THE HYPOCRITE'S CHARACTER

I. First, THE HYPOCRITE'S CHARACTER. We have an elaborate description of the hypocrite in the chapter we have just read, Matthew 23, and I do not know that I can better portray him than by turning again to the words of Christ.

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." The hypocrite can speak like an angel, he can quote texts with the greatest rapidity; he can talk concerning all matters of religion, whether they be theological doctrines, metaphysical questions, or experimental 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 behold there? The fullest contradiction of everything that he has uttered. 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 to 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 have I striven to run in the ways of your commandments, O 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! Any man may attain unto speech , 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.

The next mark of a hypocrite is, that whenever he does right it is that he may be seen of 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-honoring. He is virtuous, because to be virtuous is to be praised; but if tomorrow vice were popular, then he would be as vicious as the rest.

Applause is what too many are seeking after. They eschew all secret religion, and only live where men may behold 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 unto our supplication? Can we say, that if every man were struck stone blind and deaf and dumb, we would not alter our conduct the least? Can we declare that the opinion of our fellows is not our guiding law, but that we stand servants to our God and to our conscience, and are not to be made do a wrong thing from flattery, nor are we urged to do a right thing from fear of censure?

Mark, the man who does not act rightly from a higher motive than that of being praised, gives great 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 a 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.

Again; hypocrites love titles, and honors, and respect from men. The Pharisee was never so happy as when he was called Rabbi, he never felt himself so really great as when he was stuck up in the highest seat in the synagogue. Then he must be good indeed.

But the true Christian cares not 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, then 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 him in malice.

Not so the hypocrite. He takes that which is the most honorable; 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 honorable title. How, can you say from your inmost soul, that in religion you are not seeking for honors 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 honor than to sit at the feet of Jesus and to learn of him?

Are you willing to be the despised followers of the carpenter's son, as were the fishermen upon the lake? If so, methinks, you have but little hypocrisy in you; but if you only follow him because you are honored by men, farewell to the sincerity of your religion, you are unmasked, and stand before the face of this congregation an acknowledged hypocrite.

There was another evidence of an 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 fix 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 labors of mercy and smiles of joy, are damning sins in the esteem of hypocrites, if done upon a Sunday. Though our Father worked hitherto, 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 that which 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 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 annis, and cummin; whole loads of tithe-wheat are smuggled into their own barns.

Always suspect yourself when you are more careful about little matters, 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, you know, thinks it 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 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 no sin at all. Rest you assured, that the man who strains at a gnat but yet swallows the camel, is a deceiver. Mark you, my dear friends, I like you to 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!

But read on in this chapter, and you will find that these people neglected all the inward part of religion, and only observed the outward . As our Savior said, they "made clean the outside of the cup and platter, but within they were full of extortion and excess."

There are many books which are excellently bound, but there is nothing within them; and there are many persons that have a very one spiritual exterior, but there is nothing whatever in the heart. Do you not know some of them? Perhaps if you know yourself you may discover one. Do you not know some who are precisely religious who would scarcely omit attending to a single means of grace, who practice the ritual in all its forms and all its ceremonies, who would not turn aside as much as a hair's breadth from any outward command? Before the world they stand as eminently pious, because they are minutely attentive to the externals of the sanctuary; but yet they are careless of the inward matter. So long as they take the bread and wine they are not careful about whether they have eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of Christ; so long as they have been baptized with water they are not careful whether they have been buried with Christ in baptism unto death. So long as they have been up to the house of God they are satisfied.

It is nothing to them whether they have had communion with Christ, or not. No, they are perfectly content, so long as they have the shell, without looking for the kernel; the wheat may go where it pleases—the husk, and the chaff and the straw, are quite sufficient and enough for them.

Some people I know of are like inns, which have an angel hanging outside for a sign, but they have a devil within for a landlord. There are many men of that kind; they take good care to have an excellent sign hanging out, they must be known by all men to be strictly religious; but within, which is the all-important matter, they are full of wickedness. But I have sometimes heard persons mistake this matter. They say, "Ah! well, poor man, he is a sad drunkard, certainly, but he is a very good-hearted man at bottom."

Now, as Rowland Hill used to say, that is a most astonishing thing for any man to say of another, that he was bad at top and good at bottom. When men take their fruit to market they cannot make their customers believe, if they see rotten apples at the top, that there are good ones at the bottom. A man's outward conduct is generally a little better than his heart. Very few men sell better goods than they put in the window. Therefore, do not misunderstand me. When I say we must attend more to the inward than the outward, I would not have you leave the outward to itself. "Make clean the outside of the cup and platter"—make it as clean as you can, but take care also that the inward is made clean. Look to that first.

Ask yourself such questions as these: "Have I been born again? Am I passed from darkness to light? Have I been brought out of the realms of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son? Do I live by private communion near to the side of Jesus? Can I say that my heart pants after the Lord, even as the deer does alter the water-brooks? For if I cannot say this, whatever my outward life may be, I am self-deceived and deceive others, and the woe of the hypocrite falls upon me! I have made clean the outside of the cup and platter, but the inward part is very wickedness.

Does that come home to any of you? Is this personal preaching? Then God be blessed for it. May the truth be the death of your delusions.

