TO THE

HYPOCRITE READERS,

WHO HAVE THE NAME OF CHRISTIANS, AND THE HEARTS AND LIVES OF ATHEISTS AND UNBELIEVERS..

Ir is the great mercy of God to you that you were born of christian parents, and in a land where Christianity is the professed religion, and under governors and laws which countenance it but this, which should have helped you to the intelligent and serious entertainment of religion, hath been abused by you to detain you from it. You have contented yourselves to have religion in your princes' and your parents' precepts in libraries and laws, and to say over some of these by rote, whilst you banished it from your hearts and lives, if not also from your sober thoughts and understanding; and having indeed no religion of your own, because the labour of understanding and obeying it seemed too dear a price to purchase it, you have thought it most serviceable to your quietness and your reputation, to seem to be of the religion of your parents or your king, be it what it will. This is, indeed, the common course of the rude and irreligious rabble, in all nations of the world. O that I might be your effectual monitor, to awaken you to consider what you have been doing; and yet, if you are men, to suffer your reason to look behind you, within you, and before you, and seriously think what it is to be in heaven or hell for ever, and prudently to manage your own concernments! Can you think that that man hath any religion, who hath no God? Or hath he, indeed, a God, who preferreth his lust, or wealth, or honour, or any thing in the world before him, or that is not devoted to his obedience and his love? Is he a God that is not better than the pleasures of the flesh and world? Or that is not greater than a mortal man; or is not sufficient for you? Did you know what you did when you owned your baptismal vow and covenant, which is, when you usurp the name of Christians, and join in visible communion in the church? Do you know what it is to believe that there is a God, and a life to come, and to renounce the flesh, the world, and the devil, and give up yourselves to a

you

Saviour and a Sanctifier; or can you think, while you are awake and sober, that perfidiousness will save you, and be taken by God instead of Christianity? Will God accept you for a perjured profession, to be that and do that which never came into your hearts? Is hypocrisy a virtue, and will lying bring a man to heaven? Christianity is such a believing in Christ, to bring us unto God and everlasting glory, as maketh the love of God the very nature of the soul, and thankful obedience its employment; and a heavenly mind and life to be its constitution and its trade, and the mercies of this life to be but our travelling helps and provisions for a better, and the interest of fleshly lust to be esteemed but as dross and dung. Is this the life which you live, or which you hate? I beseech you, sirs, as you regard the reputation of your reason, tell us why you will profess a religion which you abhor: or, why will you abhor a religion which you profess? Why will you glory in the part of a parrot, or an ape, to say over a few words, or move your bodies, while detest the human part, to know, and love, and live to God? Do you live only to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will. render to every one according to his deeds? (Rom. ii. 5, 6.) Do you profess yourselves Christians only for self-condemnation; to be witnesses against yourselves in judgment, that you wilfully lived unchristian lives? What is there in the world that you are so averse to, as to be seriously that which you profess yourselves to be? Who hate you more than those that are, in heart and life, which you call yourselves in customary words;. or that are serious in the religion which you say yourselves you. hope to be saved by? Read Matt. xxiii. 29-31. Why do you honour the dead saints, and abhor the living; and would make more martyrs, while you keep festivals of commemoration of those that others made? "Quæ est illa justicia sanctos colere, et sanctitatem contemnere? Primus gradus pietatis est sanctitatem diligere." Chrysost. In Matt. xxiv.' Christ hath not more bitter enemies in the world than some of you who wear his livery. Turks and heathens are more gentle to true Christians, and have shed less of their blood than hypocrite Christians have done. The zeal of the pharisees consumed many, whom the. clemency of the Romans would else have spared. Be it known to all the infidel world, who detest Christianity be cause of your wickedness, that you are none of us. Christ renounceth you, (Matt. vii. 22, 23,) and we renounce you.

