to be right in his faith towards God, denies his faith before the world? Yes, you will say; but this is only dissembling towards the world, and not towards God. I beseech you, whence this distinction? What is dissembling towards God? Was ever any man so foolish as to imagine that he could indeed deceive God by any kind of dissimulation? No hypocrite can have this notion. If he is an Atheist, he has no thought of deceiving God, whose very being he denies. If he is not an Atheist, he must needs know so much of God, as to know it to be impossible for him to impose on God. Hypocrisy therefore has no higher aim than to deceive the world; and whoever denies the religion he believes in his heart, or professes one which he does not believe, is a formal hypocrite, and subject to all the charges and penalties brought against hypocrisy in holy writ. So that supposing a man obliged to say any thing about his religion, he must necessarily say the truth, or be liable to the pains of hypocrisy and dissimulation. But it may be farther asked perhaps, how comes it to be necessary for a man to say any thing about his religion? How comes confession with the mouth to be made a term of salvation in the gospel? Is not religion a transaction between God and every man's own soul? how come the rest of the world then to be concerned about my religion? What right have they to inquire about it? or where is the reason, why I should be bound to inform them concerning it by an open profession of my belief?

To come to a clear resolution of this question, we must consider the nature of religion, and the ends proposed to be served by it. For if religion be nothing else but a secret transaction between God and the soul of man, no reason can be assigned why we should publish to the world an affair in which they have no concern. But the case is otherwise; for though nothing is properly religion but as it respects God, yet generally speaking, the duties of religion regard this world, and have a very great influence on the well-being of it. We must have a very strange notion of God, if we can imagine that he requires any duty of us merely for his own sake. What can he get by our service? What additional glory and honor can accrue to the eternal Godhead from our prayers or praises ?

When God made us reasonable creatures, he made us capable of knowing and obeying him. The great character in which he appears to us of governor of the world, is that which demands our obedience: and consequently religion is a principle of obedience to God, as governor of the world. It cannot therefore possibly be a mere secret concern between God and every man's conscience, since it respects him in so public a character, and must extend to every thing in which God, as governor of the world, is supposed to be concerned. To deny a prince's authority in his own dominions is a degree of treason; and if religion does in truth respect God as governor of the world, to own his authority in the world must needs be the principal article of it. For surely it is impossible to pay the proper respect and obedience which is due to the governor of the world, whilst we deny him, in the face of the world, to be the governor of it. Thus from the nature of religion it appears that to profess our belief and faith in God as governor of the world is an essential article, without the observance of which we can by no means pretend to be religious.

But farther if any religious obedience be due to God as governor of the world, it must principally consist in promoting the great end of his government. We can never be obedient subjects to any government, whilst we endeavor to disturb all the ends and designs which such government was ordained to promote. Now suppose the end of God's government of the world, with respect to the rational part of it, to be whatever your reason shall suggest to you, certain it is, that whoever teaches and encourages men to deny God to be governor of the world, and this every man does who refuses to own him as such, does, in the most effectual manner, disturb the end of his government: and this is absolutely inconsistent with religion, if religion be a principle of obedience to God as governor of the world.

Again if it be really, as it is, impossible for us to do God any private service by which he may be the better, it is very absurd to imagine that religion can consist, or be preserved by any secret belief or opinion, how cordially soever embraced. What thanks can be due to you for silently believing God to be the governor of the world, whilst you openly deny it, and

in your actions disclaim it? Even this principle, which is the foundation of all religion, has nothing of religion in it, so long as it is inactive, and consists in speculation, without bringing forth fruits agreeable to such a persuasion; much less can it be religion, whilst you openly deny it, and in words and actions disclaim it. We can no otherwise show our love or obedience to God, than by loving our brethren; for which reason all duties of religion, though performed with the greatest regard to God, have the good of the world for their immediate object. Which is true even of those duties which seem most directly to respect the honor and glory of God; for when the honor of God is promoted in the world, happy is it for the world, for the benefit and advantage will all be their own; and God seeks to be honored that his creatures may be happy; his own happiness wants no advancement. Now if this be the true spirit of religion; if we have no way of doing honor to God but by teaching his people to know and to obey him, that they may become acceptable in his sight, and happy in his favor and protection; how is it that you conceive that there can be any religion in a secret opinion, in a dissembled faith, contradicted by an open denial of God; which truly is a dishonor to him, as it tends to make his people forget him, and render themselves miserable?

