then, is, that he contradicts by his acts what he utters by his words. Do any of you do so? If so, stand convicted of hypocrisy, and bow your heads, and confess the sin.
6. The next mark of a hypocrite is, that whenever he does right it is that he may be seen by men. The hypocrite sounds a trumpet before his alms, and chooses the corner of the streets for his prayers. To him virtue in the dark is almost a vice, he can never detect any beauty in virtue, unless she has a thousand eyes to look upon her, and then she is something indeed. The true Christian, like the nightingale, sings in the night; but the hypocrite has all his songs in the day, when he can be seen and heard by men. To be well spoken of is the very elixir of his life; if he is praised, it is like sweet wine to him. The censure of man upon a virtue would make him change his opinion concerning it in a moment; for his standard is the opinion of his fellow creatures, his law is the law of self-seeking, and of self-honouring: he is virtuous, because to be virtuous is to be praised; but if tomorrow vice were at a premium he would be as vicious as the rest. Applause is what too many are seeking after. They shun all secret religion, and only live where men may see them. Now, is this our case? Let us deal honestly with ourselves; if we distribute to the poor, do we desire to do it in secret, when no tongue shall tell? Are our prayers offered in our closets, where God who hears the cry of the secret ones, listens to our supplication? Can we say, that if every man were struck blind, and deaf and dumb, we would not alter our conduct in the least? Can we declare that the opinion of our fellow men is not our guiding law, but that we stand servants to our God and to our conscience, and are not to be made to do wrong by flattery, nor are we urged to do right from a fear of censure? Note, the man who does not act rightly from a higher motive than that of being praised, gives strong suspicion that he is a hypocrite, but he who will do a right thing against the opinion of every man, and simply because he believes it to be right, and sees the stamp of God’s approval upon it, that man need not be afraid that he is a hypocrite; he would be the kind of hypocrite that one has never discovered as yet. Hypocrites do their good works for applause. Is it so with you? If so, be honest, and as you would convict another convict yourself.
7. Again; hypocrites love titles, and honours, and respect from men. The Pharisee was never so happy as when he was called Rabbi, he never felt himself so truly great as when he was seated in the highest seat in the synagogue. Then he must be good indeed. But the true Christian does not care for titles. It is one of the marks of Christians — that they have generally taken names of abuse to be their distinctive appellations. There was a time when the term Methodist was abusive. What did those good men say who had it so applied to them? “You call us Methodists by way of abuse, do you? It shall be our title.” The name “Puritan” was the lowest of all; it was the symbol which was always employed by the drunkard and swearer to express a godly man. “Well,” says the godly man, “I will be called a Puritan; if that is a name of reproach I will take it.” It has been so with the Christian all the world over. He has chosen for himself the name which his enemy has given to him in malice. Not so the hypocrite. He takes what is the most honourable; he wishes always to be thought to belong to the most respectable sect, and to hold an office in that sect which will confer upon him the most honourable title. How, can you say from your innermost soul, that in religion you are not seeking for honours or titles, but that you can tread these beneath your feet, and want no higher degree than that of a sinner saved by grace, and no greater honour than to sit at the feet of Jesus and to learn from him? Are you willing to be the despised followers of the carpenter’s son, as were the fishermen upon the lake? If so, I think, you have very little hypocrisy in you; but if you only follow him because you are honoured by men, farewell to the sincerity of your religion; you are unmasked, and stand before the face of this congregation an acknowledged hypocrite.
8. There was another evidence of a hypocrite which was equally good, namely, that he strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel. Hypocrites in these days do not find fault with us for eating with unwashed hands, but they still focus upon some ceremonial omission. Sabbatarianism has furnished hypocrisy with an extremely convenient refuge. Acts of necessity done by the Christian, are the objects of the sanctimonious horror of Pharisees, and labours of mercy and smiles of joy, are damning sins in the esteem of hypocrites, if done upon a Sabbath. Though our Father worked so far, and Christ worked, and though works of kindness, and mercy, and charity, are the duty of the Sabbath: yet if the Christian is employed in these, he is thought to be offending against God’s holy law. The slightest infringement of what is a ceremonial observance becomes a great sin in the eye of the hypocrite. But he, poor man, who will find fault with you for some little thing in this respect, straining at a gnat, is the man you will find cheating, adulterating his goods, lying, bragging, and grinding the poor. I have always noticed that those very particular souls who look out for little things, who are always searching out little points of difference, are just the men who omit the weightier matters of the law, and while they are so particular about the tithe of mint, and annas, and cummin; whole loads of tithe wheat are smuggled into their own barns. Always suspect yourself when you are more careful about little things than about great things. If you find it hurts your conscience more to be absent from the communion than to cheat a widow, rest quite assured that you are wrong. The Thug, {a} you know, thinks it is a very proper thing to murder all he can; but if a little of the blood of his victims should stain his lips, then he goes off to the priest, and he says he has committed a great sin; the blood has been on his lips — what must he do to get the sin forgiven? And there are many people of the same class in England. If they should do anything on a Good Friday, or on Christmas Day, poor souls, it is awfully wicked; but if they should be lazy all the six days of the week, it is no sin at all. Rest assured, that the man who strains at a gnat yet swallows the camel, is a deceiver. Note, my dear friends, I like when you strain at the gnats; I have no objection to that at all — only do not swallow the camel afterwards. Be as particular as you like about right and wrong. If you think a thing is a little wrong, it is wrong to you. “Whatever is not of faith is sin.” If you cannot do it, believing yourself to be right in not doing it, though another man could do it and do right, yet to you it would not be right. Strain the gnats; they are not good things in your wines, strain them out; it is well to get rid of them; but then do not open your mouth and swallow a camel afterwards, for if you do that, you will give no evidence that you are a child of God, but prove that you are a damnable hypocrite.
9. But read on in this chapter, and you will find that these people neglected all the inward part of