They

may as well hate philosophy, because some vagrant sots have called themselves philosophers, or have sailed with Aristotle or Plato in the same ship. They may as well hate physic, because many ignorant women and mountebanks have professed it. They may as well reproach us for loyalty to our king, because there are secret traitors that call themselves his subjects. What are you to Christians, that we should be reproached for your villanies? O, you Turks and heathens, rather reproach us because there are wicked persons of yourselves; for you are not so cruel enemies to Christians, as many of these hypocries are. "Nullus enim Christianus malus est, nisi hanc professionem simulaverit." (Athenagor. Leg. Pro Christ.' p. 3.) "Nemo illic, in Carcera, Christianus, nisi planè tantum Christianus: aut si aliud, jam non Christianus." (Tertull.'Apol.'c. xliii.) "Sed dicet aliquis etiam de nostris excedere quosdam à regulá disciplinæ. Desunt tum Christiani haberi apud nos :" (Id. ib. c. xlvi. Leg. Twiss. Vind. Grat.' l. iii. c. 8. sect. 6. p. 75 :) and my Fifth Dispensation of Sacraments." If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his. (Rom. viii. 9; Luke xiv. 26, 33.) They are spies in his army: they are Absoloms, Hams, and Judases in his family. Try them by the character that Christ hath given of his true disciples; and if they be such, then tell us of their lives, and spare not. They are not of us, while they are among us. (1 John ii. 19.) They are more of your party than of ours, if the mind, heart, and life, be more of the man than the tongue and knee. What, if a Celsus, or Porphyry, or Epicurus, had called himself a Christian, must Christ be answerable for him? Is it not enough that they abuse him by their hypocrisy, and living contrary to his laws, but he must be accused for their crimes which he so strictly forbiddeth, and for which he will cast them into hell for ever? Would you have him do more than this is to disclaim them? Were they, indeed, christian princes, barons, priests, and people, of whom Abbas Urspergensis speaketh, ('Chron.' p. 32,) "Ut omnis homo jam sit perjurus et prædictis facinoribus implicatus; ut vix excusar possit, quin sit in his; sicut populus, sic et sacerdos." Et (p.321,)` "Principes terrarum et barones, arte diabolicá edocti, nec curabant juramenta infringere, nec fidem violare, et jus omne confundere?" Were they christian knights that Erasmus speaketh of? (Colloqui.' p. 415 :) "Ni sis bonus aleator, chartarius, scortatur improbus, potator strenus, profusor audax, decoctor et conflator æris alieni, deinde scabie ornatus Gallica, vix quisquam

te credet equitem." It was Cotta's proof that there are atheists, in Cicer. (De Natur. Deor.' li. 1.) What shall we say of the sacrilegious, perjured, and ungodly? If Carbo, &c., had thought that there are gods, he had not been so perjured and ungodly. What more necessary to ungodly men, whatever they call themselves, than to convince them that there is a God, and a life to come? Christ will not care for their image of religion, or deceitful promises and professions. All wise men are of Solon's mind: "Probitatem jurejurando certiorem habe." (Laert. 'In Sol.') Believe it, hypocrites, your fornications, gluttony, drunkenness, idleness, covetousness, selfishness, or pride, will find no cloak in the day of judgment from the christian name: you might better cheap have been sensual and wicked at a further distance than in the family or church of God. "Nihil prodest æstimari, quod non sis: et duplicis peccati reus es, non habere quod credetis, et quod non habueris simulare." (Hieron. ' Ep. ad fil. Maur.') Or suppose your lives are more civilly and smoothly carnal? To do no harm, is too little to prove you Christians, much more to do evil with some bounds. "Nullum est aliud latronum beneficium, nisi ut commemorare possint, iis se vitam dedisse quibus non ademerint." (Cicer. 'Phil. ii.") "Non est bonitas pessimis esse meliorem." (Senec.) My reasonable demand is, that you will be what you call yourselves, or call yourselves as you are. I am not inviting you to a new religion, or to a sect, but to be really and seriously what you are nominally, and what you have vowed and professed to be: jest not with God, and heaven, and hell. You may mock yourselves, but God will not be mocked. At last turn back, and study what that religion is which you profess: review your baptismal covenant, and be true to that, and I have done; and cast out of your way the common block of hating those whom you should imitate. Ita comparatum est, ut virtutem non suspiciamus, neq; ejus imitandæ studio corripimur, nisi eum in quo ea conspicitur, summo honore et amore prosequamur." (Plutar.' In Cat. Utic.') It was one of the Roman laws of the twelve tables, "Impius ne audeto placare donis iram deorum." Repent and pray, was Peter's counsel to one of your predecessors. (Acts viii. 22.) Judas hath a kiss for Christ; but it is hearty love, and a sober, righteous, godly life which must be your evidence. I have faithfully warned you; the Lord have mercy on you, and convert you!

October 31, 1666.

66

R. B.

"Cujus aures clausæ veritati sunt, ut ab amico verum audire nequeat, hujus salus desperanda est." (Cic. Rhet. i.')

"He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination." (Prov. xxviii. 9.)

"Antisthenes civitates tunc interire aiebat, cum bonos discernere nequeunt à malis." (Laert. In Antisth.')

"He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning: for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." (1 John ii. 8.)