Lastly if it be any part of religion to promote religion and the knowlege of God's truth in the world, it cannot be consistent with our duty to dissemble or to deny our faith. We see how infectious example is; and if we wanted evidence, this age should witness how catching the spirit of libertinism is. The man who hides his own religion close in his heart, tempts others, who suspect not his hypocrisy, to throw theirs quite out; and whilst he rejoices in this sheet-anchor of a pure inward faith, he sees others who steer after him make shipwreck of their faith and their salvation. And if he can in the mean time think himself innocent, and void of offence towards God and towards man, his understanding is as unaccountable as his faith.

These reasons, I think, will intitle me to conclude that it is part of every man's religion to own the faith and hope that is in him: that it is absurd to have any reliance on a secret faith,

which is of no use to him who has it, as long as it is kept secret: and whenever such faith is openly contradicted or denied, it may aggravate, but never can atone for the hypocrisy.

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I have hitherto spoken in general of denying God and his truth and have reasoned on the nature of religion in general, in order to come at my conclusion. The text indeed speaks particularly of being ashamed of Christ and of his word; but then it speaks to such as believe in Christ, for others are not liable to the charge of being ashamed of him: the very nature of the crime here mentioned supposes a faith in the gospel. Now, to every believer in Christ and in his words, the arguments already used are directly applicable. If we believe him to have received all power from the Father, and that he is our governor, and shall be our judge, there is the same reason to profess this faith, the same danger in dissembling it, as our faith in God, considered as governor of the world. If we receive the words of Christ, they are to us the truths of God, and must be professed with the same constancy, or denied with the same hazard of our salvation.

some in these days, such is conceited, as to be ashamed Among these some openly

Under this head I have one thing more to observe to you, that there are in this vice, as indeed in most others, very different degrees. While some were contented to hide themselves, and dissemble their acquaintance with Christ, St. Peter openly denied him, and confirmed it with an oath, that he knew not the man. Thus some for fear in former ages, those days of persecution, denied their Lord; and our unhappy case, are so vain and of the Lord who bought them. blaspheme him; others are content to make a sport of his religion; whilst a third sort profess a pleasure in such conversation, though their hearts ache for their iniquity; but they want the courage to rebuke even by their silence the sin of the scorner. All these are in the number of those who are ashamed of Christ to all these it shall be one day said, I know ye not.' For if this great woe be threatened to all such who, to save their lives, deny their Lord, and have the extremity of their case, the cruelty of their enemies, and the natural infirmities of men, to plead in their behalf; what must be their lot, who, for the same iniquity, have little more to allege than that

they did it to please an idle companion? But this consideration will meet us again under the other head, which is,

Secondly, to inquire into the several temptations which lead men to this crime of being ashamed of Christ, and of his words.'

The fountain from which these temptations spring is plainly enough described in the text, This adulterous and sinful generation.' And we know full well that there is not a natural fear lurking in the heart of man, but the world knows how to reach it; not a passion, but it has an enchantment ready for it; no weakness, no vanity, but it knows how to lay hold of it: so that all our natural hopes and fears, our passions, our infirmities, are liable to be drawn into the conspiracy against Christ and his word. Now you see the source of these temptations, it is easy to conceive how many, and in their kinds how various they are. But there is one distinction to be made with respect to these temptations well worth our observing: some there are which pursue us, and some there are which we pursue: to the one sort we unwillingly resign our faith and our religion, driven thereunto by fears and terrors, or by pains and torments which we are not able to endure. This is the case of such as fall in times of persecution; and we, who are men of like passions, cannot but commiserate their condition, and plead in their behalf the common excuse which belongs to the whole race of weakness and infirmity. But the other kind of temptations come on our invitation: we make our faith a sacrifice to the great idol, the world, when we part with it for honor, wealth, or pleasure. In this circumstance men take pains to show how little they value their religion, and seek occasions to display their libertinism and infidelity, in order to make their way to the favor of a corrupt and degenerate age. This behavior admits of no excuse. These are they, who, properly speaking, love the world more than God and his Christ; and let us not envy them the love of the world, for they will find it a dear purchase at the last.

But whenever infidelity grows into credit and repute, and the world has so vitiated a taste as to esteem the symptoms of irreligion as signs of a good understanding and sound judgment; when there is so little sense of serious things left, that a