You may know a hypocrite by another sign. His religion depends upon the place, or upon the time of day . He rises at seven o'clock perhaps, and you will find him religious for a quarter of an hour; for he is, as the boy said, "saying his prayers to himself" in the first part of the morning. Well, then you find him pretty pious for another half-hour, for there is family prayer; but when the business begins, and he is talking to his men, I won't guarantee that you will be able to admire him. If one of his servants has been doing something a little amiss, you will find him perhaps using angry and unworthy language. You will find him too, if he gets a customer whom he thinks to be rather green, not quite pious, for he will be taking him in. You will find, too, that if he sees a good chance at any hour of the day, he will be very ready to do a dirty trick.

He was a saint in the morning, for there was nothing to be lost by it; but he has a religion that is not too strict; business is business, he says, and he puts religion aside by stretching his conscience, which is made of very elastic material. Well, some time in the evening you will find him very pious again, unless he is out on a journey, where neither wife, nor family, nor church can see him, and you will find him at a theater . He would not go if there was a chance of the minister hearing of it, for then he would be excommunicated, but he does not mind going when the eye of the church or of any of his friends is not upon him.

Fine clothes make fine gentlemen, and fine places make fine hypocrites; but the man who is true to his God and to his conscience, is a Christian all day, and all night long, and a Christian everywhere. "Though you were to fill my house full of diver and gold," he says, "I would not do a dirty action; though you should give me the stars and the countless wealth of empires, yet I would not do that which would dishonor God, or disgrace my profession."

Put the true Christian where he might sin, and be praised for it, and he will not do it. He does not hate sin for the sake of the company, but he hates it for its own sake. He says, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" You shall find him a fallible man, but not a false man; you shall find him full of infirmities , but not of intentional lust and of designed iniquity.

As a Christian, you must follow Christ in the mire as well in the meadows; you must walk with him in the rain as well as in the sunshine, you must go with him in the storm as well as in fair weather. He is no Christian who cannot walk with Christ, come rags, come poverty, come revilement or shame. He is the hypocrite who can walk with Christ in silver slippers, and leave him when it becomes necessary for him to go barefoot.

The hypocrite's religion is like a chamaeleon, it takes its color from the light which falls upon it, but the Christian's religion is evermore the same. Is this true then of any of us? Can we say we desire to be evermore the same? Or do we change with our company and with the times? If so, we are hypocrites confessed, and let us own it before God, and may God make us sincere.

There is another sign of the hypocrite, and now the lash will fall on my own back, and on most of us too. Hypocrites, and other people besides hypocrites, are generally severe with others, and very lenient with themselves . Have you ever heard a hypocrite describe himself?

I describe him thus: you are a mean, beggarly fellow.
"No," says he, "I am not; I am economical."

I say to him, "You are dishonest, you are a thief."
"No," says he, "I am only sharp for the times."

"Well, but," I say to him, "you are proud and conceited."
"Oh!" says he, "I have only a proper and manly respect."

"Ay, but you are a fawning, cringing fellow."
"No," says he, "I am all things to all men."

Somehow or other, he will make vice look like a virtue in himself , but he will deal by the reverse rule with others. Show him a Christian who is really humble, and he says, "I hate his fawning ways." Tell him there is one who is very courageous for Christ; "Oh! he is impudent," says he. Show him one who is liberal, doing what he can for his Master's service, spending, and being spent for him; "Rash and imprudent," says he, "extravagant; the man does not know what he is about." You may point out a virtue, and the hypocrite shall at once say it is a vice.

Have you ever seen a hypocrite turn doctor? He has a fine beam in his eye, large enough to shut out the light of Heaven from his soul, but nevertheless he is a very skillful oculist. He waits upon some poor brother, whose eye is a little affected with a mote so tiny that the full blaze of the sun can scarcely reveal it. Look at our beam-eyed friend, he puts on a knowing look, and cries, "Allow me to extract this mote for you?" "You hypocrites first cast out the beam out of your own eye, and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother's eye."

There are people of that sort, who make virtues in others into vices, and vices in themselves they transform into virtues . Now, if you are a Christian, I will tell you what will be your spirit, it will be the very reverse; you will be always making excuses for others, but you will never be making excuses for yourself. The true Christian, if he sees himself sin, mourns over it, and makes much ado concerning it. He says to another, "Oh! I feel so sinful;" and the other one cries "I cannot really see it; I can see no sin in you; I could wish I were holy as you." "No," says the other, "but I am full of infirmity."

John Bunyan describes Mercy, and Christiana, and the children, after having been washed in the bath, and sealed with the seal, as coming up out of the water, and being all fair and lovely to look upon; and one began to say to the other, "You are fairer than I!" and "You are more lovely than I!" said another. And then each began to bemoan their own spots, and to praise the beauty of the others.

That is the spirit of a Christian; but the spirit of the hypocrite is the very reverse; he will judge, and condemn, and punish with lynch-law every other man; and as for himself, he is exempt, he is a king, he knows no law, and his conscience slumbers and allows him to go on easily in the very sins which he condemns in others. This is a very prominent mark of the hypocrite, and I question whether all of us must not blame ourselves a little here.
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