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He must know that he is for the present hated of God, and in a damnable state, yet his state is not desperate. If the hypocrite forsake his hypocrisy, and become upright, he shall not die for his hypocrisy; if this be true of a sinner's forsaking all sin, then, it is true of this in particular, of forsaking his hypocrisy; but in the uprightness wherein he lives, he shall live, Ezek. xviii. 21, 22. What Christ said to hypocritical and lukewarm Laodicea, Rev. iii. 19, that I say to all such: they must be zealous, they must amend, and be upright; hypocrisy is as pardonable as any other sin to him who is penitent, and believes in Christ Jesus, Isa. i. 11, 16, 18.

By this which I have written, you may plainly see, (1.) That you ought to be upright; (2.) What it is to be upright; (3.) Whether you be upright or no. It concerns you therefore to hate and avoid hypocrisy, and to love and embrace sincerity. Which that you may do, make use of the motives and means which follow in the next sections.

SECT. 5. DISSUASIVES FROM HYPOCRISY, AND MOTIVES TO UPRIGHTNESS.

If you would abandon hypocrisy, consider the dissuasives; taken from the evils and mischiefs that accompany it where it reigns, and how troublesome and hateful it is, where it does not reign.

The evils of hypocrisy, where it reigns.

First, Hypocrisy takes away all the goodness of the best actions. They are good only in name, not in deed. The repentance and obedience of a hypocrite is none, because it is feigned; his faith is no faith, because it is not unfeigned; his love is no love, because it is not from a pure heart, without dissimulation, 1 Tim. i. 5. Judge the same of all other graces and good actions of a hypocrite.

Secondly, All the good actions of a hypocrite are, together with himself, wholly lost, Luke xiii. 25; Matt. vii. 22, xxv. 11, 12.